starting a new life essay

17 steps to take if you want to close one chapter in your life and begin a new one

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Whether you are choosing to start a new chapter in your life, or whether that choice has pretty much been forced upon you by circumstances out of your control, you want some guidance.

You’re in luck. That’s what this article will provide.

But before you do anything else…

Stop. Breathe. Feel.

Are you overwhelmed? Afraid? Excited? Panicky?

All the above?

Are your emotions all over the place?

Know that your feelings are valid. And know that they are typical for a person who is about to go through a major life change.

Below are some important tips for successfully navigating the ending of one chapter and the beginning of a new one.

Take the parts that you think most apply to you, try them on for size, implement them, and watch as they help you get through this time.

Consult a life coach to help you successfully start a new chapter in your life. Use the quick and simple form on Bark.com to have qualified life coaches email you to discuss their coaching services and provide quotes.

1. Let go of the old. 

The start of a new chapter means closing the page on what felt familiar, safe, and comfortable.

In life, you can’t go back and re-live previous chapters like you would re-read a book. The only movement you can make is forward.

To unlock the full potential of the next phase of your life, you need to let go of the past . You cannot focus on moving forward and creating a new story if your hands are still tightly clasped around the old.

Moving on doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be as simple as taking one step at a time or one day at a time. Don’t focus on the past or the future. Just focus on today, right now.

2. Reflect on who you want to be.

One benefit of starting a new chapter is the freedom to be whoever you want to be.

Before you lies a chapter full of empty pages where you can write whatever you want. The power to develop yourself, design your environment, choose your supporting characters is all within your grasp.

What kind of person do you want to be?  What kind of life do you want to live? The choice is up to you. You have the freedom to be whoever you want to be, the power to evolve into the butterfly you’ve always dreamt of being.

Give yourself some time to think this through. If you’re opening a new chapter as a result of the death of a loved one, don’t rush into making any drastic decisions while you’re still grieving. This is not the time to make sweeping changes. However, don’t remain glued to the same spot as a memorial in their memory. They wouldn’t want that for you.

This step will probably require some time and space from past relationships and routines as well. You might need to take a step back from some relationships because their tenacious hold on the past won’t let you move forward.

3. Decide what you want to do.

This next step is not as overwhelming as it sounds. It isn’t about determining what you want to do for the rest of your life . Because let’s be real, most of us still have no clue what we want to do for the rest of our lives and we’re in our 30s, 40s, or even 50s.

It’s about figuring out what you’re interested in trying or doing right now . What have you always wanted to do but never did? Is there a career you’re curious to explore or a trip you’d love to take?

Are you the type of person who has always done what was expected? You’ve made all the right decisions, followed all the rules, never deviated from what was expected for a minute. But you’ve suddenly realized that you’re not satisfied with the life that you’re living. You’ve had a re-awakening and want to embrace all (well, some) of the opportunities life offers. You’re ready to flip the page on the old and leap into the new.

Before you run full steam ahead into a mid-life crisis, make a list of what you want to experience, where you want to go, what you want to do. Write everything, big or small, that you want to do in this new phase of your life.

Remember, you are the author of your life. You can do whatever your heart desires.

4. Try new things.

You know that list of things you’ve always wanted to try but just never got around to? Bring it out and dust it off. Or make a whole new list. The start of a new journey is the perfect time to cross a few things off.

That marathon you’ve always wanted to run… buy a pair of running shoes and sign up with your local running club. You’ll cross two things off your bucket list – trying new things AND making new friends.

Have you been putting off learning a new language? Well, sign up for a class at your neighborhood community college or download a language learning app. To make it extra fun, go to a restaurant that serves the cuisine of the language you’re trying to learn. People are usually pretty friendly when you are attempting to learn about their culture, so don’t be shy – try a few words or sentences out on them.

Do you want to change careers? Figure out what skills you’ll need to transition and take a course in the areas where you’re lacking. Find a mentor who can advise you on making the leap. Join online communities in your new field and learn the lingo, while expanding your professional network.

If there’s anything you’ve ever wanted to try, now is the right time to try it. Your new chapter is still unwritten. Enjoy the freedom to write whatever you want on the blank pages.

5. Go back to school.

Take a class on something, anything at all. What are you interested in or what would you like to know more about? Is it salsa dancing? Or perhaps a coding language? Could it be you’ve always wanted to learn how to be a makeup artist? Find out if there’s a class on it nearby. It doesn’t matter how silly it is, go ahead and learn about it.

While online learning is convenient, there’s something about that one-on-one interaction with fellow students and your teachers that spurs you on. You’re building new friendships, increasing your network, opening yourself up to new information and new experiences – all the tools your new journey requires.

Don’t talk yourself out of it because you think you’re too old. If you’re interested in it, that’s all that matters. Knowledge is never lost and you’re never too old to learn something new.

6. Take up a hobby.

What hobby have you been dying to try but haven’t? Maybe it doesn’t fit in with your lifestyle or the person you’ve projected yourself as being. It’s too infantile, you think (or you’ve been told). Perhaps you’ve ruled it out because it’s too expensive and money is tight. You have  so  much to do and there’s just not enough time in the day for it.

But if you could, what would you love to spend hours doing?

Is it knitting? Or painting? Does nothing make you happier than a good book and a free afternoon to read it? Perhaps you’ve always wanted to restore classic cars or build model trains sets?

Hobbies help to relieve stress and focus your mind on an activity that you love while taking your mind off things that cause you stress. You are engaged in something that you find enjoyable, leaving you feeling happier, more relaxed, and better equipped to handle your life’s transition.

Studies have shown that people who take part in leisure activities function better psychologically and physically. They showed greater life satisfaction and engagement and even had fewer signs of depression and lower blood pressure.

Your hobby is not just a waste of time. It’s helping you refuel and could prolong your life.

7. Adopt a “can do” attitude.

As you step into the unfamiliar, there’s one critical tool that you need to be successful. Without this tool, you’re doomed to fail from the start. This tool holds the key to a wonderful life experience, one that surpasses your wildest expectations.

What is this tool? A “can do” attitude. It’s as simple as that.

Have you ever noticed how confident successful people are? Their self-confidence is off the charts. They have confidence in their abilities. Some believe that there is nothing impossible for them. If you’re not careful, you’ll mistake their confidence for arrogance.

What you need to be successful in the next chapter of your life is rock-solid belief that you can do it. You need to have faith in yourself. Faith that you’ll be okay if you succeed, faith that you have the skills to succeed, but also faith that you’ll be okay if you fail.

You need to believe that what you aspire to do is possible and you have what it takes to do it.

8. Make a vision board.

Yes, yes, vision boards have been done to death. Especially at the beginning of a new year. Honestly, it’s enough to make one hate all things arts and crafts.

The only problem is… they actually work. They are physical representations of your hopes and dreams.

A vision board is a picture of what you are dreaming of inside your head. It’s your dream house or a picture of that exotic location you’ve always wanted to visit or that company you want to work for.

You’re taking the picture from within you and focusing your eyes on its physical manifestation and the emotions surrounding accomplishing that feat.

The physical act of sifting through magazines and searching for pictures that represent your new journey or destination is enough to show you that your goals are possible.

Couple that with putting the board where you can see it every day so that you are forced to come face to face with the reality of your dreams and goals.

Now if that doesn’t stoke your fires, I don’t know what will.

Make a vision board of what your new chapter will look like. Don’t get caught up in the nitty-gritty details. Allow yourself to get lost in a daydream, just like you used to when you were a kid. Get a board and put pictures on it that represent your new phase.

Take time every day to look at your board and feel the emotions you’d associate with accomplishing everything you put on it. If you put a happy couple on the board, imagine yourself in a healthy relationship, one that makes you as happy as the beaming couple in the picture. If you put a confident business person running their company on your board, imagine yourself managing your business with the same level of confidence and success the person in the picture is portraying.

Eventually, you’ll either tire of just dreaming about the things on the board and go after them, or you’ll find that doors and opportunities seemingly fall into your lap, allowing you to pursue your goals.

9. Form new habits.

The habits that got you to where you are today won’t be able to get you to where you’re going in the new chapter. A new you requires a new way of doing things. You need some new habits.

Don’t make sweeping changes. If years of failed New Year’s resolutions have taught us anything, it’s that this tactic rarely works. So only make one or two small changes at a time.

For example, if you are used to sleeping in until 10 AM and want to wake up by 6 AM to get a head start on your day, start by getting out of bed at 9:30 AM and work your way (slowly) toward your goal of 6 AM.

You’re more likely to stick to your new habits if you ease into them.

It’s important you know your “why.” Why are you forming this new habit? Why is it important to you or your goals? What do you stand to gain from this new habit?

Keep it front and center (on a vision board, perhaps?)  so you are better able to stick to it, because the payoff is worth the temporary discomfort.

Another tip is to make sure you do it every day.  A study on how people form habits revealed it takes anywhere from 18 to 254 days, with the median at 66 days! A day missed here and there will just make establishing a new habit that much longer and more difficult.

10. Purge yourself of toxic people.

A new chapter requires a new you with new skills and, often, a new support system.

It’s never easy to purge your life of toxic relationships, particularly when dealing with narcissists or other manipulative people.

But it can be even more difficult if the people you need to distance yourself from aren’t toxic in the general sense.   

The relationships you may need to reconsider are the ones that are toxic to your new way of life. You want to move on and grow, but they like the old you and way of doing things. These are people who genuinely care for and about you. During low moments of your life, they were there for you. They know who you were and love that person dearly.

But they have no desire to get to know the new you and want no part in this new journey you’re on. At every opportunity, they’re reminding you of how great things were or how you used to be, and rejecting any attempt at change.

As painful as it may be, extricating yourself from them will be a critical part of the success of this chapter.

This will be a hard task, made even more difficult because they’re not bad people. They’re just stuck in the past.

11. Be open to learning.

A new chapter requires a lot of learning. You’re learning new habits and skills that you will need for your new experiences.

Make learning a part of your daily life. Give yourself room to make mistakes, while ensuring that you learn from them.

Think back to when you were learning how to ride a bicycle. You probably fell and scraped your elbows and knees quite a bit. But the excitement of riding your bike kept you committed to learning. So every time you crashed and hurt yourself, you got back up to try all over again, only this time with a better idea of how to balance, pedal, and steer.

Adopt the resilience of a child to the new journey you’re embarking on. Let the excitement of your new chapter keep you committed to learning and moving forward. Use the mistakes you make along the way as learning aides to do better next time.

Everyone who has ever ridden a bike has fallen a few times. The same rule applies to making a mistake – everyone does it. But not everyone learns from their mistakes.

Be open to learning new skills, learning from your mistakes, learning in general.

12. Embrace the fear.

Don’t be fooled, fear will always be there. The bravest people aren’t courageous because they have no fear. They are courageous because they don’t let fear stop them.

There’s always going to be something to be afraid of. Fear of failure, of success, missing out, of making a mistake. The list goes on and on. There will not be a time when you are completely without fear and ready for the next step in your journey.

Stepping out of your comfort zone requires you to be comfortable moving forward in spite of your fear. It’s your comfort zone because it’s where you’re comfortable. You are attempting to leave where you are comfortable in the hopes of something better. That’s a big deal.

Embrace the fear causing your knees to knock together, or your heart to pound with dread. Embrace it, pick it up, and get on with it.

13. Embrace change.

Nothing stays the same forever. Sometimes that’s a good thing; other times it’s bad. Either way, the only way to make change easier to handle is to embrace it.

Live in the moment, understanding that things will change. That doesn’t mean living in fear, but living in the awareness that you may not get to experience this again. So drink it in.

