Restart
3 ideas on rekindling your dreams and winning over your habits.
I recently shared a piece of advice with a friend that ended up being more beneficial to me instead.
I hang out with my friend a few days ago, and he was telling me about some frustrations in business and life. He had recently found himself broke again, after promising himself that he would not allow himself to get this broke- again. The business he was into was making him money, alright, but he found that his personal needs greatly exceeded what he made. The individual challenge of providing for a family, running a small business and maintaining his household, made him dip into his savings. A promise he had made to himself to never repeat.
I listened to his frustrations with much amusement, seeing how similar our problems were. I have felt the pressure of this emotion from time to time in my quest toward financial freedom.
So I said to him.
“Okay, just suck it up, pull up your sleeves and restart!”
I could sense hesitation. This was not the advice he needed. I am not sure even if he needed advice as he might have needed to articulate his frustration.
He repeated the story, almost verbatim. I laughed and said to him,
“yeah man, just restart! I dunno how else I can explain this to you.”
Then I burst into a monologue.
I will not bore you with the monologue, but here are some of the key ideas I shared about restarting.
1 — Adulting is learning lessons, re learning those lessons until you get it.
The hall mark of growing up is that we are expected to be mature enough to make our own solutions to problems and act on it. We are also expected to pick a path for ourselves and stick to it. It’s very self driven model of freedom and freewill. It’s a great arrangement if you ask me.
However in life, we are always learning. We are learning about our habits, things we need to improve, things we need to change, things we need to pay more attention to, and it seems as though that list will keep growing, as we keep growing.
Think of parenting for example. Nothing prepares you for parenting. You only have to be a parent to learn. Therefore you are always going to learn, and when you fail, you are going to correct, and learn once more.
The advice is, whenever you start a lesson, never give up on it when it fails. Suck it up, and start all over again. If you had a money goal, and you did not hit it, do not cry, do not hold yourself with contempt, just breath in, breath out, and start again.
It’s easy to not start again, there is a lot of pride we attach to our own self image, we need to carry ourselves with enough grace to be able to start over once more.
2 — You might be an Adult, but you’re no Pro!
Carry yourself with grace.
When we were younger, our parents threw this in our face so much! “you are a big boy! ….you are a big girl!” whenever we did something silly. I think what this does, is that it creates an image where an adult needs to be someone who has their act together. No mistakes this time because you’re a big boy!
The problem with this is that we deny ourselves the grace to fall and learn all over again. There are things you are always going to try and master in different seasons of your life. Be it money management, time management, leadership or even networking. Whenever you fall short. Accept it, but don’t dwell in there, restart.
3 — Repeat as many times as you need until you master the lesson
Now we know that you are always going to be learning, then we know that you are no pro. Next we need to allow ourselves to repeat this lesson as many times as we need until we master the lesson.
I have found, in adulting, we need to give ourselves permission for so much. We need to have a self talk that is encouraging, and allowing. Allow yourself to do it again.
Here are some examples,
- If you find yourself to have failed on your savings goal of 30% monthly after doing it for 3 months, breath in, breath out, and start all over again. If you fail, breath in breath out, and start all over again.
- If you have a goal to publish your work twice a week, and you keep a streak for 3 months (it’s always 3 months right? lol) and then you fail, breath in, breath out, and start all over again.
- If you have a new health commitment to cut sugar and workout twice a week, then after a month you slack, breath in, breath out, and go back to the gym.
We can continue to name so many habits and goals that we give ourselves as individuals, however, we should suck it up, and get back to it. Never allow the apathy that comes with failing a couple of times drive the enthusiasm you had when you started on your bold new vision toward a better you.
Life is the End game!
To live a good life is the goal. Our habits, desires, abilities and passions are the vehicles toward it. I think you cannot really quantify the wholeness and the breath of your life while you are still in it. Unless you are grey and old, and you sit back to reflect. However, there is need to keep playing the game. The game of pursuit, the game of the good life.
What could I become? How much further can I go? Have I utilized the extent of my creativity? and so many other questions that make life richer.
I came out of that conversation charged up. My bad habits surfaced right to the top of my mind. Things I am slacking on, goals I had set for myself and I have not kept up. I made a silent goal to myself to pick up these things, and to keep working toward mastery in those areas. And whenever I fail, have the grace to start all over again.
