New Starts

You can have a new start on a Tuesday in the middle of the year.

You can have one on a Thursday at the end of it.

A new year can be a beautiful invitation, but it is not the only time you get to choose again.

You have the ability to re-decide your life: recommit to what you want, release what you do not, and consider how you want to show up now.

I want you to look at what you have been treating as fixed and ask whether you would consciously choose it again.

Question the structures you take for granted

We create rules, parameters, and routines so we have a sense of direction and security.

We learn ideas about working eight hours a day, eating three meals, buying a house, and going to college.

Those structures can feel like the way the world has to work.

I want to keep and enhance the constraints that serve us and question the ones that do not.

When you examine what you have always been taught, you may discover that a belief has been limiting what you consider possible.

You can decide what you want to believe and what kind of life you want to create.

Change your mind from power, not defeat

You are allowed to change your mind.

But pay attention to why you are doing it.

Are you making a conscious decision that serves the life you want, or are you changing course to defeat yourself?

Commitment matters. If a decision will help you create what you want, you do not want to abandon it simply because following through is uncomfortable.

At the same time, you do not have to keep everything exactly as it is because you once chose it.

You can re-decide and recommit consciously.

Imagine choosing your relationships again

Think about having a clean slate.

All your relationships are set to the side for a moment: family, chosen family, friends, acquaintances, and the people you see every day.

Who would you choose to bring back, and why?

Then ask how you would be with them.

You might choose someone again and want the relationship to remain exactly as it is. That can be a beautiful confirmation that you have what you want.

You might want to spend more time with someone, less time with someone, or change how you show up.

Maybe a relationship is complete. Maybe the habits you share do not make you proud of your life.

You do not have to remove people in order to be yourself. You also do not have to keep a relationship only because it has always been there.

Sometimes the new start is recommitting to a person you have been taking for granted and bringing more of yourself to that relationship.

Choose your behaviors and surroundings

Look at what you regularly do.

Which activities do you love and want to continue? Working out, walking, reading, working hard, or taking care of family?

What do you want to start? What do you want to stop?

You can make those decisions again now.

Look at your home, too. Would you buy it again? Would you decorate it the same way?

Would you buy the clothes in your closet, the food in your pantry, or the dishes you use?

When my family sold the things in our house and traveled around the country, coming back and choosing everything again was an amazing experience of discovering our identity.

You do not have to do something that large to ask the questions. You can start with the socks in your drawer.

Reconsider the work you want to do

Would you choose your job, career, or business again?

If you would, would you choose to do it the same way?

You may want the same work with a different approach. You may want to show up differently or create something new.

Ask what you want with money, too. Do you want to earn more, keep more, or spend differently?

Notice what comes up as you answer. What frightens you? What excites you? What makes you nervous but also seems amazing for you?

Those observations help you see the decisions you have been avoiding.

Let people have their opinions

A new decision may disappoint someone.

Many of us stay unhappy with our lives because we want other people to be happy about them.

I do not want to disappoint someone on purpose. But I do not want to disappoint myself on purpose, either.

Learning to allow other people's opinions has been important work for me.

People can judge me. They can misunderstand me. They can dislike a decision I make.

That does not automatically mean I should make a different decision.

Predictability can feel safe to the people around us. They may want us to remain who we have been so they can feel comfortable.

You can care about those people and still choose the life you want to live.

A new life is still a human life

Change does not remove the 50:50 experience.

There is no place where the right amount of money, the right relationship, or the right family makes you happy all the time.

If you chase that place, you may start doing things at your own expense. You may work too hard or compromise how you want to live each day.

I am not recommending change because the future version of you will be more worthy.

Your worth does not need improving.

I am recommending considering new experiences because they can help you grow and discover more of your capacity.

Let go of the identity you have completed

To step into a new identity, you may need to release the old one.

People can remind you how you have always been. You can acknowledge that it describes how you were rather than how you must continue to be.

You can become someone who works out, dates a different person, or does a different kind of work.

Sometimes a decision can happen in a moment, even when following through takes effort.

One of my most powerful decisions was that I would never say a negative thing to myself about my body again.

I committed to it in that moment. The length of time I had spent criticizing my body did not have to determine how long I kept doing it.

What do you want to let go of now? An old habit, a grudge, anger at yourself, or a way of defining what you cannot do?

A failure is not an instruction to quit

People make resolutions, have an imperfect day, and decide the whole thing is over.

That is all-or-nothing thinking.

If you committed to not drinking and then had a drink, you can start again today. You can get through today, the week, or the year without using that moment as a reason to stop trying.

Failures are part of the process.

You can beat yourself up and quit, or you can learn and use the failure as a building block for the goal.

When I look at my successes, there are many failures holding up the house.

Study what happened. Explore it. Learn how to approach it differently. Love yourself through it and move forward.

A new start is available whenever you decide to make one. Choose what you want again, commit to it, and keep learning as you go.