Ask yourself if this is how you want to live your life or spend your time. If it is, then be present. If it is not, change what you don’t like.

Develop skills that are marketable and transferrable to any industry so your career will be adaptable to change as well. If you’re not sure what type of skills those are, do some research. Don’t wait for change to come like a freight train. Be proactive. Prepare for it.

14. Put a plan in place.

Don’t leap without counting the cost. The only way you can do this is through proper research and putting a plan in place to mitigate any risks.

If you’ve followed the above steps, you have already done more than half the research. You have a clear-ish picture of what you want to do and who you want to be.

Now write out a plan that will take you there. Although details are very important here, don’t get stuck in over-planning. You can’t plan out everything. The unexpected will still show up, regardless.

The expected you can take care of with detailed plans. For example, if you want to travel to France, plan out the trip. Call up travel agents, get a cost estimate. Do you have enough money for the trip? If you don’t, how much can you save up? Find out who your kids can stay with while you’re away or if you can take them along with you. Check if your job will give you time off.  Which sights are you going to visit?

In order to bring your goals into clearer focus, you must have a plan in place. It brings a thought, an idea, a concept into stark reality. You’re no longer dreaming about taking a trip to France, you’re taking steps toward making that dream come true.

15. Enjoy the process.

The whole point of this journey is for you to be happy and to give yourself an opportunity to enjoy life. There is no point in upending everything, changing your habits, ending relationships, and pursuing new experiences if you hate every minute.

Yes, some parts will suck, but it shouldn’t all suck. If the transition seems like an enormous chore, re-examine what you’re doing and why. Are you doing it for the wrong reasons? Have you rushed a critical step, such as letting go?

A nervous excitement should fill you as you get out of your comfort zone, learn new skills, start new relationships, etc. Nervous because everything is still unfamiliar. Excitement because your life is filled with fresh air.

Things are changing quickly. But it shouldn’t be so fast that you don’t enjoy the wind of change.

16. Be patient.

You’re changing up your status quo. Your old way of life is under attack. Everything within you and even around you is going to scream against it. It’ll be a painful change to make. But you’re equipped to do it.

You’ll have some good days, you’ll have some bad days. Some days you’ll be happy and feel on top of the world. Other days, you’ll be certain you’re having some sort of mid-life crisis, and you won’t even remember why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Be patient. Allow yourself to take it one day at a time. Give yourself room to be a fallible human.

Don’t be afraid to take teeny tiny baby steps to ease the discomfort. Break every step or goal down into manageable, bite-sized mini-steps or mini-goals. A step forward is still movement forward.

Remember: you’re not in a race against anyone. Just ensure that you consistently move toward your new reality.

17. Take time for self-care.

With changes happening all around you, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Whether you realize it, you’re under immense pressure. Life is changing, you’re changing, nothing is staying the same. It’s enough to make your blood pressure rise.

Now, more than ever, you need to take time out for self-care. It needs to be part of your new routine. Taking time out of your schedule to decompress must become a priority in this new phase.

The truth of the matter is, if this transition becomes too difficult for you to handle, the likelihood is you’ll run back to what is familiar.

Make this process of change easier for yourself by taking regular time out for your mental and emotional well-being.

Starting a new chapter in life can be as exciting as you want it to be. This next phase doesn’t have to be bad just because it’s unfamiliar. It could be your greatest opportunity for growth and the life you want to live. But that won’t happen by chance. Decide and go after what you want.

As you look over the empty pages of your new chapter, remember you are the author of your life. You determine what to write on those pages.

Still need some specific guidance on beginning this new chapter in life? Speak to a life coach today who can walk you through the change step by step. Simply fill out this short form to get quotes from several coaches along with details of how they can help.

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“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” ~Carl Bard

Birthdays. They’re supposed to be a joyous celebration, right?

That one special day each year when we throw a party and reflect on the day our amazing journey began.

The starting point.

I’ve had quite a colorful journey and certainly enjoyed many wonderful birthdays in my life.

Turning 50 this past year wasn’t one of them. Here’s why.

When we’re little every birthday marks a major accomplishment. We learn to walk. Then we learn to talk. Then we go to school and learn our ABCs.

Everything is brand new.

When we graduate high school they tell us we have our whole lives in front of us. Whether we’re off to college, exploring the world, or entering the work force, we begin a whole new chapter. Independence.

A starting point.

You can just picture that open highway stretched out to infinity before you, beckoning to a future somewhere out on that horizon that calls you to adventure . All that you will become lies out there.

In my twenties, I was a freewheeling single young man touring the world with rock stars. How bad can that be, right?

Turning 30 was awesome too! I was living in sunny Southern California, playing music, and making records in recording studios. Life was good.

Even 40 was great. I had moved back to New York to play in my own band and got married. Our life together had just begun. Then came children. I became Dad.

You’re supposed to have accomplished your greatest life’s work by now, right? Achieved all your major goals. Changed the world.

But what if you’re still working on that? What if you’re just now starting to figure out what you’re really supposed to be doing with your life?

You can say many things about turning 50, but one thing you can’t say with a straight face is that you still have your whole life in front of you.

At this point in the journey, life has shown you many of its cards. Not all, mind you, but you’ve got a pretty good grasp on how the world turns. If there are still any surprises, they have mostly to do with learning to change the way you see things.

But something else happened that was very difficult to escape. Much as I hated to admit it, I found that I was looking around and comparing myself to my peers.

This person has kids entering college and I’m looking at two young children and the reality that I’ll be close to 70 by the time the youngest is out of school.

That one is retired at 50 and buying their second Ferrari while retirement doesn’t seem to be in the cards any time soon for me.

When you view life this way, there’s always going to be someone who you feel is ahead of you by your own estimate. And you’ll never catch up to them. So that leaves you feeling behind in some imaginary race that can’t be won.

And when the game is comparing yourself to others , you will never have enough. Ever.

Unknowingly, you build this imaginary scale to see how you measure up against your peers. Let’s call it the Success/Happiness curve. Yet, no matter where you believe you fall on that curve, the moment you mark your place is to engage in a losing battle.

You believe that if you can just obtain that (figure of money in the bank, job title, certain car) that you will have arrived at your destination and will find happiness there.

But you won’t. Because it’s not out there.

Not in any material things you can obtain. Whatever it is will begin to lose its luster the moment you acquire it. Then you’ll have to look for something new to replace it and give you another fix. And the cycle never ends.

So how do you break out of this destructive cycle?

Well first, I needed to learn how to let go of a lot of my preconceived notions about where I thought I would be by the time I reached 50.

Ultimately, I found the answer in meditation.

Through meditation you learn how to become present .

Most of us never learn to appreciate where we are at this very moment because we’re so focused on what happened (or didn’t happen) in a past that no longer exists and worried about a future that hasn’t happened yet.

Meditation taught me that to compare ourselves to others is the root of human suffering, or samsara. Because it creates a separation between ourselves and someone else. A duality. A them and an us.

Armed with this new perspective, the next thing I did was to review my life and my experiences to figure out what was working and what was not. This brought me face to face with a rather harsh reality.

As much as I liken myself to be a caring person, I realized that I’d spent most of my career focused on my own self-interests.

Sure I spent a lot of time making music, which is something very personal that you put out into the universe in the hopes that you will connect with an audience and make them feel something.

But it turns out the giving was conditional.

It was like, “Enjoy this music and help support my dream. Please vote for me in this contest and buy that CD and help me or my band out.” The focus was all wrong.

And that’s when I realized what had been gnawing away at me all these years. It was a yearning to connect with an audience in a meaningful way that focuses on helping them . On seeing the world through their eyes.

And so at age 50, I am only now seeing the light.

Only after allowing the hidden writer within to finally emerge did I realize that I have been telling stories my whole life.

With that came the realization that each of us has a unique story we’re supposed to tell. That’s why we’re here. And I’m supposed to help people to tell theirs.

The epiphany was that as a music producer and a songwriter, I had been doing this already for many years helping artists to realize their vision.

Suddenly everything felt different. Like I had steered the boat back on course. Like a new chapter.

Suddenly that really successful person I follow who I want to emulate, the one who seems so far ahead in their journey, finally, it all gets put into perspective.

We think they just arrived where they are today.

We never got to see all the years they spent toiling away in obscurity. Experimenting, missing the mark, failing. Trying to figure out the very things we’re looking to figure out now.

Until they honed their craft to excellence and were finally rewarded by the world for their efforts.

We never stop and give ourselves a break for simply being on the path. It may be a path of discovery. It may be a path toward a specific destination. Or it may be a path away from our old ways.

But you’re walking the path. Celebrate that.

The law says that if you take steps in the direction of your destination every day and keep walking, no matter how slow or how far you must travel, you must one day arrive there.

In Tibet they have a tradition. After a long and arduous journey, no matter how difficult, they seek a high vantage point and look back to see just how far they have come.

Age is irrelevant. Wherever you are in your journey is a starting point. Whoever or whatever it is you’re chasing, slow down.

Realize there is no race.

Whether you’re 20 or 50 or 80, if you never stop seeking then you’ll never cease to be amazed by what you might find.

And if every point is a starting point then every day can be your birthday!

How will you celebrate today?

Photo by girish_suryawanshi

About Mark Hermann

Mark Hermann is a music producer, songwriter, and blogger with the occasional whimsy to create mosaic art. He teaches musicians & other creators how to unearth their inner rock star and deliver the soundtrack to their story. Read more of his stories about how to discover your own personal legend at  Rock andRoll Zen . Follow him on  Twitter  and  Google+ .

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5 Steps to Launching a New Life

Research-based tips for reinvention, starting today..

Posted July 1, 2014

Is there a decision you’re putting off, or a change in your life that you want to make but you’re feeling too angsty to make it happen? Do you keep asking everyone for advice that leaves you more confused than ever about what, if anything, you ought to do?

Maybe it’s time to declare your independence.

I’m not suggesting you go off the grid in a hideout on a mountain. But sometimes, you’ve got to be able to go it alone—for you and by you. If you’re tired of running in circles or feeling stuck, maybe it’s time to take a different tack.

Here are 5 strategies drawn from research to get you going:

1. Know how you’ll react to stress.

When a decision looms and you feel under the gun, which of these statements describes you best?

• I’m decisive and it’s easy for me to set my sights on the future. I don’t rely on other people’s advice much. I focus on what’s next, I don’t look back, and I deal with emotional and other fallout without much fuss.
• I’m not great at self-starting and I can get easily derailed. If I’m stressed , I overthink things and end up procrastinating. I have trouble getting over setbacks, and what other people think of me is very important.

If the first statement fits you, you’re “action oriented,” according to a theory called Personality Systems Action (PSI) which focuses on emotional regulation and coping skills. You are likely to initiate action under demanding circumstances—put another way, you're a clutch player. But if the second statement captures you in broad strokes, you are “state-oriented,” and declaring your independence may be a challenge. These people—amounting to roughly half of us—are very reactive to negative cues, have trouble managing their negative emotions, and do best when someone is giving them directives.

But here’s the good news: Once you realize that you're state-oriented, there are pro-active things you can do. Research by Sander L. Koole and Daniel L. Fockenberg suggests that by working consciously to change your emotional context—thinking of a relaxing time in your life when you’re stressed to the max, for example—can help you become as independent and actually more unresponsive to negative cues than action-oriented peers. By seeking the support of those you trust, combined with a conscious awareness of where you ultimately want to end up, you’ll find yourself more capable of decisive action.

