My favorite aspect about beginning is the feeling of having a fresh start. A new year offers a clean slate from which to keep better track of my taxes, to eat less after the holidays, to make choices that feel new—even though they’re not.

This way of thinking about beginning again is the way I talk to myself to make it happen. From there, I have a good feeling about starting over, and that is the motivation that pushes the engine forward. According to Jim Rohn, (American speaker and author on motivational programs for business and life) “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”

Realizing what motivates us to get started on a project, plan, or purpose, is the same as identifying the barrier that trips us up before the first step. They are flip sides of the same coin. Take any project you’ve been putting off. Name the feelings you have that keep you from starting it (boring, difficult, tedious). Next, think about how you will feel when the project is complete (thinner, more organized, free). Let the positive emotions drive your deed. The Roman philosopher, Horace, once said, “He has half the deed done who has made a beginning.”

If that isn’t enough motivation to start, Buddha had this to say, “There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth…not going all the way, and not starting.”

I read three important issues in this statement.

  • First, we are all on the road to truth.

When you stop and think about it, our life purpose is the authentic reality of who we want to be in the world. Or at least, who we are presently being. In your life, are you being (today) the person you feel best about? If not, what would it take to adjust that?

This brings us to the other points in Buddha’s statement. The two mistakes one can make along that road to truth. 

  • The first mistake is “…not going all the way…” this sounds like not completing what we’ve started. If what we’ve started is the latest book we’ve accumulated, perhaps that doesn’t have a huge consequence. If what we’ve started is a journey along the road to truth, well then, not going all the way means not becoming who we are in our greater purpose.
  • The second mistake one can make along the road to truth, is not starting at all. 

In working with my clients, I find their lives to be some of the most inspiring I’ve seen. These are people who want to lasso life and ride it out. They face difficult losses and find the way to fulfillment again. They search for dreams and set forth on a quest that doesn’t end. They take that first most challenging step by beginning (again) to make choices that feel new. This takes courage. “More powerful than the will to win is the courage to begin.” (Author unknown.) 

And in the end, I am one who thinks as Sydney J. Harris, the American journalist who wrote, “Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.”

What will you begin (again) this year?

Photo by Kate Gipp