Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Starting Over..

Starting something is a lot of fun.  Starting a new book promises a new time alone. Starting a new diet promises a dream body. Starting a new TV shows promises new drama. A new date promises new flirtation. New friends promise new fun. Starting a new chapter in life, holds the potential for renewal, growth and new adventures. Basically, most people have stared new things more times than they can count - hopeful, excited, nervous, scared, expectant or reluctant.

The question i have then is, why do we not like re-starting something as much as we like starting it in first place. I've read books more than once and found them to be more meaningful the second or third time around. I've tried to learn Italian 3 or 4 times and everytime I restarted, I learned a little more. Once I tried to make eclairs and went through some 36 eggs for multiple unsuccessful trials. It was fun nevertheless and the dog had a lot of flat eclairs to enjoy.

I've met other people like me, starters and restarters. But I've also met many folks who start and never finish but instead of restarting, they just give up, whatever it is. Some give up on their dream bodies. Others give up on their dream marriages. And others give up on stopping bad habits, on learning new things and on working on their lives. For some, to restart something is to admit that you failed once. If that's how you think, i feel sorry for you. A prominent social psychologist from Stanford University, Carol Dweck, had done some interesting research concluding that there are really just two kinds of mindsets out there. The folks with the fixed mindset seem to think that they are born with everything they've got and change is something that happens to others. They stick to their opinions, the way they do things and how they think of themselves. As a result of that they spend all their lives trying to prove to others how good they are, how special they are and how important they are. They start things up and they don't restart if it doesn't work out the first time because it would mean that the first time around the results they got did not match their expectations of themselves and it would be mighty difficult to try to prove how great you are if you just bombed your first trial.

Meanwhile, other folks, with what she calls a growth mindset, spent their time learning and growing. They don't mind restarting again and again, relearning, retrying. They are open to change and welcome it with open arms, no matter how difficult it may be. They never fail because everything is a learning opportunity and because every endeavor is a stepping stone to the next one. There's nothing to lose but a little ego skin in the process, so why not dive right in!

I am just restarting my blog. As you can see, my last post was in November. All this time i was looking for a platform to do everything for me - website, blog, and drive my car. I kept trying and testing and at the end I came back to what I already had....and restarted my blog.

I also just restarted juicing. After a cheese rich and pastry bountiful vacation to Paris, I, not only forgot how to use my juicer, I even forgot how good it felt to have a fresh squeezed juice daily, and went on eating chocolate and bread even at home. My first restarted juice was orange, carrot and apple and it was absolutely delicious!

I also restart my mediation practice every Friday because I quit every Thursday due to my travel schedule which keeps me working and traveling from 5:45 am - 11:30 pm.

I can think of a million other things I restart or should restart and will restart. I wonder what could you restart today that would make a huge difference in your life! Just one thing! Common, you know you have it!

Be brave!