2. Take on your own fear of loss.

All human beings are hardwired to be loss aversive; it just comes with the territory, as the Nobel Prize-winning work of Amos Twersky and Daniel Kahneman showed. Among the habits of mind that keep us firmly tethered is the sunk-cost fallacy , which has to be tackled so that you can actually consider your options. The sunk-cost fallacy refers to how we focus exclusively on whatever we have already invested in a job, a situation, or a relationship—time, money, effort—when we think about making a change. But this stance guarantees that we stay put no matter how unhappy it makes us. On the face of it, this kind of thinking—“I’ve already got five years invested in my relationship and all that time will be wasted if I break it up”—isn’t very logical, since it only guarantees that your investment will increase over time, but not that your misery will decrease. Once you recognize the fallacy, you can take steps to actively combat it by thinking of viable alternatives that would deliver more happiness and satisfaction than where you are now, and figuring out a route to your new tomorrow.

3. Make sure you’re deciding, not sliding.

These terms are taken from a very counterintuitive—trust me, you will be surprised—study on how living together before marriage actually is predictive of future marital problems. Some 50 to 60 percent of all couples cohabit before marriage in the United States; most people see it as a tryout of sorts, a way of seeing whether or not their relationship will be seaworthy in the long run. It turns out, though, that the effect of living together before marriage is actually deleterious—studies have shown that people who cohabited demonstrated lower levels of commitment, less confidence in the relationship, and more negative interactions. Scott M. Stanley and his colleagues have posited that living together actively erodes commitment. While getting engaged and married force you to confront your choices consciously and directly, living together is a much more ambiguous state.

People end up living together for a multitude of reasons that have nothing to do with commitment, like convenience and saving money. And so a large proportion of people tend to “slide” into marriage rather than actively deciding to wed. This is a function of relationship inertia; while it takes real work to break up with someone you’re already living with—dealing with a joint lease, shared belongings, a pet, etc.—it’s easy enough to just slide into marriage “as the next logical step.” I’ll bet you can name at least one couple in your social circle who slid into marriage in this way. The problem is that sliding doesn’t raise your level of commitment, either to your partner or the institution of marriage.

Inertia and the phenomenon of sliding can apply to other parts of your life as well. It’s easy enough to take a job and slide into one promotion after another without asking yourself whether you really want to be there in the first place. The takeaway lesson is to remain alert and sensitive to your decision-making processes, and to review them often and carefully to stay independent.

4. Plan it out.

Thinking about your future isn’t nearly as effective as writing down your goals. The success born of mapping out your goals turns out not to be an urban legend, as a study done at McGill and Toronto Universities showed. And given the recent study by Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer showing that using a laptop to take notes encouraged more shallow thinking than writing by hand, you should probably do your planning with pen and paper.

Divide your goals into two columns, one devoted to short-term goals and the other to long-term goals. Aligning them in this way will help you determine whether any are in conflict, and permit you to think about what that conflict means in real terms. For example, if your goal is to make more money and get promoted at company, how will you reconcile that with another goal of spending more time with family and friends?

Review the columns and ask yourself how many of your goals are extrinsic or intrinsic. Extrinsic goals are those which are means to other ends (like making money); may have been imposed on you by the expectations of others (such as parents or spouses); or are aimed at garnering social position and recognition. Intrinsic goals are central to your sense of self. They define you; are valuable and satisfying in and of themselves; and contribute to a sense of meaning in your life. Science recognizes that the healthiest, happiest people are those with largely intrinsic goals and aspirations.

5. Be sure you’re in it to win it.

I n her book, Commit To Win, psychology professor (and fellow Psychology Today blogger) Heidi Reeder suggests the following formula:

( Treasures - Troubles) + Contributions - Choices = Level of Commitment

I think it’s a fresh way of looking at commitment. Let me offer a brief explanation based on Reeder's work:

Treasures are the rewards you derive from an activity, and they may be intrinsic or extrinsic. Troubles are the prices you pay for those rewards—your long commute which has you miss all your kid's recitals, or your boss' unfortunate habit of springing last-minute deadlines so that you're always canceling plans. This part of the equation has you looking at benefits versus costs.

Contributions are the actions you take in pursuit of a goal. Reeder breaks them down into four categories— time, talent, tenderness , and tangibles . Time and talent are self-explanatory; tenderness refers to your emotional investment. Tangibles include money and material resources.

In Reeder’s equation, your contributions—what you are actively putting in now—are balanced by the choices or alternatives you might be pursuing instead. That, in turn, will lead to figuring your level of commitment.

The truth is that imagining those alternatives is difficult for many of us and requires some independent, out-of-the-box thinking. It’s here that the sunk-cost fallacy and other biases often stop us in our tracks as we wrack our brains to figure out where we could be instead of where we find ourselves.

Declaring personal independence isn’t always easy nor is making a change in your life. But it can be done.

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• Koole, Sander L. and Nils B. Jostmann, “Getting A Grip on Your Feelings: Effects of Action Orientation on Intrusion Affect Regulation,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, no. 6 (2004), 974-990.
• Stanley, Scott M., Galena Kline Rhoades, and Howard J. Markman, “Sliding Versus Decuding: Inertia and the Premaritial Cohabitation Effect,” Family Relations 55 ()ctober 2006), 499-509.
• Morisano, Dominque, Jacob B. Hirsh, Jordan B. Peterson, Robert O. Pihl, and Bruc M. Shore, “ Setting, Elaborating, and Reflecting on Personal Goals Improves Academic Performance,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, no.2, (2010), 255-264.
• Mueller, Pam S. and Daniel M. Oppenheimer, “The Pen is Mightier than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand over Laptop Note Taking, “ Psychological Science (April 23,2014) DOI: 10.1177/0956797614524581
• Reeder, Heidi. Commit to Win. New York: Hudson Street Press, 2014.

Copyright © Peg Streep 2014

Peg Streep's newest book is Verbal Abuse: Recognizing, Dealing, Reacting, and Recovering. She is the author or coauthor of 15 books, including Daughter Detox: Recovering from an Unloving Mother and Reclaiming Your Life.

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How to change your life: 8 steps to start over

Are you ready to change your life? Have you been yearning to start over? It is possible, but there’s a lot to consider.

Life comes in seasons. And life changes. Everyone goes through transitions. 

For some, it’s big life milestones that trigger change — marriage or divorce, moving to a new city, committing to a partner, buying a home, starting a family , or becoming empty-nesters . It can be the loss of a loved one or friend. It can be a global crisis (like the pandemic) or a traumatic experience. 

For others, change comes from other significant changes that we all experience, like our emotional health maturing or ending a relationship. It could be aging, retirement , or simply who you choose to invest your time in. It could be a new career , moving across the country (or world), or another life-changing event that catalyzes big change. 

Change is inevitable. It often causes us to examine our values or re-evaluate our priorities. And sometimes, it leads us to this question: What should I do with my life ? Should I start over in life? Where do I go from here? 

I was just talking to a good friend about starting over in life. She recently called off her wedding and went through an emotional breakup. She’s questioned her career choices and her career path. And she’s currently going through a spiritual and healing journey to help care for her mental health and well-being. 

But she says every few weeks: Should I just start my life over? What if I just move to Europe or travel? What should I be doing with my life? Is this really what I want for myself? 

If you’re thinking about starting over in life, you’re not alone. It’s OK to not know where you’re going next. It’s OK if you don’t have a perfectly planned roadmap to your final destination. 

We’ll talk about what it means to start over in life and the questions you should ask yourself. After all, we each get one life to live. We’re all on a journey to find the best version of ourselves — but we don’t have to do it alone. 

How to change your life and start over

If you’re feeling stuck , that’s OK. Be gentle with yourself. Our data shows that 55% of people are languishing . That’s a majority of folks who are not mentally ill but not mentally well, either. This is a massive middle who are all experiencing one thing: the absence of mental health. 

You might be ready to take the plunge and start over. But starting over in life doesn’t mean you’ve lost everything you’ve learned, gained, and experienced. In fact, quite the opposite. Your experiences have gotten you to where you are today. And today, you’re lucky enough to be wiser than you were even just a few months ago. 

Use what you know best: yourself. Let’s talk through the seven steps to changing your life and starting over. 

How do I start over in life?

• Start with reflection 
• Examine your value system 
• Revisit (and rewrite) your goals 
• Work up the courage to change 
• Make your next move 
• Get a coach 
• Keep checking in on yourself 

1. Start with reflection 

Before you can make any changes, you have to understand where you’re starting from. Personally, I know from experience it can be difficult to sit with your thoughts. It’s easy to let your mind wander. Plus, as my coach tells me, our brains are really good at putting up defenses. To warm up, try listening to an inspiring podcast or do a deep breathing exercise to slow down and center yourself.

Make sure you carve out the time and space for reflection . Sit down and examine yourself and your life. What do you notice? You might consider doing some journaling to help capture your thoughts. 

2. Examine your value system 

This is a big one. It’s likely that your values have shifted over time. If you’re changing and evolving as a human and your responsibilities or circumstances have changed, your values often do, too.

It isn’t that you have a wholesale change in all of your values, but the relative importance often changes and some do get left behind in favor of different values that reflect your current age, stage, and circumstances. Your work might no longer match your values .  

So if you’ve hit a crossroads in life, it’s important to take a step back to examine what’s important to you. What are your core values ? What values come to life in your day-to-day? What values are important that are missing from your life? Do you want to change your values? What family values have an impact on you as a person? 

You might even consider making a personal vision statement . 

3.  Revisit (and rewrite) your goals 

Just because you have written a goal doesn’t mean you have to remain committed to it if it no longer serves the direction you want to go. 

It’s natural that goals shift and change. In fact, you might not have clearly thought about the personal goals you’d like to set for yourself. Take a minute to revisit your goals. 

They don’t have to be lofty goals, either. My husband and I have a monthly ritual. At the start of each month, we write down 3-5 SAGs, or small achievable goals , on a piece of paper. 

If I think about some of my SAGs, they actually are building blocks for larger goals I’ve set for myself. For example, in the month of March, I set a goal to make salads for lunch at least three times a week. This could feed a larger goal of a healthier nutritional lifestyle (and reducing food waste). But by breaking it down into smaller pieces, it feels more achievable. 

Think about ways you can do the same for your goals in life. What are the small building blocks that can help you reach your big goals ? How have your goals changed over the years? Try to keep your goals measurable so you can reward yourself for your progress.

4. Work up the courage to commit to change 

Committing to making a change is no easy feat. It takes courage, bravery, and self-awareness. It also takes a level of intentionality. 

Once you know your values, your goals, and where you’re starting from, it’s time to map out your next move. In a lot of ways, this step is more about a mindset and perspective shift than anything. Rather than “starting over,” think of it as starting fresh. You get to shape your new life. Positive self-talk and encouragement can be good tools here. 

Remember, you’re in charge of your life. That doesn’t mean that you can control everything — quite possibly many elements are outside of your locus of control.

But, you always have the ability to choose how you want to act and respond given the circumstances. You are choosing the best way forward for you. You can make a change if you want to, but it takes action, not just thought. 

5. Make your next move 

Let’s say you’re ready to start over in life. You’ve taken all the steps and are ready to use your growth mindset to make a move. You’ve decided how you’ll hone in on your life’s purpose or simply bring more joy to your daily life .

Now, it’s time to put it into action, but start small. Let’s go back to my friend. Let’s say that she’s ready to quit her job. Maybe she wants to shift industries or start dating again. Maybe she wants to move across the country since she can work remotely anyway. Or maybe she wants to travel. 

Map out your move. It doesn’t have to be drastic. Even the smallest changes can start compounding into the bigger changes that’ll help you start over in life. 

