Don't Start Over - Start Back Up

For most probationers, especially those who have been in the system for a while, their world is full of starts and stops. The starts are often preceded with dreams, hopes and ambitions and the stops usually lead to the crushing of those dreams, hopes and ambitions. The biggest problem for most of them is failing to understand that continuous forward motion is impossible and that they will hit bumps and hills in the road that will stop their progress in its tracks. They have never learned that they should just pick up where they stopped. Not start over, but just pick right back up and get moving again.

Unfortunately, most probationers have failed so often that every failure is just confirmation of their inability to change or make their lives better. Most of us can see this same issue in our own lives. We often give up and quit when we are stopped in our goals and we have to learn to not let that happen.

Get going again whenever you stop, because you will stop. It won’t matter how long or devoted to something you are, you will stop at some point. Stopping may be due to illness, stress, loss, fear, or even boredom, but something will get in your way and stop whatever progress you have been making. How you handle the stop will define where you end up in regard to your goals and plans.

If you are able to start moving forward immediately after stopping - do it. Don’t wait, just start back up. The quicker you start up, the easier it is to get back on track. Often, if the break isn’t too long, you won’t even notice a difference in your progress. But this means not beating yourself up for stopping, obsessing about your failure, or thinking you should just quit because you stopped. We often let our mind give us excuses to not keep going. You need to not let that happen. When you get back on track quickly, you are able to forgive yourself for stopping and prove to yourself that you are doing what it is you need to do to be successful.

If you are forced into a longer stop due to issues beyond your control (and they need to be issues that truly keep you from moving forward) then start back as soon as you can. While you are stopped, take time to review your goal and reassess what steps you will need to take once you are able to get moving again. Don’t allow yourself to forget, or rationalize away, the change or goal that you set. If you keep your goal in mind, thinking about how you are going achieve it and what it looks like, you will be able to begin following through once the road block is removed from your path.

Give yourself the best opportunity to be successful by keeping yourself moving forward. You will not always be able to keep momentum going as you planned and you will be challenged on multiple occasions to quit. By remembering to start back up, not start over, but pick up right where you left off, you will ensure that you actually make it to your goal. This skill of continuing forward will not only strengthen your ability to complete what you start; but will make it easier for you to create and meet future goals. The more you do something, the better you will get at doing it.