76: [How-To] Knowing When It's Time To Start Over

Sometimes we just need to start over. In a career, in a relationship, in our health journey, whatever it is. But it's really hard to know WHEN it's time to start over. In this episode, I talk a bit about when it's NOT time to start over, the sure signs that it IS time to start over, and a couple quick tips to help you enter into that decision. 

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Transcript

0:01

Okay? Actually, I'm gonna start over right now. Okay. Welcome to Fill Your Cubs podcast. I'm your host Morgan and my co-host Bailey, she is on podcast maternity leave, but she's gonna come back and chat with us a bit next week. So more to come on that. Today's episode is going to be about starting over. I want to talk a little bit about this because I feel like it's something that we all face at some point. We are doing something that we just honestly just need to. Just 180 completely. Start over. Is it 180 or would it be 360? I don't know. Whatever you completely start over and that's okay. But sometimes it's hard to tell or know. Notice the signs of when that time is, when that starting over point should be. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about that in this episode today. I would love to hear if you resonate with this, if you feel like you're at a kind of a pivot point in your life right now, whether that's in your career or relationship or your health journey, whatever that is, I'd love to hear if you feel like you're kind of at a point where you need to either realign or start over, I'd love to hear about that. But before we get into the episode, I do wanna talk about what's filling my cups. So today I have. Scout coffee. It's my go-to. I love them. Shout out to scout. That was an unofficial shout out'cause I have a different shout out. But I got a dirty almond milk chai latte, and today I got some sugar free caramel in there. Just just for kicks and giggles, you know? So I love my scout. That is what's filling my cup. Hopefully you guys have something yummy filling your cups while you're listening to this. If you're in the car, maybe you're on your way to work. You got some coffee, maybe you're. Getting ready in the morning. You got some pre-workout or something going? I've been on an energized kick lately. If you don't know what that is, hit me up'cause it's the best. Whatever it is. I hope that you have something yummy and tasty to enjoy this episode. I do wanna do our shout out. So today is my sister Bailey's birthday. We both got lucky this year because both of our birthdays happened to be on Mondays this year, and that's when we released new episodes of the podcast. So her birthday's November 10th, happy birthday, Bailey Rose. You didn't know that her daughter, Mila Rose. Her middle name is also Bailey's middle name, so happy birthday Bailey Rose. I love ya and love the journey that we've done up to this point on Failure Cups podcast together. Shout out to you and happy, happy birthday. Please send Bailey happy birthday wishes if you haven't already now getting into the episode. So. Normally we talk about like where we thought of these episodes and just be totally frank with you. Okay. Story time. I'm gonna tell you a little story about where I kind of like thought of this episode and just be real and honest with you. So I've mentioned before that my husband Jared, and I go on walks every morning with our dog. He can't live without them. Our dog, not my husband, but our dog, just, he has to have his morning walk and has to have his afternoon walk. So it's a great time for us to separate the workday from our real life Anyway, so we really like it and we just kind of. Ketchup, whatever. But in the mornings, obviously neither of us have had our coffee. Typically. I have had my pre-workout, so I have some caffeine, but you know how sometimes you're a little cranky in the mornings, and especially if it's like a gloomy weather day or chilly or something like that, you just don't really, you're not really chatty. So sometimes on our walks we don't really talk very much, at least on the morning ones, but. Recently we were having a walk and I don't even remember what we were talking about, but it felt like one of those moments when you know, with your partner or spouse or whomever it is that you're talking with, and you just feel like you're kind doing this. If you're on YouTube, you can see I'm like putting my. Arms out in front of me and trying to cross them. Like you're just not aligning, right? Like you're just going past each other. I was noticing this because we were saying a lot of things like, well, no, that's not really what I meant, or, well, what I was saying was blah, blah, blah, and just kind of justifying what we were saying, and I truly don't even remember what it was, but at some point I was like, dude, we are not connecting. We are not in sync right now. I can tell it's irritating both of us. So I just said, Hey babe, I love you. Can we just start this over? Can we just have a do over? Because I feel like right now we are, we're not believing the best in each other. We're kind of assuming the worst intent in whatever the other one is saying. And things are, yeah, we're just not connecting correctly and we're not understanding each other. And I just think we need. To start over and it was in that and it was better. Honestly, I think we just talked less on the rest of the walk, in all honesty, but I think that it was just a moment for us to recalibrate. Okay. We're on each other's team. We don't need to be justifying, you know, we don't need to be justifying ourselves or explaining our thoughts or anything like that. We can just listen to one another and just. Know that that person means the best, you know? So I don't know if that's very relatable to you. If you ever have moments like that where you're just not clicking with your partner or in a close relationship and you just need to start over, but that might be something that could help. It kind of reminds me of, I think it's in the show. What's the, it's not Big Bang theory, it's the how I met your Mother, how I