6. Get a coach to stay on track

Any amount of change can be incredibly challenging. Procrastination can be a huge blocker , and self-sabotage knows just when to kick in. If you plan on starting over and changing your life, you will need a support system. 

Aside from friends, family members, and loved ones, it helps to have guidance from an objective outsider who can help you reflect on yourself. Someone to confide in, someone to help provide impartial advice, someone to help push your growth and challenge you. 

With BetterUp, you can feel better equipped to tackle starting over in life. A coach will work with you one-on-one to help you reach your full potential , whatever that means for you. 

And according to data, BetterUp works. Of the people who start out “stuck” (low well-being), 77% will significantly improve their well-being state in 3-4 months.

7. Build out your support network

Surrounding yourself with a community of supportive individuals means seeking out friends, family, or mentors who uplift and encourage you in your endeavors. These people offer constructive feedback, celebrate your successes, and provide a listening ear during challenges. 

By nurturing supportive relationships and fostering positivity, you create a conducive environment for personal growth and well-being, even while you change your life. While you’re at it, try to clean up your social media platforms and cut down on social media use . You don’t want your feed or other people’s opinions to smother your progress.

8. Keep checking in on yourself 

Like any new path in life, it’s going to come with its up and downs. Progress isn’t linear. And if you’re at a point in your life where you’re looking to start over, you know that life isn’t a straight path to self-actualization . 

Keep checking in on yourself and the various areas of your life that are shifting. If you fail, it’s OK. You can always get back up and try again. And when you win, make sure you’re celebrating those new skills or life changes you’re embracing. Practice self-care and self-compassion . Be kind and gentle with yourself. 

You’re valuable and you’re human. You’re going to make mistakes along the way and learn new lessons. It’s about how you learn from your failures that can help shape your future. 

6 signs it could be time to change your life

Feeling like it might be time for a change in your life? You’re not alone. Life has a way of nudging us towards transitions, whether we're ready or not. These six signs could indicate it's time to hit the reset button and embark on a new journey:

• Restless reflection : If you find yourself frequently pondering your life's direction, questioning your choices, or feeling a sense of restlessness, it might be a sign that change is on the horizon.
• Values in flux : As we grow and evolve, so do our values. If you sense a misalignment between your current lifestyle and your core values, it could signal the need for a recalibration.
• Stagnant goals : Goals are meant to be dynamic, mirroring our ever-changing aspirations. If your goals feel stagnant or no longer resonate with your vision for the future, it might be time to reassess and rewrite them.
• Courageous contemplation : Contemplating change takes courage. If you're mustering the bravery to confront the need for change, you're already on the path toward transformation.
• Urging for action : Feeling a strong urge to take action, whether it's quitting a job, relocating, or pursuing a new passion, signifies readiness for change.
• Seeking support : Recognizing the importance of a support system, whether it's friends, family, or professional guidance, indicates a willingness to navigate the journey of change with assistance.

Remember, change is a process, not an event. By recognizing these signs and taking deliberate steps towards transformation, you're paving the way for a brighter, more fulfilling future.

13 questions to ask when starting over in life

In pursuit of purpose, clarity, and passion in our lives, there are questions we need to ask ourselves. Here are 13 questions you can ask when starting over in life: 

• How would you describe your mental fitness ? Is it harming or hurting your quality of life? 
• When you think about your overall well-being, what are you proud of? What do you want to change? 
• When’s the last time you were outside of your comfort zone ? 
• When was the last time you felt proud of yourself and why? 
• What will happen if you continue to live your life as is? What would happen if you don’t make a change? 
• What would happen if you stayed in your current job? 
• What would happen if you chose to switch careers or quit your job ? 
• What are your strengths? Are you using them in your day-to-day life? 
• What don’t you like about your life right now? 
• What’s within your locus of control ? 
• What would you do if you only have one year left to live? 
• How would your life be different if you invested in yourself? 
• Are you a priority in your life? If not, why not? 

How to start over with your values in mind

However you change your life, it should be rooted in your value system. If you’re not sure where to start, let’s talk through what this could mean for you. 

Identifying your values 

You know you want to change your life . This might be a new beginning and a fresh start for you. In your old life, you might not have been aware of what your value system was. Now that you’re in a place where you can rebuild your life, you need to identify your values. 

First, it starts with letting go of what doesn’t serve you. My coach talks a lot about letting go of negative thoughts , values, and beliefs that don’t serve me. Embarking on a journey of reaching your full potential is really a lot of unlearning. You might’ve picked up bad habits along the way that you don’t know were toxic. 

Next, reflect. At BetterUp, we use something called a Whole Person Assessment (WPA) as reflection points throughout our journey of self-improvement . The WPA can give you some insight into what you care about most when it comes to your values. 

Finally, if you’re starting a new life, that often means new values. Try writing down the old habits that you don’t want to bring into your new life. Then, write out a list of the values that you’ve identified from your WPA. Finally, take a moment to reflect on new values. What’s missing? What do you want to add?

For example, perhaps you’ve lived your entire life working nonstop. Let’s say you’re a self-proclaimed workaholic that’s finally hit rock bottom. You’ve burned yourself out — and for the first time, you’re forced to think about change. 

Perhaps quality family time is a value you’d like to add to your value system. You want to start to live life with family at the center of everything you do. 

Embracing your values while starting over 

Once you’ve identified your values, it’s time to embrace and enact them. You have to behave and be different. It might feel uncomfortable at first. After all, you’re unlearning while you’re learning — and that’s a pretzel to wrestle in and of itself. 

For example, if you’re a workaholic, stepping away from your career can feel like the scariest thing in the world. But if you’re serious about investing in your family, enact that value. Maybe you start setting boundaries at work. Maybe you decide that you need a sabbatical or some other extended time away (and use some of that unlimited PTO ). Or, maybe you want to go big and quit your job altogether. 

If it scares you, you’re probably growing. Don’t lose sight of the values you’ve committed to when making a change. 

Start to change your life 

Start living. If you’re ready for a new start, there’s no better time than the present. 

You can carve a path to a better life and start to make changes for the better. And with help from BetterUp, the new possibilities are endless. Start working with a coach to get personalized support and guidance. With virtual coaching , you can start to live with purpose, clarity, and passion. 

Transform your life

Make meaningful changes and become the best version of yourself. BetterUp's professional Coaches are here to support your personal growth journey.

Madeline Miles

Madeline is a writer, communicator, and storyteller who is passionate about using words to help drive positive change. She holds a bachelor's in English Creative Writing and Communication Studies and lives in Denver, Colorado. In her spare time, she's usually somewhere outside (preferably in the mountains) — and enjoys poetry and fiction.

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Starting a New Chapter in Life? Here Are 7 Ways to Make the Change Positive

It happened.

As a mom, it’s the day you’ve always anticipated, the one that feels like it will never really come. But it does—and it did. It’s the college drop-off.

We took our son to college two weeks ago, and as we moved him in, I busied myself with unpacking, room setup and a bulletin board we had to go get. Surely this busyness and total distraction would make it all easier, right? Yet inside I knew that this hot August day was a lot bigger than a bulletin board. One chapter was closing while another opened.

I’m a career girl and always have been. Work has been an important part of my life, so I thought (and friends told me), You have your career—you are so busy with clients and your business. It will be easier for you.

All true—except my theories on how busyness makes it so much easier were off base. Adapting to change has more to do with who we are than what we do.

New beginnings have the power to firmly put the past behind you. It could be anything from taking your baby to college (or kindergarten) to moving to a new city, surviving a divorce, making a big career change or losing someone .

Even when change is good, our personal definition of normal undergoes a dramatic overhaul. But because of it, we have the opportunity to start again and write a new chapter with intention.

Here are some practical steps for a positive start to your new chapter. Yes, I’m working on these, too:

1. Carefully plan your first month (and shake up your routine).

After we took my son to college, I scheduled several fun events over the next few weeks, knowing that my first month would be the hardest. I organized fun dinners with friends, football games and girls’ nights out. My husband and I played local tourists and visited some places we’d never been right in our own town. And we planned when we’d see our son next.

2. Do something out of the ordinary.

Last week, with some encouragement from a friend, I took my first hot-air balloon ride in Santa Fe—which was definitely out of my normal. At first, I was a little uneasy, but it turned out to be one of my most memorable activities ever. It was a reminder that change can be exciting , too.

3. Take off your hero cape.

You can’t do this by yourself. (I am working hard on this one.)

Scholar and author Brené Brown says that vulnerability is the key to connecting with others . For self-reliant people like me, this is hard—I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. But accepting support is a healthy part of relationships. Let a friend or family member know when you are having a tough day or afternoon. It’s OK for someone to check on you for a change.

4. Rediscover what you enjoy.

This is especially true for those parents who drop their kids off at college or kindergarten. Your busy lives can become so consumed with family and hectic schedules that you completely forget what you like to do.

I recently asked a friend what she would enjoy doing in her free time if there were no restrictions or expectations. She finally admitted that she really didn’t know anymore.  If you have a long pause after this one, keep going back to it until you have your answer. What was fun when you were 10 years old? Make sure you didn’t forget in the midst of being a busy grownup.

5. Be kind to yourself when you have a low moment.

When starting a new chapter, there will be setbacks and low points when you think, Can I do this? or Will life feel normal again? Expect them. Allow yourself this reality. Talk to a friend, write in your journal, pray or meditate, and find your own way to learn and regroup.

The adjustment to big changes isn’t linear. It isn’t that each day gets better and better. It’s a wavy line that moves up and down. Accept that one day or hour may just be harder for no obvious reason.

6. Contribute to something bigger than you.

Contributing to something bigger than you changes your perspective . Also, in those times when you are completely self-focused, you can turn it upside down by concentrating your attention on something beyond yourself. Your definition of ‘bigger’ may be helping those in your community or your extended family, or it may be providing an opportunity for those that work in your business.

7. Rewrite your story.

This is your chance to do something you have always wanted to do. Rather than look back and miss what has changed, think about what you can do now that you couldn’t before.

It’s never too late to start your new business , write your first book, begin a new career, volunteer at the nonprofit you’ve always admired or go back and get the degree you’ve always wanted. The years will go by regardless, so you might as well be where you want to be as they do.

Starting a new chapter can be scary, it can be sad, it can be exciting… all rolled into one.

I’ll be working on these things right along with you. Let’s do this.

If you’re starting a new chapter and aren’t sure where to start, enroll in the Win the Day Accelerator with James Whittaker. In the comprehensive, 8-part program, Whittaker will walk you through how to gain clarity about your unique path, create a success plan that guides you toward your goals and set your self up to Win the Day, every day.

This article was published in September 2015 and has been updated. Photo by @Nastyaofly/Twenty20

Patti Johnson

Patti Johnson is a career and workplace expert and the CEO of PeopleResults, a change and human resources consulting firm she founded in 2004. Previously, she was a senior executive at Accenture and has been recently featured as an expert in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, NBC , Money Magazine and Working Mother . Patti is also an instructor for SMU Executive Education and a keynote speaker on “Leading Change.” Her first book, Make Waves: Be the One to Start Change at Work & in Life , hit shelves in May 2014. Visit her website at PattiBJohnson.com .

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Life’s stages are changing – we need new terms and new ideas to describe how adults develop and grow

Senior Research Scholar, Department of Psychology, Clark University

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What image comes to mind when you think of a person in their 20s?

Do you imagine an adult stressed out by the weight of many new responsibilities in family and work roles?

Or do you envision someone who is bursting with hope and undeveloped potential, still more of a kid than an adult, struggling to define a life and making little or no money but managing to find occasional joy nevertheless? Perhaps your soundtrack here is Taylor Swift’s radiant “22” : “We’re happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time. It’s miserable and magical.”

