Begin Again
The fundamental skill of progress is to begin again.
Like a lot of us, I was at a New Year’s Eve party, and of course the topic of New Year’s resolutions came up.
It was a pretty accomplished crowd of early to late middle agers. And the consensus I kept hearing was: people don’t really make resolutions anymore.
Honestly… fair.
Most of us have lived long enough to realize New Year’s resolutions can be kind of a Hallmark card situation. Pop culture. Morning TV show energy. And then… they don’t last. Most people fall off them.
But here’s the thing: even if you don’t do “resolutions,” this time of year is still useful.
These calendar reset points are a great excuse to reflect. To think about how you want your upcoming year to be different, improved, or even the same. What you want more of. What you want less of. What you want to protect. What you want to stop tolerating.
So no, I don’t have New Year’s resolutions.
I do have intentions. And I think about ways to tweak things, do them better, and have more positive impact. Not “life hacks.” Just small, real adjustments that actually add up.
And that brings me to the whole point of this post:
The fundamental skill of progress is to begin again.
Sam Harris talks about this a lot in meditation practice. Oliver Burkeman (author of 4,000 Weeks) points to it in the way he observes how humans actually live. And it shows up everywhere if you’re paying attention: in addiction recovery, relapsing is acknowledged as part of recovery. In any personal goal, fumbling is part of being human.
So instead of a resolution, the mantra I’ve been using, and encouraging other people to use, is this:
Begin again.
It helps because it acknowledges reality.
It reminds you that you will falter. Not because you’re a loser. Because you’re a human being with a nervous system, habits, stress, distraction, and a brain that loves comfort like it’s getting paid by the couch.
And when you do falter, “begin again” keeps you from doing the extra damage: the judging, the harsh self-talk, the dramatic story that you “always do this,” the week-long spiral because you missed two days.
Instead:
Acknowledge it.
Be curious about why you faltered and what factors were at play.
Begin again.
And then you’ll do that again. And again. And again this year.
Brad Stulberg has a great way of describing this. He says your life isn’t like following a road. Roads have clear edges, even when they curve. Life is more like a path: it meanders, the edges are ill-defined, and sometimes you lose it.
And then your job is simple (not easy, but simple):
Return to the path.
That’s it.
Pick your phrase: begin again, return to the path, whatever lands for you.
But build it into your year like it’s part of the plan, because it is.
