What to work on

Here is a list of common areas participants work on when doing STEPS.

It is not exhaustive, but may be helpful as a reference to put language to people’s patterns.

• Low self esteem
• Anger
• Need to control
• Fear
• Dishonesty
• Alcohol (combined with participation in AA groups)
• Pornography
• Pride
• Impatience
• Laziness
• Need for affirmation
• Difficulty setting boundaries
• Fear of failure
• Procrastination
• Fear of rejection
• Jealousy
• Isolation
• Workaholism
• Self-doubt
• Guilt
• Excessive need for financial security
• Low self-worth
• Need to comfort eat/disordered eating
• Lack of self-care/consideration

What not to work on

It is important that we are always working on the problem  – not the solution. For example, participants should work on dishonesty rather than the desire to be truthful, or fear of rejection, rather than wanting more confidence.

It is common for participants to work on their need for, lack of, or fear of, a particular thing – for example, need for control, lack of boundaries, fear of rejection, etc.

We are not working on unspecific things like becoming a better Christian or a better person, or to love God more etc. These are all good things – and they will typically be a fruit of going through the process, but they are not areas we can work on.

Be as specific as possible. So if, for example, we choose to work on unhelpful character defects like pride, greed, jealousy, lust etc. we should ask ourselves how these character defects manifest in our behaviour. This makes it more concrete and helps us to detect when change starts to take place as a result of the process.