How about when you think of someone in their 60s?

Do you envision someone – or maybe a happy couple – enjoying life, living well, still vigorous but now freer than before from daily work and family duties?

Or do you see someone who is stooped over from a lifetime of carrying burdens, their health diminished, now shuffling toward no particular destination? Here the soundtrack might be the doleful Beatles song “ When I’m 64 ”: “Will you still need me? Will you still feed me? When I’m 64?”

The whole arc of adult development has changed over the past several decades, in ways that our psychological theories are still catching up with. In the 21st century, does it still make sense to refer to “young adulthood,” “midlife” and “late adulthood,” as psychologists have been doing for so long? If not, what are more accurate concepts?

Most of my career as a developmental psychologist has been devoted to answering these questions. My theory of emerging adulthood recognizes that the lives of younger adults have changed vastly since the 1960s. As the father of 22-year-old twins, I’m keenly aware of their journey through the new life stage I have been researching and writing about for so long. As a 64-year-old, I’m also turning my attention to how the 60s have changed from what they used to be.

A longer-than-ever journey to adulthood

In my research over the past two decades, I’ve found that people ages 19 to 29 are neither fully adult nor in an “extended adolescence” – as this time of life was viewed over the course of the 20th century. In the early 21st century, these years had become a time of gradually and often erratically making one’s way toward a more established adulthood .

I invited scholars from all over the world to contribute to a special issue of American Psychologist, one of the top journals in psychology, on the theme of “Rethinking Adult Development: New Ideas for New Times.” The recently published results are a wonderfully diverse set of papers that go a long way toward reconceptualizing what adult development looks like now and where it might be going.

Most of the authors were developmental psychologists. About half were Americans and half were Europeans, although Shinobu Kitayama and his colleagues offered a refreshingly different Asian cultural perspective.

Here are some of the highlights:

– Ages 30 to 45 are now “the rush hour of life.” Today people around the world wait later than ever to marry and have kids, and most have only one or two. But then couples typically have the dual challenge of trying to move ahead in their careers while also handling the intense responsibilities of caring for young children. Women have vastly greater opportunities in education and work than they did in 1960, which is welcome but also presents new challenges and stresses.

In their contribution to the special issue, Clare Mehta and her colleagues propose the term “established adulthood” to distinguish these years as the most intense and demanding years of adult life, characterized by the “career-and-care-crunch,” when obligations are high in both work and family roles.

– In midlife – ages 45-60 – the crunch years of caring for young children abate. Adults reach their peak career earnings and status in their late 40s and 50s. But life can become complicated, as new responsibilities may arise with grandchildren and with aging parents who need more assistance.

Overall, as Frank Infurna and colleagues detail in their contribution, mental health declines in midlife. Reports of depression and anxiety increase. Seeking professional help for mental health issues reaches a lifetime peak.

Furthermore, midlife well-being, health and life expectancy have declined notably in the U.S. since 2000, especially among working-class adults who have been left behind by the information-and-technology economy. This has led to an epidemic of “deaths of despair” from suicide, opioid overdoses or alchoholism.

– Adults in later life, ages 60-75, are thriving like never before. Although life after age 60 is traditionally regarded as a time of inevitable decline, the reality of it has become sharply different –and better – in recent decades.

Life expectancy at birth is higher now than it has ever been, worldwide, and adults are smarter and healthier for longer than ever. Denis Gerstorf and his colleagues show how these positive trends have taken place across many countries over the past century because of improvements in education, nutrition and health care.

[ Like what you’ve read? Want more? Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter .]

Physical health issues do arise with age for most people, but more people than ever before stay healthy through their 60s and early 70s by maintaining healthy diet and physical exercise practices. One of the exciting recent findings highlighted in Ursula Staudinger’s article is that regular exercise promotes mental health as well as physical well-being, helping to maintain mental sharpness and prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

Life satisfaction also seems to rise in later life, as we gain a new freedom to choose the kind of work we do – or stop working altogether and spend more time with the people we care about most. According to Phillip Ackerman and Ruth Kanfer , more people are working into their late 60s and early 70s than ever before, but they have more freedom to choose how they do it, whether it’s working part time, starting a small business or trying something they have always wanted to do.

Adulthood’s new arc requires new concepts and ideas

Over my decades of writing about emerging adulthood, I’ve learned that it matters how people think about the stages of human development. Thinking shapes expectations and how experiences are interpreted. Lots of compelling and exciting new findings about adult development point to the importance of rethinking previous theories, assumptions and stereotypes about the course of adult life.

• Early adulthood
• early career
• Cultural change

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Every Day Is a New Beginning and the Start of Your New Life

Every day of your life is a new beginning, not just the first day of the year.

You can make Daily Resolutions, not just New Year Resolutions. Any day is suitable for making them.

Regard every day as the beginning of your new, better, and happier life. Start every day of the year with feelings of happiness and the anticipation that great and wonderful things will happen.

Regardless of your circumstances, begin every day of the year with a smile, hope, and expectations. You are not cheating yourself because if you persevere, this attitude will make you a more positive and happy person.

Daily, restate your goals and decisions for your new, happy, and successful life. At the same time, be open to new ideas, opportunities, and ways to achieve your goals.

To change your reality, you must change your thoughts. Learn how your thoughts and visualization can create the reality you want. Manifest and Achieve Whatever You Want

If you see each day as a new beginning, you will feel happier, more energetic, and more motivated.

Discover the Power of Positive Thinking

You Can Make New Resolutions Any Day

Often, people make New Year Resolutions , but either do nothing to carry them out or start and then quit. This creates feelings of frustration, unhappiness, and failure.

You don’t have just one opportunity to carry out a decision or achieve a goal. If you fail to carry them out, you don’t need to wait until the beginning of next year.

You can make a new resolution every day. You can start again every day if you fail in your first, second, or even third attempt.

There are no limitations on making new decisions and forming new goals, and there are no limitations on when to begin doing new things. Every day is suitable for making a resolution and a new beginning.

You Can Make a New Start of Life Every Day

Every day is a new beginning and the start of your new life.

The question is whether you carry through what you decided and promised. This is most important. What’s the use of making decisions and promises but not following through on them?

Do you make New Year Resolutions?

If you do, do you try to carry them out?

When you begin to carry them out, do you persevere until you accomplish them?

Making New Year Resolutions or any other decision at any other time of the year is simple and easy.

Often, they are made in response to some emotion.

However, people quite soon, lose the motivation and enthusiasm and continue living the same kind of life without doing anything to improve their lives.

This is why you need to make resolutions and repeat them every day. It is not enough to state them just once when the New Year begins.

It would be a good idea to write them down on a clean sheet of paper, on the screen of your computer or your smartphone so you can see them, read them, and think about them every day.

You need to repeat your resolutions every day, with belief and faith, and be willing to do whatever is necessary to accomplish them. It is not enough to repeat the words with your lips.

You need to keep expecting success, happiness, and health, no matter your circumstances. This attitude would trigger your subconscious mind to help and motivate you.

You might wish there was some magic to carry out your decisions, promises, and goals.

There is, and it is made of motivation , persistence, willpower and self-discipline . These powers would make your life interesting, happy, and fulfilling.

“Every day brings a chance for you to draw in a breath, kick off your shoes, and dance.” – Oprah Winfrey

“Every day is a new beginning. Treat it that way. Stay away from what might have been, and look at what can be.” – Marsha Petrie Sue

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Join him on a fabulous journey to self-improvement, success, positivity, inner peace, and meditation through his website, articles, and books .

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A new start after 60: ‘Alone for the first time in my life, I learned how to be happy’

Marian Elliott was devastated when her husband left her after almost 40 years together. New friends have helped her rebuild her confidence – and enjoy her freedom

M arian Elliott was 22 when she left the family home to be with her husband-to-be. So when he left her nearly 40 years later – shortly after her 60th birthday – she found herself living entirely alone for the first time.

Elliott had thought she could picture the next stage in her life. She and her ex had worked hard to pay off their mortgage. “We were about to enjoy our retirement together,” she says with a heavy sigh. Now there was nothing but uncertainty. “I felt such pain, I didn’t know what to do with it,” she says.

For Elliott, “a marriage broken up by the other person is like a bereavement”, and the grief she felt revived another sorrow that she had been unable fully to face. When she was 20, her father died of stomach cancer. “I have suffered from depression ever since,” she says. “It doesn’t take much, and whoosh! – it all comes back.”

Her father was unaware that his illness was terminal, though Elliott knew, and she never had a chance to say goodbye, nor to share a “meaningful conversation” with him before he died. Within a year, her then boyfriend also died of stomach cancer. “There’s only so much you can talk about in terms of grief at that age, I think. People don’t know what to do with you,” she says. It was in this context that she became friends with the man who would become her husband.

It was only after her marriage ended that Elliott embarked on counselling, at the suggestion of her doctor, and began to understand her bouts of depression. “You kind of bury these things. It does help, understanding where all this comes from.”

When she first set up her marital home, her overwhelming sensation was of “freedom”. She hand-sewed kaftans for herself and her partner, cooked what she wanted to eat, and together they hung wallpaper and built bookshelves.

But when she bought her own place for the first time at 64, and moved from Surrey to the Kent coast, she had to face a totally new kind of freedom, one that was offset by a solitary responsibility and sometimes acute loneliness.

In her despair, she reached for some positives. “I thought: ‘I’ve always wanted to be by the sea,’” she says, and now she was. And she was finally able to get the dog she had long wanted. One of her greatest joys is walking Ruby, her rescue lurcher/collie cross, along the beach. “We like that,” she says.

“It’s been nine years since all this started falling apart. And I come home and I look at my front door and think: ‘That is my front door. No one can take that away from me, ever.’ On the other hand, once I’m through the door, I am on my own and that is still hard.”

She already knew of u3a – AKA the University of the Third Age, whose motto is “learn, laugh, live” – but she had always been too busy to sign up. Now, she looked up her local branch. “I knew I needed people. They have somebody on the door. If you look a bit lost, they say: ‘Have you been here before? Oh, I’ll sit you down with somebody’ … By the time you walk out of that first session, it’s like you’ve been there for ever.

“Your confidence builds up. You get to walk through another door. A bit worried, but you do it.” Now, Elliott attends the Spanish, family history, creative writing and gardening groups (most of her new flower bed has been stocked with the help of her “generous and kind-hearted” friends); she also sits on the committee, organises AGMs and hosts coffee mornings.

Life is not how she envisaged it nine years ago, but her new friends “are showing me that there is still lots for me to enjoy and do. They have enabled me, through their friendliness, to make a new life all by myself. And that’s quite an empowering feeling.”

u3a is a national learning organisation in which people come together to develop their interests, make new friends and have fun. This is its 40 th anniversary year .

Tell us: has your life taken a new direction after the age of 60?

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Starting a New Life

By susan gitenstein assadi.

