A Soft Spot For Beginnings

I think I have a soft spot for beginnings. Maybe a blind spot too. A beginning is brimming with so much possibility. It’s something new, and usually something exciting. Beginnings capture passing time, but not in the same way as endings. With endings, it’s easier to calculate the places we succeeded or fell short, and the time we already spent. But beginnings focus on everything ahead.

I think my favorite part of beginnings though is that they can be at any time. A new beginning, a fresh start, can happen on any day. I love the clean slate feel of a new month, a new week, a new year though. But a Tuesday is just as good a day to wake up earlier as a Monday. And it’s perfectly fine to start doing ten pushups every day on a Thursday. Really, a beginning is whenever you decide to start.

My planner has a habit tracker, and I’m a sucker for turning the page to a new month. I pretty much track the same habits, month after month. But I like to see how I’m trending. Am I getting more or less sleep than last month? Drinking more or less water? Am I going to bed earlier this month? Am I getting in more days of core work? Running more or less miles?

For someone who doesn’t like setting goals, I feel like I set a lot of them. Every year, every month, and every week. Most of them aren’t particularly ambitious though. Not on the grand scale. They are pretty much about keeping my eyes focused in the direction I’d like to go. All these goals and habits help me stay focused on the thing most important to me in the long term. That’s being someone I’m proud of.

Anyway, this year has been busier than the last two. There are things I really like about that and things that I don’t. It’s great to see family and friends more often. It’s pretty awesome to be doing work that is both challenging and exciting. But I have to be more focused and diligent if I want to stick with my routines. And I also have to be a bit more flexible with my goals.

Like a kid with dessert, I think our eyes are often bigger than our stomachs. We often bite off way more than we can chew. And a new month is a perfect chance to refresh and refocus.

Here’s what I know about the next several months ahead. I’m going to feel like I have a lot on my plate, almost constantly. The choices I make every day are going to help me manage it all, or they are going to overwhelm me. And I have an opportunity every day to choose a new beginning when I need to. Some days are going to be great and I’ll feel on top of it all. Other days will need to be a reset. And I’m ready for both kinds of days ahead.

I’m going to be on an airplane every couple of weeks, and often traveling for weekends back to back. My location will be constantly changing, and my routine will often feel disrupted. But it doesn’t have to be disrupted as much as I think. Not if I stay clear on my priorities. Not if I do my best to stick to a structure. And I’ve worked hard these last few months figuring out what that structure and those routines need to be.

My routines are designed to keep me grounded. I know what’s important to me, and I know what keeps me focused. And the cool thing is that I don’t need a perfect scorecard of wins to feel proud of myself. I’m good with the mix of structured days and flustered days that make up my life. Just as long as the flustered day count is regularly lower than the win days, I’m good.

Last week was a good week of new beginning days. I saw the great possibilities in my summer plan routines. Then, this week so far has been a bit more flustered. But tomorrow is always another chance at a new beginning.