Learn to embrace the struggle for where there is struggle often there is progress. It’s the famous “no pain no gain” saying – slightly reworded!

That’s the place where I have been this last week but it has paid off in my decision making. Sometimes we all have to make decisions that are the right thing to do but feel uncomfortable.

I’ve mentioned this before – a great model that shows this very simply is the comfort zone model. It looks something like this:

Guess where you should place yourself for progress – yep that’s right in the green zone. This is where we learn the most about ourselves or move something forward and it often involves action.

You’ll find in your alcohol free life that you are doing this more often than not – especially if you are spending time looking at your well being as a whole. For example:

• you might be improve your health by setting a challenge of couch to 5km or other physical challenge to move yourself forward.
• you might have to have some tricky conversations with people about how you are changing and what you want to improve.
• you might have to apologise for things from your past.
• you might have to push though times of doubt and really sit with the pain or sadness or uncomfortable nature of some of your decisions.

The good news is that on the other side you will feel good about yourself and a sense of reward from you progress however great or small. It is through the progress and self reward that momentum is gained – reinforcing that living an Alcohol Free life is the right thing to do.

So why have I entitled this post ‘shamone’ – it’s simply because in the last week I have had to push myself on and say “‘c’mon’ Sam pull your finger out it’s time for more action!” Sometimes we all need a bit of positive self talk to enable us to move back on our journeys again wherever they might take us.

I hope this has served you in some small way.

Sam