BY Priscilla Hernandez, a Mexican Immigrant An ideal homeplace would be a place where you feel happy, where you feel at home. It’s where you want to live your life and know it’s safe, where you can be yourself and know that you are happy with who you are and with what you have. A place where racism, violence, discrimination isn’t a factor, and you won’t feel that people don’t care about you or that they wish you bad. My name is Priscila and it’s been 5 years since I moved to U.S.A from Mexico where I was born. My parents brought me and my siblings to the U.S. for a better life. What I meant by that is for a better education, and a life where we can be safe and happy. The life in Mexico is different than the life in here. For example, the education there is different, the school there uses less technology and more books which in my opinion are better because sometimes technology can be a distraction for students and if the students use them too much, they will pay less attention to class. In this way the students there can’t use the technology that much, which makes them pay attention to class and do their assignments faster. The lifestyle as a teenager can also be different. Where I used to live is a state called Durango, there is a tranquil state and the towns around it are small and tranquil. The town where I used to live is not as large as a city. For example, it doesn’t have a lot of cars, buildings or large parks like Disney land or museums, but it does have parks and other fun places for teenagers and there are a lot of mountains and rivers where you can go and have fun. I remember one time when I was about 11 years old, I went camping with my family and cousins to a place called La Presa, which is called that because there is a dam there. When it’s summer, we all go there and we take food, and things to play like volleyball or fishing rod to catch fish and clothes you can use to go swimming. You feel free when you live there. As teenagers their life is enjoyable because teens have freedom and it’s not like if they go out something could happen to them. As soon as I moved to the U.S. my life changed completely in a way I couldn’t imagine, here the education is different like schools here use a lot of technology in classrooms and that was new for me. Something else is that life as a teenager is harder because you can’t go out and be free as you can be there. For example, here you can go out and have fun but at the same time you are afraid that something would happen to you or to your friends, like you can get into a fight and afraid that someone could pull out a gun or that you can get into a car accident because someone didn’t stop at the stop signs. At Durango these types of experiences don’t happen like in here it’s weird when something like car accident or a shooting happen because usually this type of staff doesn’t happen there, it’s more tranquil over there. To be honest I still miss the place where I grew up and the people I grew up with and I will never forget all the moments I had there. Although this was a massive change in my life, I know my parents did it, so that my siblings and I have a better future and I am grateful for that and now I want to make my parents

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How to Introduce New Topics and Transition Effectively in Essays

Last Updated: March 19, 2024 Fact Checked

New Paragraphs

New sections, expert q&a.

This article was co-authored by Jake Adams . Jake Adams is an academic tutor and the owner of Simplifi EDU, a Santa Monica, California based online tutoring business offering learning resources and online tutors for academic subjects K-College, SAT & ACT prep, and college admissions applications. With over 14 years of professional tutoring experience, Jake is dedicated to providing his clients the very best online tutoring experience and access to a network of excellent undergraduate and graduate-level tutors from top colleges all over the nation. Jake holds a BS in International Business and Marketing from Pepperdine University. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 86,715 times.

Most essays have multiple topics, and switching between them can get tricky. Without strong transitions and introductions to new points, your writing could seem choppy or unfocused. Luckily, making good topic introductions is easy! It just takes some planning, practice, and patience. Once you know the formula, you’ll be introducing new topics like a pro.

Effective Ways to Introduce New Essay Topics

• Introduce the topic with a transition word, like “Similarly” or “Likewise.”
• Use a contrasting transition word for clashing topics, like “However” or “Yet.”
• Give an overview of the topic you’re discussing after the introductory sentence.

• A strong outline includes your overall topic idea, planned thesis statement, essay structure, and the topics and themes you'll be covering in each section.
• Note on your outline when you're going to be introducing new topics. This helps you plan ahead and anticipate where you'll need transitions.

• If you've already started your paper, it never hurts to go back and write an outline anyway. This way, you can keep all your thoughts organized and give your essay more direction.

• For example, you may be writing a large paper about the Civil War, and the current section is about arguments over slavery. You can have one part on Southern arguments defending slavery, then transition to Northern arguments against slavery, since both topics are in the same section.
• Usually for a shorter paper, up to about 5-7 pages, you won’t need individual section headings. It’s fine to just transition from paragraph to paragraph in these cases.

• For example, if your paper is about the Civil War and you’re transitioning from arguments over slavery to the outbreak of the war, then it’s worthwhile to make a whole new section. These topics are related, but distinct and important enough to get their own sections.
• In another example, you might be writing a compare and contrast essay. It’s helpful to start a new section labeled “Differences” when you move from comparing to contrasting.
• Individual section headings are common in longer papers, around 15-20 pages or more. For long papers like this, it helps your reader stay focused.

• Similarly, in the same way, likewise, also, as well, and so too.
• For example, start a paragraph about slavery and the Civil War with, “In the same way that northern abolitionists were singularly focused on eliminating slavery, the Republican Party was concerned with stopping it from spreading into America's territories.”

• In contrast, however, nevertheless, yet, and still.
• For the Civil War example, arguments defending and criticizing slavery are completely different. To reflect that, you’d use a transition indicating disagreement. You could say “In sharp contrast to southern slave owners, northern abolitionists argued that enslaving a human being was evil in all circumstances.”

• If you’re showing contrast, you could say, “Yet King Arthur was destined to fail in his quest to find the Holy Grail.” This shows that the previous topic may have been about Arthur starting his quest, but now you’ll explain how he failed to accomplish it.
• You could also show similarity by saying “Similarly, Abraham Lincoln agreed that slavery was a moral evil.” This indicates that the new topic you’re introducing is related to and supports the previous one.

• You could also follow up on the King Arthur example with “In Arthurian stories, Arthur made numerous journeys to find the Grail, but never actually succeeded.” This tells the reader that the rest of the paragraph will include information on these failures.
• Using the Abraham Lincoln example, you could follow up your topic sentence with “Throughout his entire life, Lincoln saw the evils of slavery and spoke about stopping the practice.” This indicates that the paragraph will elaborate on this point and provide more details.

• For the King Arthur example, you can spend 2-4 sentences explaining Arthur's unsuccessful quests for the Grail. This supports your transition statement saying that Arthur failed to find the Grail.
• Make sure the details you fill in line up with your topic sentence. If your topic sentence said that Abraham Lincoln was anti-slavery, it wouldn’t be consistent to introduce examples of him supporting or praising slavery.

• A conclusion for your King Arthur paragraph could be “Hard as Arthur tried, he never found the Holy Grail.”
• Don’t introduce any new topics in the conclusion sentence. Save that for the topic sentence of the next paragraph if you want to add another topic.
• If you have a similar paragraph after this one, you can link them by giving a hint of where it's going. For example, you could conclude by saying "Abraham Lincoln's lifelong opposition to slavery naturally set him up for a career fighting the institution." Then make the next paragraph about Lincoln's political career. [12] X Research source

• You can use transitional language without a ton of detail. For example, “While Odysseus was glad to be home, there was trouble brewing in his kingdom.” This provides a strong transition, hints at the next topic, and gets the reader interested in continuing.

• For the Odysseus example, your previous section may have been about the events of The Odyssey . You could sum up the previous topic by saying “He had spent 20 years away from home—10 fighting the Trojan War and 10 on his journey back to Ithaca—and conquered every challenge that came his way.”
• Don’t spend too much time on this summary. Wrap it up within 2 sentences at most.

• You could give a quick introduction of how the suitors in the Odyssey had moved in to Odysseus’ home and would attack him when he arrived. This sets up the challenge and tension for this new topic, and sets the theme for this section of your essay.

• For the Odysseus example, a strong conclusion would be “Perhaps this was to be Odysseus’ greatest challenge yet.”
• In a more research-based paper, you can be less literary. For example, “In the end, the Constitutional Convention was a success, but only after the Framers overcame numerous challenges in the process.”

• It’s easier to plan your transitions if you outline your essay first. This way, you’ll know where you need to introduce new topics. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• If your professor or teacher mentions that your writing seems choppy, then you probably need to work on introducing new topics a bit more smoothly. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• If you still have trouble making strong transitions, take advantage of your school’s writing center if you have one. The tutors there can be a huge help. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/transitions/
• ↑ Jake Adams. Academic Tutor & Test Prep Specialist. Expert Interview. 24 July 2020.
• ↑ https://www.strose.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Transition-Sentences-Handout-2012B.pdf
• ↑ https://monroecollege.libguides.com/c.php?g=589208&p=4072926
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/mechanics/transitions_and_transitional_devices/index.html
• ↑ https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/ssid/301/study-skills/writing/academic-writing/paragraph-flow-connectivity
• ↑ https://www.delmar.edu/offices/swc/_resources/Composition/topic-sentence-transition-formula.pdf
• ↑ https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/ending-essay-conclusions

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Utah high school removes class assignment on student essay titled ‘It Is So Hard to Be Trans’

The essay, published in the new york times, contained no explicit or “pornographic” content that would have required its removal under utah law..

(Google Maps) Herriman High School, as shown in a 2021 Google Maps image, in Herriman, Utah. Jordan School District officials ordered that a class assignment at the school involving a transgender student's essay be removed.

Jordan School District officials ordered that an assignment involving a Texas student’s essay published in The New York Times titled “It Is So Hard to Be Trans” be removed from a Herriman High School class’s curriculum after it was brought to the attention of administrators.

“We apologize to any student offended by a Herriman High School classroom assignment involving a New York Times student essay and the disruption to learning it may have caused,” district spokesperson Sandra Riesgraf said in a statement Monday.

The district investigated the assignment, “which asked students to break down parts of speech in the essay,” after school administrators were notified, Riesgraf said. The assignment was ultimately removed and is “no longer part of the class.”

“Appropriate administrative action will be taken,” the statement continued, though the statement did not specify what that action would entail.

The district also did not specify why the assignment was removed. The content does not seem to violate Utah’s sensitive materials law .

But it did seem to prompt outrage after photos of the printed-out, stapled essay made rounds in conservative social media circles as early as last Thursday, with some posts claiming students were required to write a response to the essay explaining why being transgender “isn’t a choice.”

Riesgraf said that claim was false. “Students were not required to take a stance or form an opinion on why being trans isn’t a choice,” Riesgraf said. “The assignment was to review the writing, not the subject.”

Sen. Dan McCay, R-Riverton, weighed in on X , formerly Twitter, arguing that he didn’t see how the essay would “fit into any curriculum that is state approved.”

“I’ve asked the district to investigate,” he wrote.

McCay did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Salt Lake Tribune.

The assigned essay had been selected as one of the Top 11 winners in a 2023 student editorial contest through the The Learning Network, a free resource for teachers curated by The New York Times.

It was written by then 16-year-old Callisto Lim, a student at the Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, Texas. The essay details why Callisto felt scared for their “right to exist,” citing several states that had passed anti-transgender legislation.

“I am scared that if I stay in Texas I will be denied the health care that I need because of people like Governor Greg Abbott,” Callisto wrote.

Callisto’s essay contains no explicit “pornographic or indecent material” that would make it illegal under Utah’s current sensitive materials law.

Utah law also does not explicitly prohibit classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity, though lawmakers have made attempts to pass legislation banning such topics in the past.

Earlier this year, Rep. Jeff Stenquist , R-Draper, proposed a bill that would have prevented school officials from “endorsing, promoting, or disparaging certain beliefs or viewpoints,” building upon existing restrictions meant to uphold “constitutional freedom” in Utah public schools.

The bill would have specifically added “gender identity,” “sexual orientation,” and “political and social viewpoints” as restricted topics, but it ultimately failed to pass .

A year prior, Stenquist also ran a bill that would have prohibited any discussion of sexuality, sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade. HB550 took language directly from a controversial Florida bill that became more widely known as the “Don’t Say Gay” measure.

But after pushback from the LGBTQ community, Stenquist revised his draft , lifting the proposed ban on sexual orientation and gender identity but keeping the prohibition on sexuality. The bill failed to pass.

Donate to the newsroom now. The Salt Lake Tribune, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) public charity and contributions are tax deductible

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By the Book

Letter by Letter, Steve Gleason Typed His Memoir With His Eyes

The former N.F.L. player has been living with A.L.S. for more than a decade. Sharing “the most lacerating and vulnerable times” in “A Life Impossible” was worth the physical and emotional toll, he says.

