On starting… Close in

We’re ten days into the new year already. Here's how to restart.

We’re ten days into the new year already.

How are your resolutions holding up?

• New habits

• New career focus

• New relationships

Or you might be like me… I don’t make “resolutions”. I have never been interested in them.

But every year, I do get sucked into signing up for a few “new year, new me” style challenges. I’m eager to start chipping away the dead wood and forming that new me, much like I imagine Michelangelo gradually revealing the statue of David from a big block of marble.

You can taste the excitement in the air. There is something special about new beginnings.

But then…

Life happens. As it always does. Right on cue…

• You get sick

• Your kid gets bullied

• A family member in hospital

• A career opportunity falls through

• The economy tanks, and the future looks scary

Suddenly, your world starts caving in. You feel besieged, surrounded with no way out. A choking sense rises from within. Suddenly, everything you were excited about only a few days or more ago feels like a distant pipe dream out of the realm of possibility.

Now you feel this sinking dread inside. You’ll have to surrender back to your old life — the life of mediocrity, where you hide from courageous challenges and shy away in the corners of your life, playing it safe.

Where has this supposed “new me” gone?

Much like my labradoodle, it’s all bark and no bite. When trouble enters the premises, she’s cowering under the table: all talk and no real action.

That’s how it feels when we are overwhelmed. We can’t see a way out. We feel paralysed.

But there is another way out.

You can start… Close in.

This time of the year, I reflect on one of my favourite poems from David Whyte, Start Close In:

"Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take."

It’s a powerful reminder that we don’t have to get too far ahead of ourselves. It’s easy to look at the second, third, tenth, and even hundredth steps down our new path.

And so what do we do?

We get overwhelmed.

It’s too much to bear.

We have a powerful vision of our future out on that distant horizon. But we’re afraid to begin that conversation. We’re intimidated by the thought of much to lose with no guarantees of gain.

A mentor of mine used to always say to me when undertaking a daunting project:

“How do you eat an elephant? Piece by piece.”

And it’s cliché but true. It’s not a pretty picture, but you would never swallow a whole elephant in one go like a snake swallows an entire rat. No, you must eat that elephant in smaller, manageable chunks. And this is how you should approach your “new year, new me” ambitions.

Start small, close in.

When you start close in, you can begin to nurture your voice from within, a voice that feels authentic. You’re less consumed by the influential voices of others, steering you towards their visions, but not yours. You’re no longer pulled in a million different directions, doomed to fail, but instead carving your path. There is nothing more meaningful than forging your own way in the world.

Do things a little differently this year.

Start with the first step.

Close in.

What is that step you don’t want to take?

Why not take it today?

That will have more impact than making and breaking a bunch of random resolutions.

You got this. I’m cheering for you!