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Today Is a Good Day to Start Over

Two years ago I wrote a post called Start Your Resolutions on January 6th. This date is now associated with other events—not my fault!—but the greater point holds.

You don’t need a specific day to start a resolution or new habit. You can also start over any time. In fact, you can start over with starting over if you need.

It’s that second part that I think more people need help with. You decide to change something, but then change is hard, so you get frustrated and give up. Then, of course, you feel bad about giving up.

Eventually you decide to change again—because this time it will be different!—but it turns out that change is still hard, so you get frustrated and give up again.

I often think of this classic talk by Ira Glass in relation to creative work:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit.”

Or as I think of it, “You know it can be good, but it’s not, so you have to find your way through the muddle.”

And the muddle itself has value, but let’s be real: you also want to get through it. So as Ira says so well (be sure to watch that video; it’s great), you really need to keep going!

And if you need to start or restart your resolutions on January 2, or February 12, or November 25—do it. It’s a lot better than waiting for another year to come around.

The New Blog

After 12 years of blogging, I decided to start over.

My blog felt stale for a long time, but I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. I hired (and paid) multiple designers, who all had interesting ideas that weren’t quite right.

I finally decided: I’m the problem, not them—at least for the most part. I need to make a bigger change.

And then I thought: let’s look forward, not back. I don’t just want a redesign, I want to create an experience.

Finally, as for timing. Here’s a fun story: I originally planned to do this last January (as in, a whole year ago!), but working on a big project in December is always tough. My friend Corbett Barr had recently done his own redesign, and I wrote to him to say I liked it and was working on my own. I told him I hoped to launch it in January, but the date might slip.

Corbett replied, “As you know, February 1 has a nice ring to it.”

I liked that. Why not February 1? Why not today—as in, whatever day it is?

But then February turned into December, as the logical order of months usually does, and I finally finished. But that’s okay! It’s ready, and that’s good.

I hope you enjoy it. I also hope you make something of your own to share.

Let’s get back to basics! Who else is ready to start over?

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