a fresh start...

January 2, 2013
There's nothing like a fresh start...I unpacked today and cleaned up the Christmas decorations to get our house in order for the new year.  One of my favorite lines in an old Michael Card song says "My child, begin again." A hopeful way to start each day (or year) indeed!  

a great little helper! 

Below are some quotes about fresh starts that ring true after my day today... 

Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. -Henry Ward Beecher

Begin today. Declare out loud to the universe that you are willing to let go of struggle and eager to learn through joy. -Sarah Ban Breathnach

The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. -Steve Jobs

Start wherever you are and start small. -Rita Baily

Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect. -Alan Cohen

I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning. -J. B. Priestly

Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. -Saint Francis of Assisi

The secret to living the life of your dreams is to start living the life of your dreams today, in every little way you possibly can. -Mike Dooley

Life is not a dress rehearsal. Stop practicing what you’re going to do and just go do it. In one bold stroke you can transform today. -Marilyn Grey

The beginning is the most important part of the work. -Plato

There are some things one can only achieve by a deliberate leap in the opposite direction. -Franz Kafka

You don’t need endless time and perfect conditions. Do it now. Do it today. Do it for twenty minutes and watch your heart start beating. -Barbara Sher

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. -Theodore Roosevelt

Don’t worry about being worried. You’re heading out on an adventure and you can always change your mind along the way and try something else. -Tracy Kidder

We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves, otherwise we harden. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

When I face the desolate impossibility of writing 500 pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another. One day’s work is all that I can permit myself to contemplate. -John Steinbeck

You will never win if you never begin. -Helen Rowland

If all you can do is crawl, start crawling. -Rumi

Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. -Maria Robinson

The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want. -Ben Stein

Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. -Henry Ford

Begin somewhere; you cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do. -Liz Smith

A time comes when you need to stop waiting for the man you want to become and start being the man you want to be. -Bruce Springsteen

Some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity. -Gilda Radner

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret to getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks and then starting on the first one. -Mark Twain

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 

He has drawn back, only in order to have enough room for his leap. -Friedrich Nietzsche

Keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over again, and you will grow stronger until you have accomplished a purpose – not the one you began with perhaps, but one you’ll be glad to remember. -Anne Sullivan

Whatever you do or dream you can do – begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

Don’t wait for something big to occur. Start where you are, with what you have, and that will always lead you into something greater. -Mary Manin Morrissey

The secret to a rich life is to have more beginnings than endings. -Dave Weinbaum

Don’t look further for answers: be the solution. You were born with everything you need to know. Make a promise to stop getting in the way of the blessing that you are. Take a deep breath, remember to have fun, and begin. -Jonathan H. Ellerby