met your mother. It's Lily and Marshall. They do like the pause thing, which I've always thought would be really cool, but it seems really hard to implement. But they will like put a pause in their conversation if they're having a really rough conversation or an argument or something and they just go. They just go pause and then. At that moment, they have to leave it and they come back to it later maybe, or they don't, if it's not that important. So it kind of reminded me of that. But really all I was saying was like, let's just, let's just do a cartwheel, whatever, flip this over and start over. So. We did that and it, I was thinking about it later on in the day and I was like, this would actually be a really good podcast episode because that's a really trivial example that was just like in a conversation. But there are so many times when we are just trucking along, we are doubling down. We are full speed ahead in what we're doing, and we're honestly unhappy and. What we really need instead of just grinding it out and moving forward and accelerating and just doing more and more of what we're already doing. That's making us unhappy is just starting over. And I think that starting over. There's a lot of ego attached to this. We don't like to, you know, we don't like to think of ourselves as quitters. We don't like to start over because of, you know, sunk cost fallacy where we think, oh, well, I've already put all this time and energy into this. If I start over, then that all that time and energy was wasted, but. If you don't know, it's not cost fallacy. The whole idea is that, well, that time and energy has already been spent, so, so you're not wasting anything if you start over. But it just, the conversation that we had and that helpful piece of starting over really made me think that this could apply to larger areas of life. And so I wanted to come on here and talk with you about it. So. My hope is that you could resonate with this and that maybe if there is something in your life right now that you have been questioning or. Full steam ahead, but unhappy with that you, this would be your sign to start over. And I'm gonna talk a little bit about that. So I'm gonna talk about timing because sometimes it's not that you need to start over. So I do wanna address that. So I'll talk about when it's time, when it's not time to start over. And then I'm gonna talk about signs that it probably is time to start over. And then the last thing I'll talk about is how to do that gracefully. Make the most of it. So first I wanna start with the, when it's not time to start over. So sometimes, sometimes it's not time to start over, it's really just time to recommit. So this is something that I think about when I think about workout programs. So when I, I started doing Beach Body, now it's body workouts about five and a half years ago. And they're, you know, three week long workouts or nine weeks long, or a hundred days or however long workouts, 30 days, 21 days, whatever it is. And so that something that I noticed a lot of the time, whenever I would miss a day or I would just get off schedule or I'd go on vacation or something, the impulse in me was like. Okay, I'm no longer doing the Thursday workout on Thursday now I'm doing it on, you know, the following Monday or something like that. And my, IM, I had this strong impulse like, okay, well I already messed up so I need to start over. And I think that sometimes it's, that's not the answer. Sometimes it is, but sometimes that's not the answer. So sometimes it's like you really just need to recommit and it's okay. That's. Something that people have a lot of issues with, myself included when it comes to nutrition or fitness programs. I think it's kind of that all or nothing mindset. Like, if I can't do this all perfectly on the first try, then I can't do it at all, or I need to completely, completely start over. I don't think that's the case. So maybe in that case you just recommit and you. Start the next Thursday, or you just decide, okay, I'm gonna shift my days, or whatever that is. So I think about that a lot with like workout programs, but in other things too, like sometimes feeling uninspired in your job. Maybe you need to start over. That's, that could be, but what if you tried, you know, another role or what if you tried your job in another facet? Like say that you. Are a teacher and you really re, like you really liked teaching when you first started, but now you're burnt out. And girl, I don't blame you because teachers have it hard, but what if you are just grow outgrowing the school that you're in or the grade that you're in or something like that. Could you try something different first before completely quitting and starting over? Could you try. Applying to another school. Maybe it's another school. Maybe it's private versus public school. Maybe it's a city school versus a rural, rural school. Maybe it's a school where the classroom is 35 students instead of 25 students. Sorry, I meant that the opposite way, but like if you have 35 students in your classroom, girl, no wonder you're burnt out. Like maybe. Check out other districts where they have tw more like 20 to 25 students in a classroom, and that's not always possible. But I have a friend who's a teacher and she really felt very burnt out on teaching for a while. And then it turned out it was kind of just the circumstance that she was in. And so sometimes, yes, we need to start over, but sometimes we just need to recommit in a different way. So sometimes it's. About finding a different role or a different setting or something like that. What if it's not teaching first grade but it's teaching fifth grade? You know what if it's something like that and you can apply that to any job? I know right now I've been kind of open about being burnt out in my job and so I've been. Looking into other roles, looking into other things, you know, just to see is it the job, is it the company? Is it what I'm doing, or is it just the circumstance that I'm in? So that's something that you can consider if. If this applies to, you know, if you're feeling burnt out in your job or something