The Joy of New Beginnings: And how to make them work for you!
The Joy
Think back to the start of the year. Remember the excitement and energy that you felt as you looked at the potential of what was to come. You had taken time to set your goals for the upcoming year, and there was nothing going to stop you from achieving them. Perhaps you had some New Year’s resolutions to make as well. You might have wanted to lose weight, to read more books, to grow your business, or bet a better spouse. Whatever your goals or resolutions you likely entered the new year filled with hope and excitement.
There is a similar thing happening this week on our campus. Students are arriving back excited about the year ahead. Freshman students are embarking on something very new and exciting. They are not fully sure what to expect, but they are here and ready to go. Returning students have a lot more of an idea about what to expect. They know the tough times ahead and the commitment they need to put in, and yet they too are excited (mostly). The new school year, just like the New Year in January, provides people with a clean slate. It is an opportunity to start over, no matter what has happened in the past. Students can set new goals in academics as well as in their personal and social lives. The new school year is waiting.
The Problem
Of course something happens as the days and weeks and months go by after a new beginning. After New Year’s Day you likely started well as you worked to achieve the goals and resolutions you had set. But over time those goals slowly started to take a back seat to other things in life. Your goal to eat better may have started well, but since then you have no doubt had a bad day or two. For many people those bad days start being the norm, not the exception. Your goals for business and your work may also have started well but likely some point along the way even those have been left behind as other stresses in life continue. For most students it will be no different. Many will start the year well and then slip back into their old habits, their old routines, and do the things they have always done.
These kinds of trends are natural. When something is new it is easy to set goals that are exciting and that inspire you. It is equally as easy for those goals to slip away over time and for your energy and inspiration towards achieving them to be diminished.
The Good News
The good news is that you can take advantage of a fresh start whenever you want! It is possible at any time, on any given day, for you to gain all of the benefits of the New Year experience. You do this by DECIDING to start over. You can decide to start over and start acting as if it is the New Year; as if you have a new beginning. In order to act like it’s the New Year, simply do the things that you would do if it really was the New Year:
· Celebrate your recent successes
· Set new goals and deadlines
· Plan how you will achieve your goals
· Reconsider your life priorities
· Recommit to the important things in life
· Connect with what inspires you
All of the things on this list are things that you do at New Year’s and other significant new beginnings. Further, all of these will help to reinvigorate you and push you into action. Restarting your life can be powerful.
One Part at a Time
Another good thing about starting over whenever you want throughout the year is that you have the potential to restart one area of your life at a time. While you may have times when you need to start over with everything, it is just as likely that you will have some areas of your life that are progressing towards your goals and some areas that are stagnated.
When you choose to restart like this, you can restart one part of your life at a time. Perhaps your family life is great, but you are struggling at work: then go through the restart list with your work life in mind. If you are doing well professionally but are struggling to exercise and get your weight under control you can simply restart that area as if you have just started a new year with exciting new resolutions. Whatever area you are struggling to reach you goals in is the area you want to choose to restart.
Automatic Restarts
Life also affords us with a number of automatic restarts. In fact you may be taking advantage of automatic restarts without even realizing it. The start of the school year that I described earlier is an example of an automatic restart for many. Certainly it is a restart for students and teachers, but it’s often a natural point of restart for anyone with school aged children. The pace of life changes and life routines must change with it. What better time to restart your goals?!
The calendar also gives us automatic restart points. The most obvious one is the start of each month. You can use the start of the month to celebrate your successes from the previous month, to set new goals and deadlines, to plan how you’ll achieve your goals, to reconsider your priorities, to recommit to the important things in life and to reconnect to the things that inspire you!
To a lesser extent the start of each new week can serve the same function. When I go through my weekly planning process, I’m in essence following the steps of starting over. This enables me to enter each new week recommitted to my goals and excited about pursuing them.
When to Restart
There are many reasons why it might be a good idea to choose to create a new beginning and restart yourself towards your goals. You may want to restart when:
· you haven’t taken steps towards your goal in sometime
· you’ve been working towards your goals but haven’t seen any progress
· or you’ve just had a significant failure
If any of these situations apply to you, you should likely consider starting over. Pretend it is New Year’s Eve. As of tomorrow morning, the calendar is blank, and you have the potential to reach all of your goals.
Happy New Years!
The Success Professor – Danny Gamache
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Tags: Goal Setting, Goals, New Year, New Year's Resolutions, Personal Growth, Resolutions, Restart, Starting Over
Often we set goals but things get in the way and we don’t actually achieve them by the time we thought we would. It was an important point you made about resetting the time to achieve our goals by. Just because we haven’t achieved it at the time we thought, it doesn’t mean we need to abandon our goals. If the goal is important to us we can’t let it go… changing the timeframe is no big deal.
Jeanne
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[...] Gamache presents The Joy of New Beginnings: And how to make them work for you! posted at The Success Professor, saying, “How to give yourself fresh starts throughout the [...]