In a blog post titled "A New Year is a Beautiful Fresh Start," Leo Babauta writes about how we should embrace the opportunity for fresh starts. His Zen teacher said to him, after he admitted that he wasn't studying as much as he should, "Start at one," referring to the mindful breathing practice of beginning again. Babauta notes that he was going to use "Start at One" to be one his mantras this year.
Practicing a fresh start in each day
Ask yourself...
- what would I like to do with this incredible day?
- what would make today incredible for me?
- what am I feeling called to do today? What's most important?
These are similar to questions about setting intentions. And these questions can help focus every time we find ourselves distracted:
- What is most important right now? What would you like to do with this incredible hour in front of you?
Practicing with the blank slate of the new year
- What would make this an amazing year for you?
- What is possible for you this year?
- Who would you like to be?
Take 30 minutes thinking about the fresh space of the new year. Is this the year you finally write your book? launch something? create something? Tackle something hard and scary and meaningful? Are there new habits you want to create? This is your year, to use however you like. What magic can you create?
Putting it Into Action
In another blog post, he addresses "How to Actually Do the Thing." There are ideas like: find an accountability buddy, get small victories, start small (the smallest possible chunk), celebrate.
He suggests that we get into the "habit of recognizing what you're avoiding, turning towards it (instead of away from it), and then just starting."
Why do we avoid the thing?
We often spend our days doing everything but the hard thing we don’t want to do.
We’ll research something to death instead of actually just doing the thing. We’ll talk about it, read about it, buy all the equipment for it, but not actually do the thing. We’ll do our email, messages, small tasks, and check social media or the news — just real quick! — instead of doing the thing.
Why? We’re protecting ourselves from uncertainty. We don’t want to feel like we don’t know what we’re doing. We don’t want to look stupid. We don’t want to feel overwhelmed, we don’t want to feel like we’re not good enough, we don’t want to feel like a failure or disappointment.
We’re protecting ourselves from feeling that. So we do everything else, out of protection.
And of course, it doesn’t work. Avoiding doing the thing actually just makes us feel more overwhelmed, more like a failure or disappointment, more stupid or not good enough.
Avoidance doesn’t actually work.
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