like that. Another good example of when I feel like it's not necessarily time to start over is like in a relationship. So this could be a romantic relationship or it could just be a friendship, but if you're feeling disconnected, sometimes yes, sometimes it is time to start over. Sometimes it's time to cut ties with a person, you know, but say that you're married. My husband and I just celebrated nine years married, so we've been around each other for a long time. We were together five years before getting married, so we've been together a long time and sometimes, I mean, I just told you about my walk or our walk, but sometimes you get disconnected and that. Doesn't always feel good and sometimes it can send you into fight or flight mode where you go, you think, oh, I need to like go running for the hills. I, the way to solve this is to end it. Or, you know, start over. And I think that that could be the case. I mean, I don't know your situation. Obviously if there's abuse or something like that going on, then yes, I would encourage you to. Leave the person, but in a relationship, sometimes it's just that you need to communicate better. Sometimes it's that you don't need to start over, but you just need to take a minute and express your needs or express your desires, express your feelings, or set up a, you know, we talk a lot on the podcast about having check-in meetings with your partner. You need to need to set in, set up some check-in meetings, or if this is a friendship that you're thinking of where you're like, we are just outta sync, we're disconnected. I don't feel lit up by this person anymore. Is that something that you could share with them? You know, don't drag them down, but is that something that you could be like, Hey, can we have a conversation? I've been feeling really, I've been, I think I've been kind of sensitive about this lately, but I feel like lately we haven't been on the same page or we've had. Some moments where I've felt like kind of judged by you or whatever the thing is, you know, is that something that you could have a conversation about before deciding to just be like, well, no longer friends, you know, that person is outta my life. I'm starting over with new friends or just starting over alone. You know, relationships are so important. So I feel like there are times in relationships where it's not that you need a new partner or you need a new friend, or. You need to completely start over. It's just that you need to connect better. And sometimes that first step is really hard and really scary, especially if you've never done that or you anticipate that this person doesn't really realize that that's going through your brain. But it's better to face now than to be 10 years down the road and then you are starting over. You know what I mean? So I hope that makes sense. I feel like it's important to acknowledge that even though I am gonna talk about signs that it's time to start over. There are times when it's not time to start over. It's just time to like recommit to the process or address the issue or get creative and figure out if there's another, another thing that you could do that would help you to feel. Filled up and uplifted by this situation again. So ask yourself, you know, is this truly something that's misaligned for me? Or am I just feeling tired? Am I feeling stuck? Am I feeling kind of scared? You know, those are some things that you can ask. And then also ask yourself If this changed tomorrow, would I actually want to start from scratch? Like, would it actually be exciting to me to start new or am I just wanting something that's easier? Because this is hard right now. So when your job, like would you act, when you think about starting over to like, if everything changed tomorrow, you have a completely new job. Does that actually excite you? Or did you just want something easier? Because the thing is, if you start a new job, it's not gonna be easy from the get go. Right? You're envisioning quitting your job, and then getting a job that you just love, you know? But that's not always the case, especially at the beginning. So are you wanting something easier or are you actually feeling like you would want to start from scratch? Okay, so the next thing I wanna talk about, so that's when it's not necessarily time to start over some food for thought when you're, when it's not time to start over. Now I do wanna talk about signs that it is time to start over because ultimately that's what we're talking about today. So there are times when, you know, I feel like. When we trust our gut and our bodies, we can just do so much. But sometimes our intuition is telling us it's time to start over. And it's kind of like sometimes it's as obvious as yourself, your brain and your body just screaming at you like, we don't wanna do this anymore. We're over it. You know, we need something new, whatever. But sometimes. I'm not the most intuitive when it comes to things like that personally. So if you're like me, these are some signs. So there might be a situation where you are like shrinking yourself to fit. Whatever it is that you are stuck in or that you need to start over. So if it's, let's say like a hobby or something, like, we love our book club, right? We love book clubs so much, but are you diminishing yourself a bit as time goes on to like fit into the book club that might mean that it's not for you, right? Hopefully you don't feel like that if you're in our book club because we like to be welcoming to all but. Sometimes that's the case, or if it's that relationship that I'm talking about. Are you diminishing yourself or letting parts of yourself that you really love be dimmed? I guess for the other person, that is probably a strong indicator that you need to start over. That's not something that I guess can necessarily be. Solved with just a conversation. If someone is constantly making you feel small, that might be a sign that it's time to start over. Another thing that might be a sign is say that you tried what I talked about before, like you tried a different setting, you tried a different role, you tried a conversation, you tried to