Credit... Rebecca Clarke

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Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).

I have always loved to read, and I read nearly anywhere. Journalists used to get a kick out of the fact that in the midst of the chaotic joy of the [New Orleans] Saints locker room, I would lie on the floor reading books.

These days, while I’m not so good at flipping pages, I still tear through books. I listen on Audible, or read on Kindle, and for the books I’d like to pass on, I buy the book for the shelves in our house.

The ideal reading experience? For me, there is nothing more glorious than sitting outside under the shade of an oak tree with my wife, Michel, or our 12-year-old son, Rivers, listening on Audible or hearing them read the hard copy. (Rivers and I just finished the young readers adaptation of “The Boys in the Boat,” by Daniel James Brown.) Our 5-year-old daughter, Gray, is just learning to read, so I look forward to continuing this tradition in nature, my sanctuary, for many years.

What book do you turn to during hard times?

Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” There were a couple years, as I was losing the ability to move, talk and breathe, that I felt so lonely, ashamed and weary that I was ready to give up and die. His words helped me choose life.

What did it take to write a nearly 300-page book?

In a word … everything. I type with my eyes, letter by letter, so to write this, it took a physical toll to write for several hours each day for two years. It took patience and discipline. People often talk about “writer’s block,” but I think I experienced something of the opposite thousands of times over the past couple years. Ordinary writers may have a wonderful idea to get on the page, then they quickly write it down. But I type so slowly that the wonderful idea that was so vivid and clear eventually slipped into the fog as I trudged and typed.

It also took an emotional toll. To relive the most lacerating and vulnerable times of my life, then to share those experiences in a raw, truthful human way, rather than a heroic way, took an extraordinary amount of trust. It’s clear to me that sharing our shortcomings and weaknesses with each other is our greatest strength. Our salvation.

Why do you describe yourself as afraid to finish it?

There were multiple reasons. Unlike most authors, I’m not able to quickly scroll through a chapter to revise or edit. I have bragged on social media, “I get more done in one day than most people get done in 15 minutes!” So, during the end of the writing process, there was fear that I would lose the input I needed to tell our story fully and truthfully.

Michel and I took some enormous risks in openly and transparently sharing our journey as a couple enduring the dark traumas of life with A.L.S. When you read the searing experience that we have been through, you may feel kind of like you’re overhearing conversations that you shouldn’t be hearing. But these difficult, truthful and compassionate conversations were our redemption, and our healing. I also took some personal risks in sharing my fairly unconventional views on religion and spirituality.

I think the most frightening aspect may be that once published, my life story would become solid, static and fixed. That is so crazy to me, because, as a lifelong explorer, my perspectives, philosophical outlooks, and beliefs are dynamic and fluid.

Galleys for your book opened with a quote from Shakespeare, “Tears water our growth.” How did you come across it? Why that quote?

I know this will come as a shock, but not everything I read on the internet is true! While this quote was attributed to Shakespeare, we did a little digging and there is no record of him ever saying or writing this, even though it’s constantly attributed to him. Although, in “As You Like It,” he does write: “Sweet are the uses of adversity. …” [The quote is now attributed to Author Unknown.]

What kind of reader were you as a child? Do any childhood books and authors stick with you?

My mom was a language arts teacher, so she would read to me nearly every night and I was a voracious reader growing up. The book that stands out from my youth is “Ender’s Game,” a novel by Orson Scott Card. In sixth grade I found this book in the Bookmobile, a big yellow van that I remember with great nostalgia. I can’t say exactly why, but I also read it a couple years after I was diagnosed with A.L.S.

I sense that in both my adolescence and the crazy unknowns of life where I was losing the ability to move, talk and breathe, I resonated with two themes in “Ender’s Game” — feeling isolation, and working to discover my own identity.

I’m reminded of a profound truth in a quote from Ender: “In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him.” In embracing this paradox, I find strength and compassion in the midst of adversity.

What book has had the greatest impact on you?

Wow, this is an impossible question to answer, but I enjoy dancing with the impossible. It would be “21 Lessons for the 21st Century ,” by Yuval Noah Harari . I read this in early 2019, my ninth season with A.L.S. In “21 Lessons,” Harari explores the profound challenges facing humanity, including technological disruption, political polarization and existential risks. With such rapid change, life will become ever more chaotic.

Harari mentions multiple times that the realest thing in the world is suffering. He goes on to say that suffering is a product of patterns in our own minds, and offers a tool that has helped him alleviate suffering and be more resilient — meditation. I now train my mind in meditation for two to three hours a day. I didn’t realize it then, but as I started meditation, I was embarking on a practice of a lifetime.

What’s the last great book you read?

When I was diagnosed, one of the first questions I asked in a journal entry was, “Can I discover peace of mind, even if this disease destroys my body?” That inquiry has been a guiding light for me the past 13 years. “The Good Life: Lessons From the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness,” by Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz, has real-life stories I could relate to, providing insights which have helped illuminate the path for me to live longer, and be grateful and content.

The last book that made you cry?

“I Wish for You,” by David Wax and illustrated by Brett Blumenthal. During spring break, as our daughter nestled beside me in bed, our caregiver, Jenni, read from the book. It lists about a dozen of the most important character traits and values that I aspire to embody and instill in our kids. Witnessing Gray following along with her tiny finger, I was overwhelmed by the miraculousness of the moment. Despite being 10 years past my expiration date, here I was, sharing a cherished reading experience.

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I Got Divorced, and Now I Hate All My Clothes

After ending an 11-year relationship, my closest quickly turned into a gravesite, memorializing our life together.

I didn’t get married anticipating divorce. Nor did I, a fashion and beauty editor, expect to find all my garments suddenly unwearable. Yet there I was, alone in my bedroom, with a wardrobe full of nothing I wanted to wear.

I wish I could tell you there was a big, explosive blowout, a tantalizing scandal, or a major red flag that festered or metastasized beyond the point of reconciliation, but the sad truth is that we grew apart. And as the chasm between us became too wide to bridge, it felt easier to separate gracefully than to force a lifetime together.

After a breakup, most people wax melancholic about the landmarks they frequented, once-cherished memories that become almost too painful, too unbearable to hold onto— anecdotal souvenirs that they wish they could scrub clean, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind -style. Remember how happy we were there and there and there? For me, those tales are told in threads: There’s the Only NY long-sleeve I bought, because it was one of his favorite brands; a J.Crew sweater he gifted me during one of our first holidays together; the vintage Thierry Mugler suit I snagged on one of our trips to San Francisco; the navy ruched dress I wore to his friend’s wedding; and then, of course, there was our own wedding—the Calvin Klein Collection dress I got custom-made for the big day. My closet felt like a gravesite, memorializing all these moments we had together, large and small.

.css-1aear8u:before{margin:0 auto 0.9375rem;width:34px;height:25px;content:'';display:block;background-repeat:no-repeat;}.loaded .css-1aear8u:before{background-image:url(/_assets/design-tokens/elle/static/images/quote.fddce92.svg);} .css-1bvxk2j{font-family:SaolDisplay,SaolDisplay-fallback,SaolDisplay-roboto,SaolDisplay-local,Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:1.625rem;font-weight:normal;line-height:1.2;margin:0rem;margin-bottom:0.3125rem;}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-1bvxk2j{font-size:2.125rem;line-height:1.1;}}@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-1bvxk2j{font-size:2.125rem;line-height:1.2;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-1bvxk2j{font-size:2.25rem;line-height:1.1;}}@media(min-width: 73.75rem){.css-1bvxk2j{font-size:2.375rem;line-height:1.2;}}.css-1bvxk2j b,.css-1bvxk2j strong{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;}.css-1bvxk2j em,.css-1bvxk2j i{font-style:italic;font-family:inherit;}.css-1bvxk2j i,.css-1bvxk2j em{font-style:italic;} We decided to separate in 2022 and officially filed for divorce a year later. Sartorially, I coped by not wanting to wear anything I owned—or anything at all.”

We were together 11 years—pretty much all of my 20s and the entirety of my time in New York. When so much of yourself is tethered to one person, when both of your lives become entirely enmeshed, it goes without saying that it’s exceedingly difficult to extricate yourself when it’s over. We decided to separate in 2022 and officially filed for divorce a year later. Sartorially, I coped by not wanting to wear anything I owned—or anything at all. “I just want to be naked!” I declared to anyone who asked how I was doing. One point, last summer, I said this while wearing a translucent, mini slip dress with nothing underneath except a teeny-tiny bralette and an equally teeny-tiny pair of hot pants.

“Well, it looks like you’re nearly there,” quipped a friend, her eyebrows raised.

The psychology behind post-breakup fashion is intuitive to grasp: A change in appearance, whether it be a haircut or your entire sartorial outlook, is a way to demarcate the end of one chapter and the start of another. You get a clean slate without having to wait to ring in a new year.

I want to make it absolutely clear: I wasn’t in an unhappy marriage, or a bad one for that matter. But in many ways I felt stuck and unseen. It’s hard to discern why I chose to dress the way I did—how does anyone? Pinpointing the reason can be as elusive as attempting to define a nebulous concept like love. The intricate makings of personal style are akin to hand-stitching fine lacework. Fleeting and abstract, so much of piecing together an outfit is based on a feeling . So for me to say I dressed all in black because I was in a sad marriage is reductive, and also wrong.

But I can say that I largely gravitated toward a restrained color palette. In my 20s, during a time when I was trying to prove myself as a writer and editor in a notoriously unkind, unforgiving industry, I wanted people to take me seriously, so I wore somber colors and modest styles—so modest, they bordered on puritanical. There was a period where hemlines hardly ever hiked higher than my shin. And those ankle-grazing skirts were often paired with baggy sweaters, oversized button-downs, or turtlenecks. My approach to fashion was austere, all clean lines and rigid, stark, minimalist silhouettes; I thought those were the trappings of Good Style. And anything outside of it (color, embellishments, skin-exposing cutouts) I considered frivolous and, quite frankly, gauche, and thus Bad. In retrospect, I imagine that a part of me wanted to hide behind my clothing.

I combed through my closet recently and tried on a dress I wore B.D. (Before Divorce). I was aghast at how shapeless it was, how much fabric there was, how blah and invisible I felt in it.”

And that inadvertently bled into how I dressed outside of work—or perhaps, it worked in tandem. My ex and I were both so focused on our careers that in our downtime together, we did nothing. I’m not entirely sure when things between us got to be so serious, but it reached a point where every moment, every activity, every conversation felt laden with an inexplicable weight. Spending time together was like wading through molasses, impossibly tough and tiresome. How I so badly wished there was lightness or laughter or joy, but what was missing was too blatant to ignore, despite how much I cared about him. And so, there was no desire to dress up. I hardly wore makeup. My nails were rarely painted. Apathy masqueraded as comfort. I combed through my closet recently and tried on a dress I wore B.D. (Before Divorce). I was aghast at how shapeless it was, how much fabric there was, how blah and invisible I felt in it.

Ripping our lives apart was a gut-wrenching process. Heartbreaking. A big part of why I held onto my marriage was because I had an all-consuming fear of starting over, which isn’t a good reason to stay in any relationship. But now, as a no-longer-married person—for the first time in over a decade—I’ve embarked on the long, unrelenting road of figuring out who I am, like Julia Roberts determining how she likes her eggs in Runaway Bride.

“Although the word divorce is often viewed as sad in one’s life, it can also be freeing. In a dysfunctional marriage, we can lose our sense of self and our own identity. And we may become very stifled in our creativity and growth,” Weiss says. “So post-divorce can offer an opportunity to explore different sides of ourselves. And fashion is the perfect outlet to show those changes.”

