It’s always Day One

Have you ever wished life could be a little simpler? A little less noisy? A little more focused?

That’s one of the reasons I love models and frameworks. Done well, they create a fantastic simplified container for moving through life. They can offer a greater sense of certainty around how-to and where-next. And our certainty-craving brains love that!

But no matter how helpful they are, there inevitably comes a time when life starts to spill over the edges of that container. We lose track. We get sucked into the wild.

The problem isn’t us. It’s this one simple fact:

Life is messier than the model.

I’m no stranger to this, much to my chagrin. I’ll be rolling along, merrily using the tools and ways of thinking about things that help me simplify the mess and make sense of what I’m doing and where I’m going. And then, whomp! Something challenging blindsides me. Or my supreme distractibility makes me lose track and I wander off the trail and get a little lost.

Suddenly it’s not all nice and tidy. Suddenly I’m not feeling a solid clarity about what I’m doing or where I’m going. Or maybe I have just fallen off the horse altogether and I’m lying on my back going nowhere.

One simple idea

When life feels messier than the model, there is a single simple idea that helps me let go, refocus, and start moving forward again.

It’s always Day One.

Whatever I’m trying to do, whether it’s trying to achieve something in my business, or navigate personal challenges, or develop skills in my woodshop, it’s always Day One.

Whatever has been happening – however off track I have gotten, however lost, or self-judgmental, or unproductive, or downright inept I have been – starting right now, it’s Day One of the journey to wherever I’m going.

As someone who has a long history with a strong inner critic (I’ll write more about him in a future post – his name is Brutal Bart), it can be easy to get lost in self-recrimination for the time or opportunities I wasted, or my lack of progress, or how distracted and unfocused I have been, or any one of a million other ways my path has been unsatisfactory till now.

When I find myself getting lost in that kind of frustration, I come back to that one idea.

It’s always Day One.

Day One of my vision for the difference I feel called to make.

Day One of building my business.

Day One of learning to be more self-compassionate.

Day One of learning to play the ukulele.

Day One of the rest of my life.

Clear the Etch-a-Sketch

The thing I love most about coming back to Day One is that it functions as a kind of reset. It’s like an Etch-a-Sketch.

Whatever stories, frustrations, or self-judgments we carry with us about how things have happened so far create this messy jumble that gets in the way of making the most of the future that remains.

But coming back to Day One is like shaking that Etch-a-Sketch, clearing the screen so you can start creating without all that noise.

Yes, you might still have to deal with the fallout from some of the decisions/actions/inactions/etc. from the past, but when you clear the screen, that becomes just part of the landscape you navigate through, not an ongoing indictment of how things have gone wrong.

Try this: Look around at your life and see if there is any area where you feel frustration or self-judgment because you should be farther, or better, or some other measure of progress that hasn’t been met. Maybe it’s a goal you’re trying to achieve. Maybe it’s some particularly sticky area of personal growth you have been working on. Maybe it’s progress in your career.

Whatever it is, experiment with doing a Day One reset.

Notice whatever judgment or frustration is coming up about how things should be different. Take a deep breath, let it go, and tell yourself, “Today is Day One.” Give the Etch-a-Sketch a good shake.

The events of the past are frozen in place. There’s nothing you can do to change them. But the future is fluid. It’s where you can shape and influence and move and change.

Today is Day One of that fluid future.

And it always will be.