We recently packed up everything and moved to a smaller place. This means that anything truly important to me, that I need to get stuff done, is most likely packed up in a box in storage. It’s not chaos exactly, or disorder. It’s just that everything is ten times harder than it needs to be.
Situations like this call for a “fresh start.” It’s like getting a do-over in a friendly game of chess. I’m going to give myself, and my writing career, a fresh sheet of paper and start clean.
A Landmark in Time
It turns out there is some science behind this idea of making a fresh start. Pinning new goals to a special date, such as New Year’s Day, can help increase your motivation.
The idea is that while time flows like a river, we tend to think of time in terms of categories: work, play, exercise, chores. These categories are entirely made-up, figments of our imagination. But they are powerful figments. Setting a new starting point gives us a way to restructure these categories.
Escaping the Past Self
Another way that taking a fresh start can help us is by helping us escape the tyranny of our “past self.” While we have a tendency to view ourselves as consistently the same person, yesterday, today, and tomorrow, we also skew our perceptions of our “past self” toward the negative.
In theory there isn’t any reason I have to perform the same behaviors today as I did yesterday. Why not just do things differently so that I can enjoy different outcomes? The fresh start gives us permission to do just that.
Also on Wild Rye
Apparently I’ve blogged about this before: 5 Ways to Get a Fresh Start in 2018, a short post with a couple of good quotations about starting over.
Also Starting Over with a Clean Sheet: A Meditation on Wholenes, trying to see all the possibilities in a blank sheet of paper.
One thing to expect when trying for a fresh start…your unconscious may try to sabotage you. Collectively we are in a wrestling match with our shadow Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow.
