The Power of Starting Over

Published on November 28th, 2022 by Cem Hurturk

It's interesting to see how people tend to give up only after their first try. Especially when they fail their first execution… I'm curious as to when this behavior is learned and became such a strict rule that it stops people from trying over and over again until they achieve their initial goal. Sometimes it might be easier to forget that each time we start doing something over, we reset ourselves in order to start with a fresh new angle.

So every start over can be considered an improvement from our previous tries.

This is why we should always keep reminding ourselves that we tend to get affected by our environments.

As human beings, we feel that we must succeed at whatever we do. Whether going to the gym, losing weight, forming a new habit, or starting a project at work while doing so, we’re all naturally affected by the people around us, such as friends, family, colleagues, and neighbors. Yet for some reason we tend to focus more on the negative. As long as we grasp this reality, it shouldn’t be so hard to adapt accordingly.

As I was reading "The Boron Letters" by Gary C. Halbert I’ve come across a related part on how we should try again and again and again until we succeed. To make this process more effective, it's better to keep your goals and actions secret until they’re achieved. Otherwise, we would put ourselves under the pressure of our environment, and unless we’re lucky to be surrounded by amazing people who encourage us no matter what, our probability of failure rises considerably.

The practice of keeping our goals and objectives to ourselves until we achieve them comes with a huge secret benefit. While the human mind is still an enigma to us, and we’ve barely scratched the surface, we were able to come up with solid information about the way the mind works with decades of scientific research and investigation.

Here’s a quote on the subject:

“In 1933, W. Mahler found that if a person announced the solution to a problem, and was acknowledged by others, it was now in the brain as a “social reality”, even if the solution hadn’t actually been achieved.”

So according to science, when we put our goals into words and start telling people about our plans, our brain tends to create some sort of satisfaction as if those goals were achieved, and as a direct result, our initial motivation is diminished.

Makes sense, doesn’t it? A theory nonetheless but still it’s something to think about…

Life is all about ups and downs. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fail. Sometimes we feel amazing, sometimes we feel down. We win or we lose. When we acknowledge this amazing balance in the cycle of life, we’ll be able to adapt accordingly and balance our expectations.

There is only one simple rule to keep in mind:

Always do your best!

That's right. As long as we do our best, about the thing we can control, we won’t be worried too much about the results. Because we did what we could and the rest is up to the universe.

Let’s try to apply the following workflow to our daily life. Everything we do must have a strong reason behind it. The reasons are the motivations that drive us toward our goals.

Here's a 30-day challenge I’ve come up with. I will pick one of my goals in life, and apply this workflow for the next 30 days:

• Step 1: Set your vision (WHAT): What am I going to accomplish?
• Step 2: Set your mission (HOW): How am I going to accomplish it?
• Step 3: Set your plan (WHEN): What's my plan to achieve my goal?
• Step 4: Set your strategy: How am I going to execute my plan?
• Step 5: Work hard and do your best: Which daily habits should I build to achieve my goal?
• Step 6: Be patient: Be consistent, work on a daily basis and stay calm
• Step 7a: Failure? Learn your lesson, and start over! So head over to #1.
• Step 7b: Success? Congratulate yourself, celebrate modestly, be proud of yourself and move on!

Enjoy the randomness of life...