Adapting how you interact with others during treatment prepares you to use your interpersonal skills after treatment. Through the recovery process, you learned how to communicate with yourself and with others. You discovered how to respect yourself and strengthen your respect for your loved ones and your peers. The skills used to refine these interactions are all part of your interpersonal skill set. However, as you continue to live a healthier life, you may question how you can practice using these skills outside of treatment.
Interpersonal skills revolve around listening and speaking, indirectly and directly. They encourage proactively setting boundaries and using assertiveness to help resolve conflict and maintain your emotional well-being. Interpersonal skills develop by handling situations, solving problems, protecting your health, achieving your goals, maintaining relationships, expressing yourself, and communicating properly with yourself and those around you.
You identified how to use the skills inside of treatment, and now you’re looking to practice and benefit from them after treatment has ended. If you’re asking yourself questions about your interpersonal skills, you can determine if you need to improve them outside of treatment.
Some questions you may ask include:
If you said “yes” to some of these questions, you might need to work on or improve your interpersonal skills. When you work on practicing your interpersonal behaviors and skills after treatment, you can improve your conflict resolution, communication, self-understanding, and happiness, all while avoiding conversation traps, reducing stress, and maintaining a healthier lifestyle.
When you adopted strong interpersonal skills during treatment, you demonstrated your ability to bring out the best you in interactions with yourself and with others. A few ways you can improve your interpersonal skills after treatment can include:
Developing your interpersonal skills after treatment is important because they can help you succeed in recovery and adjust to different or changing circumstances. These skills show others that you are willing to work well with your surroundings and express that you are motivated to perform excellent and professional communication. Your skills are adaptable across various outlets, such as your work, therapy sessions, family outings, and peer relationships.
Sometimes, interpersonal skills require constant focus and attention. You can make active decisions with your improved skills by attending workshops or classes, staying thoughtful in your interactions, requesting constructive criticism, seeking mentorship, and achieving and setting your goals. As you continue to develop your interpersonal skills, they become easier to maintain, and it becomes even easier to develop new ones.
The path you have embarked on to maintain a healthier lifestyle is not always going to be easy. At times, your interpersonal skills may feel like they are lacking or that they need massive improvement. At this point, you need to remember why you embarked on the recovery path in the first place.
You have already come so far and have improved your interpersonal skills to a higher level. As you maintain and push these skills forward, you are making a positive decision that encourages you to be healthy. When you choose to avoid improving your interpersonal skills, old habits of interaction could surface, leading to miscommunication. It’s important to explore how to better communicate and improve your interpersonal skills after treatment because it fuels your recovery goals. Even though it might seem frustrating to practice empathy or maintain your dedication and responsibility, adopting the right balance in your choices can help you maintain your recovery goals.
You have learned to stay away from substance use and found that communication plays a vital role in your recovery path. As you continue to walk down the path of recovery, your interpersonal skills and communication techniques can adapt, helping you to maintain positive and healthy relationships that were negatively affected before treatment.
Remember that your communication techniques and interpersonal skills, combined with your personal behavior, promote your healthy lifestyle. This flows out to the others around you who may be struggling as well. Practice every day to develop your interpersonal behaviors and skills after recovery, and others will take notice, improving your chances of maintaining your recovery path. At NorthStar Transitions, we understand that communication skills are required to maintain a successful recovery journey. However, because situations and scenarios have their difficulties, we want you to have someone on your side regardless of the situation. If you or someone you love feels like you need improvement with your interpersonal skills, or if you feel you’re struggling with substance use, reach out to us today to get help. We want to help you exercise your self-awareness and enhance your interpersonal skills to help you achieve a productive, healthy lifestyle. For more information, contact us at (303) 558-6400.
