Starting vs restarting

Today’s blog post is about the challenges of starting something new, and restarting something after a period of hiatus.

Cutting straight to the point, I think the amount of inertia is equal for both cases. It’ll be hard for both starting and restarting.

But I would argue, restarting might actually be harder. Let me explain.

When you are starting out, there is a certain level of naivety, when you stare out to the unknown and still make that leap forward. It’s thrilling, and at least for my case, it’s a matter of ‘I gotta try it or I will live in regret for the rest of my life’. I don’t think I had much to lose back then. I thought to myself, “if it didn’t work out, I would go back to getting a job”

While it’s scary and filled with anxiety, the process was also fuelled by passion, grit and novelty — even though this isn’t technically my first foray into business, it’s the first time when I do it without any safety net of a stable job. There’s a sense of excitement, and borderline obsession to the point that I had the business on my mind on the first thought when I wake up and on the last thought before I sleep. So I suppose, this kept me going even though I sort of had no assurance nor clarity on what the heck I was doing and if it’s even going to work.

8 years went by and here I am, at another crossroad.

I find myself in a position of… restarting.

Let me do a quick backstory.

The business had been running with truly minimal involvement on my part, for the last 2 months now. I had wanted to do this as an experiment since last year, as we stabilised from the pandemic-triggered upheaval. However, I never really took the leap to entrust the business to certain key people.

This year, I had a couple of freak-out periods — one in January, which was sales pipeline related, and another in May, due to manpower shortages in the project management side of things. I shall not go into details, but as an outcome, I had the two team leads advise me in the kindest way that I did not have to panic as the team is capable enough to handle crises and get the business out of it.

So I took my step back and observed purely from the operational dashboard point of view, checking on key metrics and occasionally popping in to the office for consulting client meetings.

In the past 2 months, I was able to take a week plus off with my family, since it was the June holidays. It was a much appreciated break. But I still had the anxiety that brought me to keep checking on the numbers, task management, trello boards and so on. My operations manager had to calm me down multiple times during my check-ins with her.

The Restart

Thus now, as I come to terms with the fact that the business truly doesn’t need my first hand meddling, I began to plan what to do next… in my new chapter in life. And the kicker is… I have been in planning mode for the past month or so.

Lots of reading, catching up on courses, youtube binging, learning, but ZERO action.

It took a few conversations with folks who have gone down this path for me to realise that I was actively procrastinating. That’s when you keep doing mundane stuff to avoid doing the stuff that matters.

I realised that RESTARTING is tougher than STARTING OUT. I now have higher stakes. The business is running but it doesn’t mean I can completely neglect all aspects of it to focus on the next thing. On a personal side, the family is growing and the kids are getting bigger. When I started, I didn’t have a house yet but now I do. Financially, health-wise, and pretty much most aspects of life are different now.

WIth that said, mustering the courage to embark on this new chapter while ensuring the stuff I’ve spent the last decade building carries on, is not easy.

It took me a 12:30 am ‘fuckit’ moment to sit down and write this post.

Let’s see if I can carry on this momentum.