How to Start Over in 7 Simple Steps
You’re going to cringe in second-hand embarrassment from me posting the following cliché quote, brace yourself.
A wise man once said: “Don’t be afraid to start over again. This time, you’re not starting from scratch, you’re starting from experience.”
But it’s true!
I’ve started over, and over at so many different things. I’ve started eating healthy and then fallen off the wagon and started over. I’ve started this blog and then neglected it and started over. I’ve started running and finished a marathon and then gotten out of the habit and started over, and over, and over.
But every time, I’m no longer starting from zero, I remember what worked and what didn’t. I have a list of healthy recipes that I’ve saved. I have this blog built and ready to go; I don’t have to create the website again. I have running plans and workout plans and training schedules that I can go back to.
With anything, the hardest part is often getting started. It’s the same here, the hardest part is starting over. Especially when there are now huge mental blocks saying that maybe I’ll quit again.
Since I’m starting up this blog again for the millionth time, I’ll use that as an example.
1. Acknowledge Your Doubts
I often get trapped in thinking that I’m a failure if I gave up on a project or stopped doing something that I used to enjoy (this blog). I start ascribing negative attributes to myself because I gave up: “I’m a failure,” “I’m a quitter,” “I’m lazy.” And it spirals from there.
These thoughts are unhelpful for many reasons; they’re not factual, they don’t tell the bigger picture and ultimately, they deter me from picking myself and starting over.
The first step to getting over these doubts is naming and acknowledging them. I like to literally name them in my head: “I’m thinking I’m a failure,” “I had a thought that I’m a quitter,” “I feel like I’m lazy.” This separates the thought from me and helps me think more objectively about it.
It’s also good to acknowledge doubts about more tactical things in terms of implementing plans to start over, but we’ll get to that later.
2. Reframe
To be effective when starting over, I then reframe my negative thoughts.
I try to think objectively about the situation and not infuse emotionally charged language like “fail,” “quit” and “lazy.” These words carry a lot of negative connotations and bring up feelings of guilt and shame for me.
Instead of thinking “I’m a failure,” I remember that to me, the only true failure is giving up.
But then that might lead me to think, “Well I did give up, I’m a quitter.”
Since the negative emotions persist, I then tackle the next negative thought. Instead of thinking “I’m a quitter,” think about what really happened, why did I quit and what did I quit? And what do I mean when I say “quit”?
I need to define that for myself in more tangible terms instead of using generalizations. For me, in this example, I quit or stopped posting on my blog. So why did I stop posting on my blog? I was busy and got out of the habit. So instead of thinking “I’m a quitter,” I replace that with “I got busy and took a break / pressed pause on writing my blog twice a week.” I have ownership of my blog and it’s something I can always come back to.
For the third unhelpful thought, the reframe is similar. I’m not lazy, I was actually busy finishing up my college degree and working on many other projects when I first stopped posting regularly. Then I just never got back into the habit. So I tell myself “Sometimes I act lazily, but I am not lazy, laziness is not static, it ebbs and flows.”
I go on like this for each negative thought that I may have about myself or the situation.
What if it doesn’t work?
The first reframe about being a failure wasn’t particularly effective because it led to another negative thought or reality distortion. So, I may go back to that and try to think of a more effective reframe.
If failure is a lack of success, I and the blog are not a failure. The blog was successful at helping me feel better and reach my goals when I started it but at a point when it wasn’t effective anymore I eliminated it until I was ready to use it again. The blog was still a successful outlet for me to express myself at various times throughout the past three years.
You may notice that the reframes are often much longer than the distorted thought. After all reality is much more complicated than the fictions we sometimes tell ourselves.
*Tip: If I notice short judgement statements running through my mind that’s a cue that I’m probably distorting reality and should take a step back and evaluate the situation more.
*Tip: The reframes must be entirely true to me and I must believe them. I can’t just flip it around and say the opposite, like “I’m never lazy, I’m the most productive person!” That won’t work. If the reframe doesn’t ring true, keep working on getting at the objective facts until it does.
Once I have a good grasp on reality and my mind feels like a blank slate, free of emotional judgements I like to move on to the evaluation phase.
3. Evaluate
There are three things to evaluate when starting over, it’s pretty simple.
- What worked
- What didn’t work
- Should I start over?
First list out all of the things that worked or that went well previously. For me, the blog increased my motivation to continue with the projects I was working on and it helped me clarify my thinking by writing things down.
What didn’t work was the way that I fit it into my schedule and at times procrastinated in finishing and posting entries. I try to get as detailed as possible with what worked and what didn’t so that I can make changes this time.
Sometimes projects fail or I lose motivation simply because a project I was working on just doesn’t really fit into my life or align with my values – aka it’s just not that important to me in the long run.
So even if I think I want to start over, I’ll evaluate if it’s really worth it by asking myself a few questions:
Did planning work? Did execution work? Did timing work? Did it make you feel good? Did it fit your values? Did it fit your budget? Did it fit your lifestyle? Did it fit your long-term goals?
