When I’ve barely made a dent in my day’s to-do list, when I know I’m going to miss my weekly or monthly guideposts, I usually have a moment where I think something like:

Should I start fresh tomorrow/next week/next month?

This is followed by a thought like:

No, I should finish strong. Suit up!

Then these two voices go to battle, blow for blow, parry for thrust.

It is easy (and tempting) to say that the first voice is the Resistance and the second is the voice of my inner grit, and thus I should do my best to finish strong.

I’m not sure it is as simple as that. I think, instead, that it is more accurate to say it depends.

There are, after all, benefits to starting fresh:

Immediate relief;
Self-forgiveness is an asset;
We sometimes need to rethink the bigger picture, and time away is the only way to do this;
Conserves energy and other resources for the next battle;
And sometimes we just need a break.

So… How do we know when we should finish strong or start fresh?

I don’t know.

Or, rather, it depends.

The only way we know which makes more sense is if we can dig deep.

And the only way to dig deep is to write and explore our own thoughts, and then compare our experiences across time. Then we can begin to see patterns.

And then we can decide whether to finish strong or start fresh.