Lessons from starting again

Somewhere along the line, I have got quite good at starting again.

From many job changes throughout my late teens and early twenties to moving house or relocating at what has at times felt like the drop of a hat. Starting again has become something that I have developed a bit of skill around.

For those sorts of life changes, I have appreciated this ability. I am a quick learner, so picking up a new job has always felt straightforward enough. And, in relation to moving and relocating, I have found that I am able to feel at home somewhere new with relative ease.

This ability has been more challenging to navigate when it comes to the various hobbies or passion projects I have wanted to pursue.

For me, starting again has been tainted with some negative feelings in the past.

It can often feel like a failure. You can find yourself consumed with feelings and thoughts relating to where you are now and where you could’ve been (or where you assume you could’ve been) if you had carried on with something you started.

I have often found myself thinking, “if I had carried on when I initially started this, I would be so much further ahead” or “if I hadn’t quit, I might have finished this by now”. But, when you break those thoughts down, it quickly becomes clear that they don’t serve any purpose except to derail any motivation you might have had around starting your current project again.

Something that has come up for me a few times since working on The Rede Collective is that I have found myself watching YouTube videos or reading articles that feel familiar, only to realise that I watched them years before when I was working on a previous iteration of this project.

When this happens, I often find myself thinking, “Great, you watched or read this years ago, and you aren’t much further along!” But, when I take a step back, I realise that I am not the same person who watched that video or read that article all those years ago. I can now approach my creative pursuits with more experience and a stronger sense of self, which ultimately means I can share things with greater authenticity.

I read a quote while researching for this post that said:

“You are not starting from scratch; you are starting from experience.”

This applies to this experience because, as mentioned, I am not the same person, experience-wise, as I was when I last consumed that content. I have evolved, gained new insights, and developed different outlooks, and these can all help to align The Rede Collective with who I am today.

Another positive is knowing that all this time has passed, and I am still intrigued by the same idea, which means that it must really resonate with a part of me, so it should be brought to life.

Starting again presents you with a new chance to succeed, in whatever form success takes and feels like for you.

It can be so easy to say that the conditions aren’t right. There will always be a reason why you can’t start something again. But the tricky thing to come to terms with for any perfectionists out there (talking to myself…), is that there will never be the perfect moment.

I feel like I am a pro at convincing myself to wait until Monday, wait until the weather is warmer, wait until the weather is colder, wait until I have finished this or done that, or thought about everything, but the conditions will never be perfect.

The perfect thing for you to do is to start, even in the smallest way. It could be reading a few pages of a book relating to what you want to start, or it could be as big as spending a day designing your website.

Once you have started in some way and got the ball rolling, you can give yourself a chance to build momentum, which will then lead to the opportunity to develop consistency and see the small steps turn into significant changes.

Starting again is something that you can always do. If something isn’t aligning with you anymore and you have decided to pivot a project, starting again can be what gets you back on track and working towards your goals. However, it is essential to experiment and find the balance between starting anew and continually reinventing yourself and your project.

This is something I have had to come to terms with recently. I initially came up with the idea for The Rede Collective in 2020. Even as I write this, I still struggle to comprehend how five years have passed, and I am only just at what feels like the true beginning now. It has gone through various iterations during those five years. There have even been whole years where I haven’t done any work on it beyond daydreaming about what it could be.

I definitely found myself falling into the trap of starting small, then pulling back, altering how I will show up, adding more ideas, and then feeling overwhelmed by how much there was that “needed” to be done.

I have often wondered where it would be now if I had started and committed to it all those years ago, but as mentioned earlier, that isn’t productive thinking.

I am starting again now.

It may change and pivot over time; in fact, it almost definitely will.

But I am starting again with who I am and where I am now.

Another quote I came across during my research was:

“Start simple; you can make it fancy later”

As a perfectionist, this quote sparked something within me because almost every part of me wants whatever I start to come out into the world fully formed and in its most perfect state, but that isn’t possible.

So, what can you do today to start again?

It could be a tiny step in a new direction, or it could be a giant leap that you have been putting off for months or even years. Because who knows where you will be in one, three, or six months, let alone this time next year, if you use today to start again.