If you answered yes to 5+ of those questions, you should start over.
If you answered no to 5+ of those questions, you should not start over. You should recognize that this project or goal is not right for you at this time in your life. You can always decide to start over at another time. You can pick another goal or project that will be better suited to your goals instead.
For me, planning and timing didn’t work but it made me feel good, fit my values of self-improvement, fir my budget, lifestyle and long-term goals. So I’ll need to work on planning and timing but it’s still a goal that I want to pursue.
4. Why?
Once I’ve decided that I should start over, I like to delve a little bit more into the “why.”
Motivation is not constant. Three months from now (or maybe three days from now on Monday) I’m probably going to hate myself for starting this back up again because I’ll be tired, I’ll run out of ideas, I’ll feel like there’s no point to it anyway. That’s why it’s important to develop an overarching “why.” The deep reason why I really want to keep this blog.
One of the reasons it didn’t work the first time is that I didn’t update my “why” when circumstances changed. My big “why” in the beginning was to have projects to work on and to make myself feel better.
It did start to make me feel better, so once I had accomplished that “why” it didn’t seem to be necessary or useful anymore.
Now that I’m starting over, I want to examine my “why” again. Why do I want to start over?
First I write down the goal. Then I relentlessly ask myself why until I get at the heart of my motivation. This will help me when I feel like giving up to remember why this is so important to me.
Goal: Keep a twice weekly blog where I post about making progress and self-improvement.
Why? So I can have a creative outlet for my thoughts and feelings and keep track of my goals.
Why? Because the sense of accomplishment I get feels great after posting and it keeps me accountable.
Why? Because achieving things and being productive, working at self-development, and contributing to a larger community are values of mine and keeping the blog helps me work on all three.
Why? Living in line with my values gives me a greater sense of purpose and something to leave behind for others and my future self to look back on.
My ultimate goal and why: My goal is to keep my blog because it gives me a sense of purpose by helping me achieve measurable goals and live in line with my values.
5. Plan Ahead
Ok, I know what did and didn’t work. I know why this project is important to me and why I want to start over. Here’s where the starting over really kicks in.
Go back to the things that didn’t work. There’s always at least one thing that didn’t work, which is why I quit in the first place and now have to start over.
For me, planning, execution and timing didn’t work and it didn’t fit my lifestyle which made me quit.
Let’s work backwards.
Timing: The timing didn’t work because I was still in school and didn’t have the time to dedicate to the blog. The timing is better now because I have a set schedule and can plan it into my day.
Execution: The execution failed because I would often write the blogs at night right before bed the day before I wanted to post them, leaving me no time to edit or reflect and when I got tired it was easy to come up with reasons to skip posting.
To better execute on my plan, I’ll make sure to write at least two blogs a week in advance from when I want to post them and leave myself time to edit them.
Planning: The planning didn’t work because I ran out of ideas and the motivation to think of new ideas.
This time I’ve written down a list of five ideas for future blogs I want to write. I will block out time in my schedule to write in advance and to edit and schedule the posts. I will also block out time to come up with and write down new ideas.
6. Build Sustainable Systems
Effort is not enough. One thought trap I often get stuck in is thinking if I had just tried harder, I wouldn’t have given up, I would have been a success instead of a failure.
The truth is, it’s often the failure of the systems we build for ourselves and not a failure of our willpower. Although motivation ebbs and flows, if we build sustainable systems (key word sustainable!) we’ll be prepared for the low points and high points.
My system failed the first time because I built the habit of writing my blog posts late at night around midnight or 1 am the night before I wanted to post them and not tracking out ideas that I had for future posts in advance. Of course, when I got tired or had other priorities like schoolwork that were on tight deadlines, I couldn’t sustain this system. No matter how much I wanted to or how much sheer willpower I put in, there are only so many hours in the day and a person can’t run consistently on 4 hours of sleep.
By solidifying my goal and my why and making it a priority in my life, I’ll be able to go back to these reasons when my motivation is faltering. Then, by planning ahead I can build a system that works.
The most important thing about building a system that works, though, is tinkering with it. I might plan to write on Saturday and Sunday, or Thursdays after work. But that may not fit in with my schedule. I may find I’m more excited to write in the mornings or in the late evening before bed. I’ll have to do a trial and error process over the next few weeks to figure out a system that’s really sustainable for me.
7. Embrace Starting Over
Now here’s where the Jedi mind tricks come in. Telling yourself you believe you can do something is, in fact, very helpful in actually doing it. So, here’s what I’m going to tell myself: Starting over is great, it’s awesome! Because this time I have the opportunity to do better. I already have the framework for success, it just needs a little bit of adjustment. I don’t have to build my website, and choose my domain, and the theme for my blog etc. again. I already did that. The foundation is there. I just need to iterate and improve.
Thanks for sharing!