fix it, and it just didn't work, and it still feels off, and you still feel down and you still feel drained. Okay. Maybe, maybe it is time for the new new job, or maybe it is time for a new relationship, or maybe it is time to step away from a friendship for a while and kind of start fresh. This is kind of tough to think about, but when you imagine. Losing this thing, so losing your job or losing your friend, or losing your partner or losing book club, or whatever it is. When you imagine losing this thing, does it bring you relief or does it bring you fear if it's bringing you more relief than fear? That's a strong, strong indicator that it's time to start over. So I do wanna say that again because you might not, if you're in your car or walking your dog or getting ready or whatever, you might not have heard that. But when you imagine this loss losing, whatever it is that you're thinking about, starting over. Does it bring you more relief than it brings you fear? That's a good indicator that you should start over in this thing, right? So that's kind of hard because sometimes when we think about losing our job, that's really scary because of the income, a aspect of it. But just pretend that the income's there still, or you can rely on your partner or something or move in with your parents or whatever. But like think about if you're really thinking about your job in this instance, does it bring me more relief? Than fear to lose my job. You know? That's a really good indicator. Or same with a partner. I mean, I hate to say it because I hope that everybody stays together forever. It is lovey-dovey and romantic forever. But is it a situation where you feel like you would be more relieved than you would be scared on your own after leaving your partner? I don't know. That's really tough, man. But. That is a really, really good indicator. Another sign that it might be time to start over is that your life has changed and the structure of your life has changed, and the life that you want can't really exist in the structure that you've built around this thing that you're ready to start over, right? So. A good example of this would be, you know, we were talking about workout routines and things like that. Maybe you used to go to workout classes every day after work or something like that. Well, and now you have, now you have a kid, right? So it's really, really tough. You have to pick them up from daycare. You can't really go to workout classes every single day. You, but it's still is something that's good for you. So you're struggling with this. Maybe it's time that you start fresh. Maybe it's time that you. You start over with something different. Maybe it's time that you let go of those hot yoga classes or whatever it was, and you start to look into more walks. Like you can walk your kid in the stroller or you start to look more into at home workouts and you just, you need to start fresh and start with something new and release the thing that you were doing before because it's not, it's not benefiting you to be thinking about. To be feeling, I guess there could be a lot of shame with that or something like that where you're like, oh, I'm never going, I'm, I'm never working out. I'm just, you're not feeling good about yourself. That's a time when maybe it's time to start over. Or if you had a stru, a work structure before, right. And you ha you had this structure when you were single, of working in the evenings until you went to sleep or you. Just something that, just a totally different structure of your life and then now you have a partner and you have to consider their time and their feelings, and you have to give them quality time and you know, you might not be able to work the same hours or something like that. Maybe that's a moment when you have to realize, okay, like this job. The job is not the only, it's not just burning me out. I'm not just burnt out in my job. It's also impacting what I want my life to look like, and I cannot live the life that I want to live still in this job. Right. That could be a change of life structure that might have happened, The last sign, I would say of. It being time to start over and move on is you're holding on to whatever it is that you're not starting over or not giving up. You're holding on out of bad feelings, right? Like you're holding on out of guilt obligation, fear. Something bad, like you're not, you're not holding on because you love it or because you are curious about it or because you feel a sense of purpose in it. You're holding on because of obligation and guilt and fear, and that's a really good sign that this is something that we need to 180, right? Like as fast as possible. You know, like if you are. You're, you're maintaining a friendship that you're only doing because you feel really bad if you're not constantly checking in on them, but they're not really like giving much back to you, and they're not making you feel purposeful or loved or even, you know, throughout your daily life. Like you're not actually, you feel obligated to reach out to them, but you don't actually. I hate to say it, but care about what is going on because you guys are just disconnected that that might be a sign that it's time to move on or again, in your job. That's a great example when you're continuing out of obligation or fear of what would happen if you left, or guilt. That's something that in my past job, Bailey was really good about encouraging me on this. But my sister Bailey, but we talked a lot when I was in my last job and I was really burnt out. I felt a lot of guilt surrounding the fact that I was really close with my coworkers and I didn't want them to. I guess I just didn't want them to be left high and dry without me. But you can't stay in a job for your coworkers because at the end of the day, this is your life and this is your time, and this is your energy, and you only have a certain amount of that. And if you're burnt out in your job and it's time to start over, then you can't. You have to do that for yourself. You can't consider your coworkers in that. And then the other thing that kept me in that was a sense of fear. So