Why Starting Over Again Can Be a Good Thing

Starting all over again can be hard. Often, we are faced with a situation where we have to start again, the decision’s been already made. We may not even have a say in the decision to start over again. Be it ending a relationship, shutting down your business, or quitting a job. When we have to start all over again, the decision to do so is seldom in our hands.

Not just that, it is often imposed on us rather suddenly. You may have seen it coming, but still. It reaches that finality that you did not expect abruptly. We are usually in for a rude awakening.

This thing we’ve been looking at starting all over again is also likely something we are attached to or have at least spent a considerable amount of time doing. Be it time, money, energy, goodwill, or any other resource, we’ve likely invested a lot into it.

When we are looking at the prospect of a fresh start, we are often in denial. We just don’t want to face it. How can we even comprehend the idea that starting over is a good thing when we’ve not even accepted that it is over?

Accepting that things have changed drastically for you is the first step in the process. Once you have confronted the reality of failing, you will be able to see many advantages of starting again.

The Mandala

Before we dive into the advantages of starting again, we’d like to take a moment to talk about mandalas, specifically how Tibetan/Buddhists do. A mandala is an intricate circular design that is created by Buddhist monks as a form of meditation. Monks create these patterns using colored power and many times create beautiful stories from the illustrations that they make with grains of colored sand. This process takes days to complete. Many monks give up food and sleep to create these patterns. Needless to say, it is an arduous process.

When they finish creating the mandala, the monks who created it in the first place gather together and destroy it. They undo what they spend days creating, with love and care. There is an important lesson in this process. That everything is transitory. Nothing is constant except change. Accepting change is probably the most important skill that we as humans can learn.

And after they destroy the mandala? What then? They begin again. Just like we must as well. Here are a few more reasons why starting all over again is a good thing.

It provides a bird's eye view of the problem.

When we have to start all over again, we can distance ourselves from the one thing that was taking up a lot of attention and effort from us. We are forced to look at it from a different perspective. Instead of zooming in, we are zooming out and taking a birds’ eye view of the problem. Taking a bird’s eye view becomes especially important when we’ve been at it for years.

Opens up other avenues.

If we’ve been working on something for a while, we seldom have the opportunity to change the course of that project. For instance, if your startup is focused on selling product X, then product Y was something you could never do. But if your circumstances require you to start all over again, suddenly, product Y also becomes a viable product in your consideration set.

When you have to start all over again, you can change the outcome. You can even change the rules of the game, or the game itself.

Provides a sense of relief.

If we’ve been struggling with the situation in question for a while, not being able to make a decision either way, then the prospect of starting again likely gives us a sense of relief. Sometimes, when we spend a lot of time and energy on something, all the while doubting if we should be doing it in the first place, we experience a sudden sense of relief when it comes to an end. This reduces the load on our emotional, physical and mental capacity and frees it up to take on something else or to just begin the process all over again.

Allows for learning.

When we are faced with the prospect of starting something all over again, we have to rethink everything. And to do it better and faster, we look back to the last time we attempted to do it. When we are in a position to finally look at it from that perspective, we can truly see what we learned from it. There were things that we did well, that worked and that we should be doing this time around as well.

It also allows us to see the mistakes we made and how we can avoid them this time around. Our plan, when we start over again, is usually smarter, agile, efficient, and cost-effective. Not to mention, it increases the stakes for us, for success. And when we start with that kind of experience, passion, and conviction again, we increase our chances of success.

Starting over is not a bad thing. Sometimes, that is exactly what we need to do. When life puts us in situations that require us to start over, we have to believe that there is a reason for it. That happened because it is going to be good for us in the long run.

Remember, anything that is worth something, takes time to build. So, if your current reality requires you to start something all over again, don’t hesitate. Know that you are unable to connect the dots today, but sooner than later, you will look back to this very moment and know that starting over was good. That this happened for a reason.

What did you have to start all over again? How old were you then? Let us know in the comments. We’d like to hear from you. And who knows, it may inspire someone else to start all over again, too.