4. The first small steps
(Page 4 of 6)
Step 2: Describe in detail your first steps toward improvement
Try now to translate your descriptions of improvement into specific steps you can begin to take. Here again, be modest and realistic. On a scale of 1 to 10, if 10 represents the improvement and 1 represents your position at the moment, what can you do to get yourself to a 2?
Try to describe your first steps in positive terms, focusing on what you will do rather than what you won't do. Once again, answer the questions with as much concrete and measurable detail as you can:
- How many hours or days will it take you to reach level 2?
- What will you change in your environment to make a 2 more likely to occur?
- How will you change your daily routine to arrive more quickly at a 2?
- What is the easiest thing you can do right now to speed up the process of getting to a 2?
- What is the most challenging obstacle you will overcome right now to pave the way to a 2?
- How will you know when you have reached a 2?
- What will others notice about you when you are operating at a 2?
- What specific differences will occur in your surroundings when you achieve a 2?
- What will you do to make a 2 more likely to occur?
- What will you notice about your mood when you reach a 2?
- Where will you be when the 2 first appears?
- Who will be with you when you reach a 2?
- At what specific time of day will the 2 take place?
- Who will you tell about reaching a 2 and how will you describe to them the difference it has made to you?
- For how long will you be able to maintain a 2?
- What's the first thing you will now do to prepare to reach level 2?
Step 3: Describe times when cybersex has less of a hold
Undesired behavior ebbs and flows depending on personal circumstances. Starting at your earliest period of regular Internet access, try to remember moments when you have experienced a modest or even significant reduction of cybersex involvement.
Such moments are therapeutic goldmines because, if we can figure out what contributed to spontaneous improvements in the past, we can use the information to develop problem-reduction strategies in the present.
Ask yourself:
- What were you doing differently when an improvement occurred?
- What was different about your personal environment when an improvement made an appearance?
- What was different about your daily routine when the improvement took place?
- Who were you with when the improvement occurred?
- How did others know that the improvement had happened?
- What differences did others notice about you when the improvement showed itself?
- Where did the improvement occur?
- At what specific time of day did the improvement take place?
- What did you do differently to create conditions for the improvement to occur?
- What was different about occasions and situations during which an improvement took place?
- How long did the improvement last?
- What was the longest time that an improvement lasted?
- What was different about the time that the improvement lasted longest?
- Is there anything you can do now to replicate conditions that contributed to an improvement in the past?
|