While I might want to parade around naked, the law—and common decency—forbids it. Instead, I’ve made some purchases: a vintage, cowl-neck metallic mini reminiscent of 2002 Paris Hilton, a collection of truncated tanks, a strappy bandeau, a curve-hugging mesh dress with up-to-there slits, and a two-piece sequin set. A friend called my new look “very Gen Z.” So many others have expressed their surprise. “That doesn’t seem like your style at all” has been the common refrain. Another said it looked like I was going through a midlife crisis, that maybe I should dress my age.

A part of me feels like I’m flailing, like I’m unsure of my footing and stumbling around like a toddler learning how to walk; another part exudes a level of confidence I haven’t felt in so long, maybe ever. For the first time, I’m experimenting with my style, no-holds-barred, and dressing in a way that makes me feel desirable, even pretty. There’s also the possibility that all of this coincides with just growing older and finally feeling comfortable in my skin.

For now, I’ll hold onto what delights me: itty-bitty midriff-exposing tops, micro hemlines, and see-through everything. Finally, these clothes have started to make my closet feel like mine again.

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Louisiana Will Get a New City After Yearslong Court Battle

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ATLANTA — The original plan was to start a school district. That didn’t work. So a group of residents in a sprawling unincorporated suburb of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, expanded their idea: Create a city of their own, called St. George.

In 2015, they collected signatures to bring their proposal up for a vote, but didn’t get enough. In 2019, they tried again. This time, they made it to a ballot and won the election, only to be stalled by a lengthy court battle.

But the Louisiana Supreme Court cleared the way Friday for the formation of St. George, a city of nearly 100,000 people that joins the ranks of the state’s largest cities, falling between Lafayette and Lake Charles in population. It is the first city to be incorporated in Louisiana in nearly two decades.

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A majority of justices found that lower courts had erred in blocking the city’s creation over concerns of its financial viability.

“This is the culmination of citizens exercising their constitutional rights,” Andrew Murrell, a leader of the effort to create the city, said in a statement, adding, “Now we begin the process of delivering on our promises of a better city.”

The city will consist of an area of East Baton Rouge Parish, which is run by a blended government that oversees both Baton Rouge and the broader parish. It also carves out a largely white and more affluent section of the parish, southeast of Baton Rouge.

The ruling signaled victory for a campaign that had endured since 2012 and was built on frustrations about schools, crime, infrastructure and the resources devoted to that part of the parish.

But its opponents — including parish leaders, as well as a powerful cross-section of business and civic leaders — contended that the complaints driving the campaign were unfounded and unfair. They argued that the plan for a new city was poorly conceived and would cause turbulence for the parish as a whole, rather than improve anyone’s quality of life.

“There is no basis in fact that the existence of St. George is positive or will bring positivity or have a positive impact on any areas of the cities or the parish,” said M.E. Cormier, who was a leader of a group that campaigned against St. George.

Critics also said that the grievances were masking other motivations, describing the effort as an example of a wealthy white community trying to distance itself from the Black and poorer residents in Baton Rouge. Some were disappointed that the challenge was now exhausted and believed that parish residents who live outside St. George but would feel its impact should have had more of a say.

Sharon Weston Broome, the mayor-president leading the combined Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge Parish governments, had been one of the principal challengers to St. George. But in a news conference Friday, Broome tried to send a more conciliatory message, acknowledging that the court’s ruling was the end to the saga.

“My goal from the very beginning — and it will always be my goal — is to advocate for a united Baton Rouge,” Broome told reporters, referring to the goal of minimizing division, even if St. George becomes its own municipality. “I am committed to serving the residents of St. George.”

Trying to forge a friendly relationship between the governments means overcoming acrimony that has festered for more than a decade.

The drive to establish St. George was started by residents who wanted to form their own school district because of concerns that East Baton Rouge Parish schools were troubled and underperforming.

When their first bid failed to get enough votes in the state Legislature, organizers were told they might have a better standing with a city of their own. So, in 2015, they sketched out an area of 85 square miles and 107,000 residents that would form the new city. But they did not gather enough signatures for the proposal to advance to a vote.

Several years later, they shaved the area down to include 60 square miles and 86,000 people, and collected enough signatures for a ballot initiative in 2019. The measure won 54% of the vote. Since then, the area shrunk even more, as some properties within the new city lines were annexed by Baton Rouge.

The path to the incorporation of St. George resembled in many ways the one taken by the last city formed in Louisiana, just on a larger scale: The city of Central, which is also in East Baton Rouge Parish and has nearly 30,000 people, was established in 2005 after failed attempts to start a new school district.

The success of the 2019 vote spurred an immediate legal challenge as parish officials feared the consequences of losing $48 million in annual tax revenues. They argued that the new city could not operate with a balanced budget and the proposed budget for St. George was inaccurate. A lower court judge agreed.

But the state Supreme Court, in the majority opinion, said that parish officials were relying on flawed figures, and that the city could operate within its estimated tax revenues.

Justice William Crain, the author of the majority opinion, also pushed back on the assertion that the new city would contribute to the deterioration of Baton Rouge, the parish seat with just over 220,000 residents. He wrote that the population of St. George was growing as Baton Rouge’s declined, and a flourishing St. George might stanch a migration to surrounding parishes with “more shared interests, including more desirable school districts.”

“We conclude St. George can provide public services within a reasonable period of time,” Crain wrote, speaking for the 4-3 majority.

Now, the campaign to establish St. George — named for an extinct parish that once included the area — is moving ahead with the business of assembling a city government essentially from scratch. Gov. Jeff Landry will appoint an interim mayor and City Council.

St. George already has its own Fire Department and will continue to rely on the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Department for its policing needs. Many other city services will be privatized, adhering to a vision articulated by organizers to maintain as svelte of an operation as possible.

“I look forward to our ability to build an efficient, productive and vibrant city while contributing to a thriving East Baton Rouge Parish,” Norman Browning, one of the chair of the campaign, said in a statement.

But some fear that will be no easy undertaking, and that the process will be a fraught and complicated negotiation. “The detanglement, logistically speaking, is going to be an absolute nightmare,” Cormier said.

Cormier, 39, said that St. George is an area that has transformed in her lifetime living in Baton Rouge. She remembered when the area, now bustling with suburban homes and commerce, was filled with farmland and trees. That growth, she said, came from the parish’s investment.

“There are legacy costs associated with that,” Cormier said. “That is a bill they will be expected to pay — their citizens will be expected to pay — and it will be due and owing on Day 1.”

c.2024 The New York Times Company

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A US-led effort to bring aid to Gaza by sea is moving forward. But big concerns remain

JERUSALEM — The construction of a new port in Gaza and an accompanying U.S. military-built pier offshore are underway, but the complex plan to bring more desperately needed food to Palestinian civilians is still mired in fears over security and how the humanitarian aid will be delivered.

The Israeli-developed port, for example, has already been attacked by mortar fire, sending high-ranking U.N. officials scrambling for shelter this week, and there is still no solid decision on when the aid deliveries will actually begin .

While satellite photos show major port construction along the shore near Gaza City, aid groups are making it clear that they have broad concerns about their safety and reservations about how Israeli forces will handle security .

Sonali Korde, an official with the U.S. Agency for International Development, said key agreements for security and handling the aid deliveries are still being negotiated. Those include how Israeli forces will operate in Gaza to ensure that aid workers are not harmed .

“We need to see steps implemented. And the humanitarian community and IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) continue to talk and engage and iterate and improve the system so that everyone feels safe and secure in this very difficult operating environment,” Korde said.

A senior U.S. military official said Thursday the U.S. is on track to begin delivering aid using the new port and pier by early May. The official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet made public, said deliveries through the sea route initially will total about 90 trucks a day and could quickly increase to about 150 trucks daily.

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Asked about the recent mortar attack, the miliary official said the U.S. assesses that it had nothing to do with the humanitarian mission, adding that security around the port will be “far more robust” when the deliveries start.

In addition, the U.S. has rehearsed offensive and defensive measures to ensure U.S. troops working at the pier and those on the floating platform several miles off shore are all protected.

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The World Central Kitchen staff, who were honored at a memorial service Thursday in Washington, are among more than 200 humanitarian workers killed in Gaza, a toll the U.N. says is three times higher than any previous number for aid workers in a single year of any war.

Development of the port and pier comes as Israel faces widespread international criticism over the slow trickle of aid into the Palestinian territory, where the United Nations says at least a quarter of the population sits on the brink of starvation .

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— Pallets of aid will be inspected and loaded onto mainly commercial ships in Cyprus, which then will sail about 200 miles to the large floating platform being built by the U.S. military.

— The pallets will be transferred onto trucks, driven onto smaller Army vessels and then taken several miles to the causeway, which will be roughly 1,800 feet, or 550 meters, long and anchored to the shoreline by the Israeli military.

— The trucks will then go down the causeway to a secure drop-off area, where pallets will be distributed to aid agencies. That mission could last several months, the U.S. military official said.

A U.N. official said the port will likely have three zones — one controlled by the Israelis where aid from the pier is dropped off, another where the aid will be transferred, and a third where Palestinian drivers contracted by the U.N. will wait to pick up the aid before bringing it to distribution points.

The construction of the new port in the Gaza Strip appears to have been moving quickly over the last two weeks, according to satellite images analyzed Thursday by The Associated Press. Offshore, U.S. Navy and Army vessels have started the construction of the large pier, or floating platform.

The port sits just southwest of Gaza City, a bit north of a road bisecting Gaza that the Israeli military built during the fighting. The area once was the territory’s most-populous region, before the Israeli ground offensive rolled through, pushing over 1 million people south toward the town of Rafah on the Egyptian border.

No militant group immediately claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s mortar attack at the port site, and no one was hurt of killed. But it reflected ongoing threats from Hamas , which has said it would reject the presence of any non-Palestinians in Gaza.

High-ranking Hamas political official Khalil al-Hayya told the AP that the group would consider Israeli forces — or forces from any other country — stationed by the pier to guard it as “an occupying force and aggression,” and that they would resist it.

The U.N.’s World Food Program has agreed to lead the aid delivery effort. Carl Skau, WFP’s deputy executive director, speaking Thursday at the U.N., said it’s “necessary for us to be able to operate, reach communities, have access to needs, and to do so in a safe and secure way.” He also said the port mission must be just one part of a broader Israeli effort to improve sustainable, land-based deliveries of aid to avert a famine.

The U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss behind-the-scenes deliberations, said several sticking points remain around how the Israelis would handle the port’s security. The military is reportedly seeking to install remote-controlled gun positions, which the U.N. opposes, said the official, although it was not clear what weapons were being described.

In a statement Thursday, the IDF said it “will act to provide security and logistical support for the initiative,” including the construction of the dock and the transfer of aid from the sea to the Gaza Strip.

The port will provide critical extra aid as getting more supplies into Gaza through land crossings has proven challenging, with long backups of trucks awaiting Israeli inspections. Past efforts to get land in by sea faltered after the World Central Kitchen attack .

Countries have even tried airdropping aid from the sky — a tactic that aid groups say is a last-ditch resort because it can’t deliver aid in large quantities and also has led to deaths.

“The more time we spend talking about JLOTS,” said Bob Kitchen, vice president for emergencies with the International Rescue Committee, using the U.S. military acronym for the U.S.-built pier, “the more we talk about air drops — all of this is massively expensive, comparatively low-scale and is a side-show. It’s a distraction.”

Baldor reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington and Abby Sewell in Istanbul contributed to this report.