You Aren’t Making Progress Because You Keep Starting Over
From someone who’s been there too many times
You’re not stuck. You’re just addicted to the high of starting over.
We all are.
Starting over feels productive. New notebook, fresh Notion template, brand-new plan, Monday morning energy, maybe even a fresh workout to round it out.
You tell yourself this time it’s different . This time, it’s going to stick.
Except it doesn’t. Again.
Why?
You hit a bump. Something doesn’t go to plan. You skip one day (or five). The motivation dies down. The shiny fades. And what do you do?
You burn it all down and start again. That’s why we love January 1st.
New goal. New system. New font. Been there. You Marie Kondo your digital life into oblivion, mistaking it for momentum.
Progress isn’t sexy. Consistency is.
And consistency is dam*n hard and boring. Showing up on day 147 when the thrill is gone and your latest life-optimization to-do list has lost all its glory.
Reset Button
Our brains love novelty.
A fresh start gives us dopamine on tap. That’s why buying a planner in January feels life-changing. It’s a trap we all fall into.
You think you’re simplifying. You’re actually self-sabotaging.
When you start over, you erase not just the “mistakes” but also the data. The messy, imperfect, still-useful data. You lose your history. You can’t track patterns. You can’t build resilience. You stay a beginner in a loop of eternal restarts.
And you start with nothing. Other than a “good” feeling.
Why We Really Start Over
It’s not laziness. You’re likely one or all of the following:
Perfectionist: If you can’t do it right, you don’t want to do it at all. So instead of fixing the flat tire, you junk the whole car and lease a new one.
Impatient: You want results now, and when they don’t come fast enough, you decide the whole system is broken (rather than… just slow). This is probably most of us.
Addicted to aesthetics: If it’s not pretty, it doesn’t count, right? You’d rather redesign your habit tracker for the fifth time than actually go for a walk.
Afraid of failure: Starting over is a way to delay failure indefinitely — because if you never stick with something, you can’t really say you failed.
Or worst-case, you don’t enjoy the thing, just the setup.
I’ve been in all of those categories with one or the other thing in the past.
So, What Helps?
Revolutionary idea… hear me out:
Keep going. Don’t quit. Again.
Even when it’s messy. Especially when it’s messy.
Missed a week? Don’t start over. Just pick up where you left off.
Tracker looks ugly? Who cares. You’re not chasing design award. You want to track something.
Didn’t meet your goals? We all do. Analyze, adjust, but don’t abandon.
Momentum isn’t created by doing something once perfectly. It’s built by doing something imperfectly over and over again.
Day One
Day One is easy. Day One is addictive. Day One is all potential, no pressure.
Day Two? Things get real.
Day 87? That’s where things get good.
Day 143? That’s where you become systematic.
You can’t get to Day 143 if you keep quitting on Day 6.
How to Break the Start-Over Cycle
Here are a few strategies to stop ghosting your goals and start sticking around:
“Streak Repair” mindset. Missed a day? No problem. Your only job is to get back on track the next day. One miss is human. Two is a pattern.
Use ugly systems. The more beautiful your setup, the more emotionally attached you’ll be — and more likely to burn it down if it gets messed up. Functional, not flawless.
Log your efforts, not your outcomes. Don’t track if you hit 10,000 steps. Track if you showed up. Progress hides in effort.
Failure is feedback. If something doesn’t work, fix it within the current system. Don’t ditch the whole thing. That’s like throwing out your wardrobe because one shirt didn’t fit.
The Bottom Line
If you’re always starting over, you’re never moving forward. Starting over feels good. Finishing feels better.
You’re not one restart away from success. You’re one decision away from not quitting this time.
I feel like you personally wrote this to me. I was stuck in the starting over mindset for a long time!