The Hardest Part of Success: Starting Again
Every man hits the wall at some point. The grind stalls, the dream collapses, the relationship falls apart, or the business idea flames out. What separates the ones who rise from the ones who stay down is not talent, not luck, not even money. It is the ability to start again.
The problem? Starting again feels brutal. It feels like losing all your progress and being shoved back to square one. Like landing on “Go” in Monopoly with nothing in your pocket. But the truth is, starting again is the greatest skill you can build in life.
This article will break down why starting again matters, what psychology and research say about it, and how to reframe the reset as your launchpad.
Why Starting Again Feels So Hard
The illusion of wasted time
Our brains are wired to hate loss. Nobel Prize-winning research by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky on loss aversion showed that losing feels twice as painful as winning feels good. When you quit a project or restart your fitness journey, it feels like all that time is gone forever.
But here’s the twist: nothing is wasted. The reps you put in, the failures you absorbed, and the lessons you took away are compounding behind the scenes. You aren’t really back at zero. You are at level two with a different scoreboard.
Ego and identity crash
Starting over can feel like an ego hit. You told your friends you were going to launch a business. You started a gym streak. Then you fell off. Restarting feels like public failure.
But identity is fluid. Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck’s research on growth mindset proves that people who see setbacks as learning opportunities perform far better long-term than those who see failure as identity-shattering. Restarting is not “you failed.” It is “you are learning.”
The dopamine reset
Motivation doesn’t vanish because you are lazy. Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman explains that motivation is regulated by dopamine baselines. Chasing only highs (quick wins, external praise, instant results) lowers your baseline. When the high fades, starting again feels impossible. The solution is pairing effort with intrinsic rewards. In plain English: learn to enjoy the grind itself, not just the outcome.
The Hidden Power of Starting Again
Compounding resilience
Each time you restart, you build mental calluses. Psychologists call this stress inoculation—exposing yourself to difficulty in controlled ways makes you tougher for the next round. The guy who has failed three businesses but keeps restarting will eventually beat the guy who only ever tried once.
Reframing failure as feedback
Thomas Edison famously said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Science backs this up. A 2019 study in Nature Communications showed that people who reframed early failures as feedback had a much higher chance of later success than those who saw them as dead ends.
The competitive edge
Most people quit when forced to restart. That means every time you start again, you thin out the competition. It is less about being “the smartest guy in the room” and more about being the guy who just keeps showing up.
How to Master the Restart
Step 1: Reset the scoreboard
Write down what you learned from the last attempt. Strip away the shame. Turn every “loss” into a bullet point lesson. This rewires your brain to see data instead of defeat.
Step 2: Shrink the first move
Don’t think about climbing Everest. Just think about lacing up your boots. James Clear’s habit design research shows that reducing the barrier to entry makes habits stick. If you are restarting fitness, start with one push-up. If you are restarting business, send one email. Momentum beats motivation.
Step 3: Build restart rituals
Create a trigger for your reset. Maybe it is a notebook where you always sketch version 2.0 of your ideas. Maybe it is a playlist you only use when relaunching. Associating a ritual with restarts makes the act less emotional and more automatic.
Step 4: Protect your dopamine
Avoid chasing cheap dopamine. Don’t scroll for “motivation hacks.” Don’t binge on energy drinks or quick wins. Huberman’s research shows that pairing hard effort with self-generated rewards—like reflecting on progress or journaling wins—raises your dopamine baseline sustainably.
Step 5: Public accountability mirror
David Goggins calls it the accountability mirror: be brutally honest with yourself. But take it one step further, share your restart publicly. Not to brag, but to lock in accountability. When you say “I’m starting again today” in front of others, you burn the escape routes.
The Mindset Shift That Changes Everything
The truth is, you are not starting again. You are starting from experience. The skills, discipline, and awareness you built last time are invisible assets. Starting again is not a reset, it is a reload.
The hardest thing about anything is not failure. It is convincing yourself to take that first step after failure. But if you can make starting again a skill, you will never truly be stuck.
So when life knocks you back to “Go,” don’t sulk about lost time. Plant your piece on the board, look forward, and move.
Because the guy who can start again will always outlast the guy who never does.
ALEX PIERCE
References
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Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk.
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Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
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Huberman, A. (2021). Dopamine and Motivation Research. Stanford University.
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Edison, T. (c. 1920). Historical records of experimentation.
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Nature Communications (2019). "Failure and subsequent performance: learning from mistakes."