Permission to Start Again
You have permission to start again. Whether your baking a cake, painting a picture, or building a business. Right here and right now, I give you permission to push restart.
#QuoteoftheDay
Stress comes
when we don’t give ourselves
permission to start again.
– Kathryn Lang
Don’t quit.
That’s what I heard all of my life. You have to find your way to push past quit.
Dig your heels in. Get it done. Keep going until you get there. And NEVER, NEVER, NEVER give up.
After four years of fighting our insurance company, we were left without a home. The spaces we spent twenty-five years clearing and taming were lost to the wild again.
I wanted to keep fighting, but with the threat of another hit from the insurance company looming over us, we gave in and gave up.
I was mad. I was hurt. I was disappointed in my lack of ability to do what I had set out to do.
It took another five months, but I finally came to terms with the situation and let it go. When I let it go, I gave myself permission to start again. When I gave myself permission, I was able to share calm and comfort with my family.
And then we all had permission to start over.
We may not know what it’s going to look like, but we know that it’s okay.
Time for a Do Over
Several years ago, I was making a dessert for an event my husband and I were attending. I had made the dessert more times than I could count, but for some reason it didn’t work out for me.
I was upset. I was frustrated. I was disappointed in my inability to do what I had done so many times before.
My husband stepped in. He took the messed-up dessert, crumbled it up, and then made a trifle that was the hit of the gathering.
The same man that so often demands that things go in specific A, B, C order was able to give me permission to start over – or at least to have a do over that allowed one thing to become another.
Sometimes it’s easier for us to help others take their do over than it is for us to give ourselves permission to do it. It’s one of the many reasons we need to be invested in relationships. When we can’t do it on our own, relationships give us the strength and ability to find a way.
Be Okay With a New Start
I built my website the best way I knew how. I then found experts and gurus that told me how to do it right. So I changed things to meet their demands. And then I found more experts and gurus with more demands.
More demands.
More demands.
More demands.
I kept changing and shifting and doing the things the way they said until I had so many things on my website that even I didn’t know what I was trying to do.
“Be you.”
I received that encouragement from my Awesome Slack Group. I received it again from the Global Tea Break folks. And I received it again from Laura Morlando, who also said I could start over. “It’s not a nose job,” she assured me.
Despite how much time, energy, or even finances I may have invested, it was okay to let it all go and take a step into a new start.
Stop Worrying About THEY
People won’t judge you for starting over. Okay, there will be people who judge you, but they will be the same people who would have judged you for not starting over. In others words, they are going to find a reason to judge you no matter what you do.
But the people who are on your side – really on your side – won’t judge you.
And the rest of the people (which is most of them for the record) won’t even notice if you don’t point it out.
There’s a dress company that sells wool dresses. They offer a challenge for anyone willing to take it. Wear the same dress for 100 days in a row and they will give you $100. Yes, that’s the exact same dress.
They are trying to point out how durable the wool dress is, but when I first read about the challenge I just kept thinking about my livestreams and how the same dress would look on camera. I struggle to make sure I don’t wear the same thing to church two months in a row.
And then I read about one lady who took the challenge. She worked in a school library next to another librarian. It was on day forty that she finally told her co-workers about the challenge. Even the one working next to her day in and day out hadn’t noticed.
It turns out, people notice far less than we give them credit for.
So, start over and stop worrying about what they might say about it.
Peace From the Start Again
When I made the decision to start again, I found peace. Once I chose to do it different, I was okay to do it different.
Most often, the stress comes from the insecurities and the doubts building up around a worry about what to do next. Once the decision is made, then the stress doesn’t hang around.
And once you have peace from the start again, then you recognize that you can start again.
It keeps being okay to try new and to try different.
# # #
What stops you from starting again?
Every artist, every creator, hones their craft through repetition. You don’t win the Olympics your first time on the ice. Potters will spin clay incessantly and then crush their work and start over. That is actually the way you build skill. I’m a big fan of trashing it all and starting over – ESPECIALLY when I have not gotten the results I’d imagined I would. Clearly, something missed the mark. OK. Let’s do it again. It might be another practice session or something that you can sell. Either way YOU are a better person because of the process. Don’t fight it. Master it.
Very insightful, as always, Tom Reid.
I especially appreciate the “don’t fight it” suggestions. Maybe that needs to be my first clue. If I’m always fighting it then I need to back up and review.
Have a blessed day!