People usually feel like they need a fresh start in their lives just around New Years. They start making plans, writing listicles and bucket lists for the next year. And it all goes well for a month or so before all Hell breaks loose. People think that the goals they’ve set up at the beginning of the year are not opened for discussion. They think that they have to stick with them for the rest of the year at least, otherwise, they’re weak.
Even though the evidence around them suggest they should stop doing whatever it is that they’re doing. Because the need for a new start can come about pretty much at any moment, not just at the end of last year. In fact, those New Years goals more often than not are not going to work for us. There are a few signs we should consider whenever we feel like what we do is not in perfect harmony with who we are, or should be.
Whenever these signs come up and are persistent, as in, they don’t go away in a month or two, we need to think about a fresh start in our lives. We need to push that fearful reset button, forget everything that we thought we knew about life, business and everything else and start over. Because if we don’t, we risk losing ourselves in the process of fulfilling a dream that’s not ours anymore, but we’re too stubborn to give up on it.
1. You wake up tired and are always complaining
When I was working my first job as a news reporter, I was doing my favourite thing ever. I was researching news, going to events, filming for the reports and so on. It was a bliss… until it stopped being a bliss. I’d always had to wake up at 4 in the morning to go report on some crazy accident. Someday, I’d have to report on a guy who’d kill himself by hanging or by overdose. The list goes on and on.
I started waking up tired, which has never happened to me ever before. That was the beginning of the end for my TV career. The next step towards damnation was the complaining. It hit me one day when my partner told me I needed to stop complaining or she would make a scene. I was like “I’m never complaining, what are you talking about?” But she was right.
About a week later, I submitted my resignation and started working on my own projects. I needed a fresh start and it proved to be the best, most inspired idea of my young adult life. Here’s the full story of how I started out as a journalist and how it led me to full-time freelancing.
2. Your financial plans are in jeopardy
Two years ago, I was writing a full 1000-word article for 5 bucks. I was just starting out as a freelancer, a content creator that wanted nothing more than financial freedom. I was never planning on becoming rich, and I’m still not doing that, but just be able to pay for food, rent, car, clothes and travels, of course. For a year, I struggled with my financial plans and the situation was getting worse and worse.
One day, I decided to leave Fiverr behind and search for new opportunities. I emailed some friends and previous business partners, telling them I was offering writing and translation services. I then signed up for an Upwork account and started looking for clients there. Two years later, I’m a financially independent, full-time content creator with no plans of stopping in the near future.
And all it took was for me to want and then to act on a fresh start. To leave a platform that was killing me behind and do things my own way. It was so simple, yet it took me a whole year to figure it out. I guess I might not be as smart as my mom says I am…
3. You don’t find joy in what you’re doing
Finally, you need a fresh start when even if you’re waking up fresh and never complain about stuff, and your bank account has at least 5 zero’s at the end of it, you simply don’t find joy in whatever it is that you’re doing. I feel like that towards the end of any of my projects. Writing is a creative thing. Whenever you write the same stuff over and over again for weeks or months on end, like reviews for 200 postal services websites, you start to feel overwhelmed.
Your emotions towards writing shifts from “I cannot wait to do my writing today!” to “I can’t take another day writing about this stuff!” The subject, writing, stays the same. The variable is the joy which gets lost in repetition. For you, it can be an office job like accounting. You’re doing the same invoices and taxes and whatnot day after day. It gets in your way more than you think, and with time, it makes you feel wrong inside.
When you constantly feel like there’s no joy in what you do for a living, you are definitely in desperate need for a fresh start. I don’t care how financially stable your job is. You need to sit yourself down, have a serious talk and tackle your situation. A fresh start will make everything better.