I remember talking to her and being like. But at this point, like I have all this PTO and I have all this, you know, kind of benefits that I was thinking about, and I was like, it would suck to start over with that. Because the job that I'm in now, it started with like an accrual system. So instead of getting 14 days of PTO at the beginning of the year or whatever, you get like four hours of PTO every paycheck ev every other week. So when I first started the job, I had like no days off, right? So if I wanted to take a trip, it would have to be. Se you know, a few months into the job before I accrued enough PTO in order to take like a week long trip or something like that. And I was telling her that that was something that was scary to me. I was like, oh, I hate to let this go. And it was really, it was really sweet. She was like, well, Morgan, you don't even feel like you can take time off right now because you feel like they need you. And it's really hard. It's too hard to take time off because. Yeah, because you feel too like necessary in the every day and it would just be really hard to take time off anyway. And I was like, okay, yeah, you got a point. So anyway, all that to say, at that time it was definitely time for me to start over and I was really happy that I did, whenever I left, it made me, I, it was, I was so much happier once I left, but it would've been. Easy to stay stagnant in that place, out of fear or out of obligation or guilt to my coworkers and my PTO. So, and, and this could apply to a hobby too, you know, like maybe you are in, you're doing a business. This applied to when I was doing Beachbody, I was a body coach and I really liked it for a period of time, but then I noticed that I was, I was doing it more out of obligation and. A need to impress than I was out of just, it lighting me up and for a while it was lighting me up, like helping people with, like helping people get accustomed to the products and the workouts that I was doing. I mean, I still would definitely recommend the workouts and the products. I still do them myself, but at some point it felt obligatory and it felt. Like I was doing it to impress and not because it was lighting me up anymore. And so if you have like, you know, a side hustle or a hobby or a project or something that you're working on that just isn't lighting you up anymore, sure. Ask yourself the questions that I asked before, like if you, if you lost it, would you feel more relieved or would you feel more. Upset. You know it like if tomorrow that thing was gone, would you feel more relief and you would feel fear, but then also maybe, maybe that is a time where you just have to start over and you just have to say, you know what? I. I've put a lot of time and energy to into this and there's nothing wrong with that, but I am. It's not filling me up like it used to, and I only have so many days left on this earth, and I don't wanna spend them doing something that doesn't light me up and I'm not. Saying you can't like work hard that this, you maybe just need to work a little bit harder. Sometimes it is a matter of you just need to put a little bit more into it. But if you've really put yourself into it and you've done the things and you've stuck it out and you've reflected on it. It's, maybe it's just time to ditch it or start over, you know? So those are some of the signs. I feel like that it is time to start over. I think that when you do start over, something you can do to make it a little bit more graceful is take a second between. The last thing and the new thing. You know, really take some time to reflect and evaluate and just take a pause and think about, okay, what did you learn from this thing? Because you don't wanna resent the thing. Like, I have a lot of love for the job that I had before this job, and I don't feel bitter about it by any means, but it did teach me a lot and it was still time for me to start over. So think about what you learned from it. Think about. What alignment means for you and really consider that when you go into your next thing. And then honestly, take some small steps, like when, if you decide it is start over or time to start over, maybe you can just take some steps to figure out what it is that you love, what it is that you, that lights you up and gets you excited and feels aligned to you. You don't have to like burn everything down to start over. You can start slow. Take a few steps and, oh, if you step this direction and that doesn't feel right, take a few steps back, you know? So. These are all things that you can do. And then the last thing I would say is if it, if you do feel this pull, you're like, I need to start over. Talk to people about it. Surround yourself with people that will uplift you in this decision. People that will help support you, because it's really hard to do this alone, and especially if you're breaking off a relationship or you're starting a new job, or you are. Quitting a, a hobby or a project or totally 180 or 360, we still don't know which one your life. Then it's so much better to have someone with you supporting you through that and maybe giving you some guidance if they've ever been through it or some just support so. Hopefully this episode was helpful for you. I feel like it's important to say that starting over isn't just like giving up. It's about giving yourself the space and the grace to grow and change and evolve, and that's okay. And sometimes it's okay to start over. So if you like this episode, please, please, please leave a five star rating and a review. We love to see the reviews on Apple Podcasts, the ratings on Spotify, and then drop us a comment if you're watching on YouTube. I don't have my cohost here with me today, Bailey or Ed, but if you're watching on YouTube and you enjoyed this episode, please let me know. We love to hear your feedback, and next week we will have Bailey on to chat a little bit. So we're gonna be talking a little bit about the, about what's coming next in the podcast. So we would love to have you listen in next week. You don't wanna miss this episode. Please tune in and have a great rest of your day. Cheers.