Why You Need to Rejuvenate and not Restart in 2024

Can you imagine an athlete in the middle of a 200-metre race not sprinting as good as she wanted, thereby deciding to restart? That’s what we do all the time. Restart whenever something goes wrong. As if everything is supposed to be perfect. As if nothing could possibly go wrong. As if failure is not part of the journey. There is a difference between restarting from scratch and restarting from experience. You’re restarting from scratch if you keep making the same mistakes. You’re restarting from experience if you keep making new mistakes.

The Illusion of Restarting

The truth is, restarting is really an illusion. We’ve just decided in our minds that we are restarting when you and I know that we cannot rewind life. Life is like an online video game. You can’t pause it. As you throw all previous progress out the window and start afresh for the 1000th time, know that time itself never started afresh. It simply kept moving as you while it away.

Perhaps, that’s what we ought to do. Keep moving no matter what. Always remember this; there is more progress sticking to something worthwhile – not matter how long it takes – than hopping from one thing to another, starting from scratch every time. Try the same core idea from different angles, approaches and procedures. It’s better to try one thing 1000 times than try different things 1000 times. Persistence is key, so stick to one core idea.

You Don’t Need To Figure It All Out

The good news is that you don’t need to figure it all out before you start. The Western world popularizes the idea of figuring it all out right before you start. They tell you to write down your goals for the year and have a detailed plan on how you’ll achieve it. Thus, people write to the utmost detail what they will be doing each day for the entire year. That is too rigid, my dear.

Looking back over the year, we don’t even remember into detail what happened each day. If our past is that blurry, how much more the future? See! Live one day at a time. It’s the days that add up to make a year. Don’t count the days; make the days count.

Don’t Restart; Rejuvenate

The reason why we keep restarting is not just because we want it to be perfect till the end. It’s because there’s a rush of enthusiasm whenever we start something. Restarting gives us fresh energy, vitality and optimism. Subject to the law of diminishing returns, the energy from the beginning slowly fizzles out till we are back where we last stumbled.

As a matter of fact, it is easy to get addicted to the idea of restarting. Feeling too cluttered? Let’s clear everything and restart. Why not simply organize them and continue? Stuck in old bad habits? Let’s clear everything and restart. Why not consciously create new good habits and move on with life? If you need a new zeal and ambition, don’t restart. Rejuvenate. You gain new strength to overcome the situation you’re in at the moment. Rather than running away from it by restarting.

So instead of quitting the marathon only to start over again, why not face your insecurities? For some of us, this is the message we ought to hear. You don’t need to wait for another year to put your life together. Don’t quit, yes. But quit restarting if you really want to make it to the finish line. Perhaps, it is by quitting this restart that you’ll break your cycle of failure and face your real underlying problems and weaknesses.

I love you ❤️