Read This If You’re Starting Over

Starting over can leave us highly frustrated, deflated and feeling like a quitter. It can make us feel like a failure and question whether we should even bother carrying on. 

What am I talking about? I’m talking about the sort of starting over that occurs when attempting any form of venture, like a side hustle or career path. 

Starting over means stepping away from one thing, regardless of how far you’ve come, and deciding to start from the beginning with something new.

Navigating this sort of thing can be mentally exhausting, for the reasons already mentioned.

However, starting over doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom, in fact, it can be a huge sign of progress, you just need to see it from a different perspective.

From someone who has started over quite a few times throughout my life, I’ve given this a lot of thought. 

I’d like to share a few things you should take a mental note of if you’re currently going through or thinking about starting over.

The Right Reason

The first thing you should probably figure out is if you’re stopping what you’re doing for the right reasons.

This is important because if it is for the wrong reason like it got hard or you got bored, you’ll most likely be starting over and over again until you die.

Before you choose to go into something new, you need to figure out why you chose the last thing. If you went into something to please your parents, or because it was ‘an easy way to make money’, well you now know what not to choose moving forward.

If you do not figure this out, you may be stuck in a vicious loop forever, starting things that you’ll inevitably stop anyway.

You need to make your choice for the correct reason, it needs to be something strong enough to get you through the eventual discomfort and boredom of doing it.

Although this is all about starting over, if you cannot figure out why you’re starting the new thing, or it’s for the same reason as before, I’d suggest sticking to what you’re doing to avoid a pointless regression.

If you started what you’re doing because you’ve loved it since you were a kid, be extremely careful about stopping as it may be due to prolonged discomfort. If you can’t stick to something you’ve loved for as long as you can remember, what makes you think you’ll stick to anything else?

You need to make sure starting over is the right choice before making it, and figuring out your reason is essential in doing so. 

Lessons

Okay, once you’ve figured that out and you’ve decided to start over for the right reason, it’s time to make use of it.

The last thing you want is for the time you spent on the last thing to be a waste of time, and the way to avoid this is to learn from it. 

Whether they’re plain to see or not, there are many things to take from your last venture. Even if it has nothing to do with the next.

Think of roadblocks you ran into the last time, identify what you did to move through them, and take note of the broader picture. 

Maybe you can learn from the way you mentally handled different situations, and how you’d prefer to handle them this time, maybe you wanted time on something that you can avoid doing this time.

Whatever it may be, squeeze as much knowledge and experience as you can out of it, and write them down, they will probably come in handy. 

A Step Closer

Whether you can see it or not, by starting over, you’ve actually made another stride towards success. 

When we make sure it is for the right reasons, and we learn from it, starting over is a prerequisite for success.

Think about it, when you first started something, what insight did you have to know it was going to work? None. If you’re now starting your 5th venture, as long as you can see where you went wrong each time, you’re simply 5 steps closer to being where you want to be.

Each attempt is another lesson or a set of lessons. Each time you start again, you’re starting as someone new, someone with more knowledge and experience, someone better.

This just means that you’re that much more likely to succeed.

Also, each time you find something that doesn’t work for you, you’re one step closer to finding something that does.

The only alternative is stopping altogether, and guaranteeing failure.

If you can see your attempts as lessons, and see them as getting closer to what you want, you’re essentially unstoppable, meaning you will win, it’s just a question of when.

Noise

When we start over, we’re worried about what others are going to think and say. This is because they won’t see it the same way as you. You see it as progress and lessons, they see it as a failure.

But, this is okay.

Most people are too afraid of trying things because they don’t want to find out they’re incapable. So, when they see you start something, and stop, they’ll see this as evidence to suggest that not trying anything at all is the better choice. Ignore them.

When they see you chasing your dreams, it sheds light on the dreams that they have avoided even attempting, this makes them feel uncomfortable. In turn, they’ll love seeing you “Fail”.

But simply think of this, what would someone say who has what you’re trying to get? Probably the complete opposite, right? 

We are social beings, so it’s bound to hurt when the people around us laugh or make fun of the fact that we are doing something. But these people live lives we don’t want, so why should their opinions matter? 

If they don’t have what we want, don’t listen to what they have to say.

Although this sounds good on paper, it doesn’t necessarily change the way we feel when it happens, it’s a constant battle of ignoring uncomfortable emotions.

Just keep reminding yourself of this, and keep going, ignore the noise.