Any day is a new day to start over

Hello friends!

These days ago I read somewhere the phrase: “Any day is a new day to start over” and this phrase stuck in my head. After all, it is not necessary to wait for the new year or the beginning of a new week or the year that begins after Carnival to start over, right? It is also an interesting phrase because, on a new day, on a new morning, we have the simple but extremely ancient and profound experience of the birth of the sun.

In this text, I want to share with you some tips for starting over. Come on?

Well, leaving aside all the excuses and justifications for continuing to do what one shouldn’t or doesn’t want to do, we can start over. A technique often used at the end of the year is to write down resolutions of what you want to change. It may seem like a useless behavior – especially when the promises are falling apart and the inertia of the old behavior continues – but this technique, of writing on paper, is very effective.

You can write it on a paper and put it in a visible place. Some people put it in front of the bathroom mirror, others next to the computer screen or on the work table. Advancing a little with technology, we can use applications that set the resolutions on the screens of smartphones or tablets.

This would be a first step: what do you want to change?

A tip that seems like superstition but is fundamental is to write the sentences in the affirmative. That is, instead of writing what is not wanted, what is not the desire, we should write affirmative sentences, of what we want.

For example, instead of writing “I don’t want to spend so much money on my credit card buying junk” it’s better to write: “I want to save”. Even better if the objective is quantifiable: “I want to save X reais per day”.

In the same way, we can think of other examples. Instead of “I don’t want to get fat”, it’s better to write: “I want to lose weight”. Even better if it’s: “I want to lose X kilos in X days”.

Instead of writing: “I don’t want to be a lazy student”, it is better to write: “I want to be an excellent student”, and if we add a quantifiable goal like – “I want to read as many pages a day” or “I want to get as many grades A” the process becomes easier to happen.

The idea of ​​quantifying it in smaller or observable behaviors (saving X amount, losing X pounds, reading X pages) is a step beyond just writing because we will be able to assess whether or not change is truly occurring. Well, think with me: if you think “I want to lose weight” it’s something vague and even a little abstract, isn’t it? Because you can lose 100 grams and you will be reaching a goal, but is losing 100 grams what you want?

Another advantage of putting goals in a quantifiable way is that, with this, we can divide the process into stages. Let’s say we’re going to have to study 100 pages of a complex subject. One step might be to read 25% of that in one week and the rest in the following weeks.

Once we complete step 1, the 25%, we can give ourselves a small reward, what technically in behavioral psychology we call positive reinforcement. For example, if we complete step 1, we go to a great restaurant for dinner on the weekend.

When I was in psychology college, in one of the disciplines (experimental psychology) we had to create a self-experiment, that is, we had to create a behavioral experiment in which each of us was the experimental subject.

I remember that I was starting to study German and the experiment I proposed was to evaluate the effectiveness of the token system on the behavior of learning new German words. The token system is similar to what I said above reading X pages a week.

What we have added to this system is the systematic recording of behaviors each day and the creation of positive reinforcement (a “gift”) if the behavior is emitted. Anyone who has seen the Super Nanny program will immediately recognize this system.

Another possibility to establish lasting changes in our behavior is to write down the objective and communicate it to people we respect and who are important to us. For example, we can choose parents as people who are important for the evaluation we make of ourselves or else childhood friends or lovers, in short, some people are chosen and the idea is to communicate the objective to them, that is, to make it public the commitment to change.

Let’s say: “In X years I want to pass a contest”.

This is a clear goal, set a deadline. Even better, as we saw above, would be if it also included what to do to achieve it, such as face-to-face and online courses, studying unknown subjects in more depth, etc.

What is relevant in this other possibility of changing and starting over is that by making the commitment public, we will have even more breath, even more will to continue when tiredness or discouragement comes or the feeling that it will not happen. Considering that the objective is then to get to know people close to you who are important, it creates more will and more strength to persevere.

Conclusion

Every day is a new day to start over. It doesn’t matter what we didn’t do yesterday. What was not done remains to be done and we can only do it today, now. The point is that many people have doubts about what would be the best way to start over.

Well, to start over we have to know where we want to go. In other words, we have to know what our goals are. By creating defined, clear, quantifiable objectives, we will be able to monitor the progress that is being made. We will be able to reinforce each other for every step taken in the right direction.

And if it is an individual desire, an additional force for the realization of a purpose is to make this purpose public. Not public for all the people we know, but public in the sense of being known by people who really love us and who we really love, whose opinion matters, because that way we will not only be counting on extra help to have the strength to continue forever but we will also count on the help and encouragement of these same people.

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