Fresh Starts

Every one of us in life has times when we feel like we’ve fallen off track. We feel further away from reaching our goals, have endured more challenges than usual, or have gotten ourselves back into some old bad habits. The truth is that no one is going to be perfect 100% of the time throughout their entire lives. 

 As humans, we often place significance on temporal landmarks such as a new year, a birthday, or the start of a new week, and it has been proven psychologically that these time-bound milestones may give us a boost in motivation and a reignition of willpower to reach for our goals. This is called the ‘fresh start effect’. 

In reality, these are imagined starting lines created to distance ourselves from our past behaviors. It gives us the ability to feel that we are at the beginning of a new and blossoming era and that our past failures no longer exist. 

 It can be great to stimulate the motivation that a ‘fresh start’ can bring, but motivation will fade after time. Sometimes waiting for the ‘right time’ encourages you to keep putting off getting started at all. You may get to Monday and still not feel ready. Aligning so much significance with specific dates and times can make you feel worse if you are not in a place to make changes at that time. 

If you didn’t start on January 1st, that doesn’t mean that you can’t start in February. If you didn’t start on Monday, that doesn’t mean you can’t start on Thursday. It doesn’t matter if you're 18 or 48, it’s never too late. There is no time limit on taking the first step towards creating the life for yourself that you desire. 

This is not just related to fitness, this can be absolutely anything that will benefit your future self. From changing careers at a later stage in life to reaching out to a therapist to heal from past trauma. From working on your relationships to finding a new passion. You are the only one who can decide when to start fully squeezing the most juice from your life. 

There’s a reason why many people start New Year's resolutions only to slip back into their old patterns a month or two later. Drastically changing everything in your life from one day onwards inevitably leads to some sort of failure. You are human. When you don’t meet the ridiculously high expectations you've set for yourself, guilt and shame are bound to appear. You may feel like there is something wrong with you for giving up. 

This is a reminder that there is not one person alive who created the life they wanted for themselves in one month. Everything good worth having takes time and perseverance. 

You can choose your fresh start at any time, whether you choose to do so at a recognized beginning such as the start of a new month, or if you decide to seize the day, regardless of the specific date. 

No matter when you choose to start, how you choose to start matters the most. Take small, manageable, and sustainable steps to build growth and change gradually.

If you aren’t happy with where you are right now, maybe it’s time to reflect meaningfully on what would make you happy.

What lifestyle do you envision that would make you feel healthy and fulfilled? Where do your priorities lie? Have you had a period in your life where you felt at your best? What were you doing then that you aren’t doing now? 

Something as simple as starting a new course or a program can feel like a fresh start. It is the beginning of something that you can consistently follow and see changes progressively manifest. Signing up with a coach may be a really good idea for you to have a program to follow and someone you can reach out to for accountability and guidance. If this is something that you have given any thought to, reach out to me, I would love to help.