Master your day, not your life.
“One day at a time”
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
If you’ve attempted to get sober at any point in your life you probably had this prayer burned into your psyche. Although it was first written by theologian Rienhold Niebuhr in the early 1930’s, multiple religions and philosophies preached it’s sentiment before that. Jewish philosophy, buddhist philosophy, tao philosophy, and more all had similar lessons. The famous stoic philosopher Epictetus argued in the 2nd century:
Suffering arises from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our control.
While easily understood, as we start our journey of sobriety this is one of the more difficult ideas to follow. After all, some of us have spent a lifetime neglecting our bodies and our minds simply because it’s easier to become distracted by the meaningless. Keep in mind: you have this brain and this body for the rest of your life. Their health is within your control. I’m sure, right now, you could reflect and see that your life would have gone differently had you followed a clearer understanding of what is in your control and what isn’t. Everyone comes to a point in their life where everything they thought up to that second vanishes and they realize there is an opportunity to change. If they do end up successfully changing, it’s because they changed their actions to be more in accordance with what they know to be in control. This is could be your opportunity.
The serenity prayer is beaten into our heads for a reason. Whether you believe in the divine or not, reciting this prayer daily can remind you of the fact that you only control yourself. Think about it, imagine struggling through a day and reciting this prayer every time you feel overwhelmed. Simply reciting it is creating a new pattern of action in your brain.[neuroplasticity] Over time, when overwhelmed, this prayer might pop into your mind without any conscious effort simply because you’ve done it so much. This may lead you to controlling your attitude which may lead to numerous other opportunities simply because you didn’t lose your head as soon as you became overwhelmed. Remember:
The worst thing is not the event. The worst thing is the event and losing your head.
Early in my recovery I remember hearing a story that stuck with me. A boy and his brother were asked to knock down and rebuild a wall for their father. Their father wanted the best possible wall he could have, he wanted it perfect. They went at it for a few days before the boys started to complain.
“We’ll never finish this wall”, “Why didn’t we hire someone who knows how to do this”, “This is too hard it will never come out perfect” are just some of the things the young boys complained about.
Their father interrupted them one day and said, “Boys! Stop. Stop worrying about what you might do, what the wall might look like when it’s done, and what professional may be able to do it better. Come here every single day and lay a perfect brick. You can lay a brick perfectly right? Just one?
“Yes” the boys replied.
“You come here everyday and lay a perfect brick. Don’t think about tomorrow. Don’t think about how long the wall will take. Focus your energy on laying your bricks perfectly and before you know it our wall will be perfect. “Replied the father.
What you focus on you feel. If focused on the future, you are feeling the uncertainty of it. This will keep you from acting today, which is the only way to make your future less uncertain
One day at a time. We hear it all the time in recovery through all different programs. Taking things one day at a time promotes success. When I start thinking about the future my brain goes through the rolodex of what might happen, what could happen, what I think will happen, what I hope doesn’t happen, what I hope does happen and more. My body reacts. You see sometimes this isn’t even conscious. We are not aware we are doing this as it happens. We just begin to experience stress and anxiety. Often, I’ve sat clients down when they are in this state. Inevitably, they go on to describe their fears of the future, or shame and guilt of the past. Rarely do they understand that the way they are thinking creates their state of being. Our minds cannot tell the difference between an imagined event, and an event taking place in front of us. We have physical reactions to what we are imaging in our minds. Go ahead, think about your significant other cheating on you, or your child being in danger. Your body has a physical reaction. Think about this on every level, with every way you think. Soon enough, you’ll learn the way you feel can almost always be directed back to the way you think.
We can’t always trust the way we think, nor should we! Did you know about half of the details of our memories are entirely false? Many of us live in a way that’s completely based off what we remember! We must increase awareness and understand our mind is trying to protect us by imagining worst case scenarios – sometimes subconsciously. We need to begin to understand our negative bias, live in the moment, and attack each day as it comes. If we continue to let our mind do what it wants, we are effectively allowing ourselves to get closer to emotional states that could more easily end in relapse.
Understanding this and applying it day after day of it is imperative to your success.
Here’s the thing: If you can do something one day, you can do it every day.
And you can do it every day if you aren’t letting your fear of the future or shame of the past keep you from doing what you know you should be doing. You have control over today, not tomorrow, and certainly not yesterday. We crave certainty. If we can’t be certain our efforts will help us – we tend to conserve energy and do nothing as if that will help us. It never does. We sink back into old patterns unconsciously.
Our life is one big problem. In order to solve it we must deconstruct it into solvable sub problems. You cannot live in the past and future paralyzed by fears. You may not think you are. But what action are you taking to make it better and why not? Everyone would exercise if they knew they would do it every day. Yet, people fear one day of working out is pointless because in the past they’ve never worked out for any sustainable period. If they just did it daily based on what they can control, they would change. This is how you learn to control the way you feel. Day to day action. One day at a time. William James, the doctor and philosopher said:
“Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action which is under more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling which is not.”
I like to think fearing for the future is acting as if we can control it. The fear keeps us from acting today which makes the future worse. Fearing for the future is neglecting the fact that we do have control over what we do today. If we are to have any control over the future, it’s based on our actions today. Nothing else. This is literally the prayer of recovery. You hear it every meeting. We recite it to ourselves, but very few apply it rigorously.
In order to apply it rigorously:
Note your day. Where do you act as if you can control something you can’t and why?
If you aren’t feeling great, ask yourself what you are focused on, and whether you can control it or not.
When you do seek to control that which is outside of your control, note it, and redirect focus towards something you can control.
Example:
Work sucks, my boss is an asshole and they make me have a shitty attitude. I think my attitude changes because I want to show my boss I’m upset so they wont be assholes anymore. To an extent, this is acting as if I can control others.
I’m focused on work and I’m not the boss. I don’t make the decisions. It seems some days I get validation from work and some days I don’t. This seems to be completely based off the day to day attitude of my superiors, something I can’t control.
Noted: I worry too much about my superiors and whether they approve of me. I look to them to feel good about me. From here forward, If I look to others for approval, I will refocus on progressing in something I have full control over. I will start a new workout program, book, or challenge in life.
Remind yourself: success and failure rarely are one event. Success has a lot more to do with the little things: the honesty, the apologies, the effort, the gratitude, the courage to do the right thing even though it’s hard. We, day by day, have to build the ability to execute on what we value, to put the momentum behind us positively. Failure is the inability to follow through, the inability to apologize, the inability to do the right thing when no one is looking. Failure is the effect of these little mistakes gaining momentum.
The only way you will ever be successful, the only way you will ever feel good about you is daily action.
Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.
Seneca
