Debunking the concept of "starting over"

One of the more common types of posts we see here on 30BaD belong to a certain type of approach, and I'd like to take a moment to explain why it is nonsense.

We see over and over again the idea that "I failed, fell off the wagon, slipped up, gave in, caved... and now I'm starting over!"

Let's have a look at this and see if we can't help correct this flawed approach.

Say you set out to climb a mountain, and after an hour of hiking you step on a loose rock and slip. You stumble and fall and scratch your knee. For a moment you hold your knee, wipe off the blood and then you stand up. Now, upon standing up, do you say to yourself: "I failed!! I fell, and now I have to start all over again!"

Of course you don't. Because even though you fell, you're still an hour into the ascent! You're not back at the beginning; you're not back to selecting the mountain or buying your gear, or driving to base camp. You're an hour into the ascent! And so you pick yourself up and continue climbing, knowing that all you lost was a few minutes and a little blood and sweat, and being a mountain climber you know it's totally natural to stumble here and there, and totally natural to lose a little blood and sweat along the way.

The essential problem with the "I failed" approach is a psychological one, and all that is required to correct it, is a little tweaking of our perspective. When you feel the first stirrings of 'failure mentality' creeping into your thoughts, remind yourself of where you are, how far you've come. When you go a week of HCRV and then you have a cooked meal, remind yourself of the week of HCRV, put the cooked meal (the scratched knee) behind you and continue on, unabated!, all the more experienced at climbing!

So this is my message to all of you who beat yourselves up, who falsely imagine that the cooked meal you had last night was akin to hitting the reset button, and the message is this:

Stand up, dust yourself off, and keep climbing! The rest of the ascent is still in front of you, and the summit still awaits!

"The only failure is the one we name as such"

See also: Why it's ok to "screw up" at first, by Apollonia

Tags: Failure, HCRV, LFRV, Over, Raw, Starting, Vegan

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Permalink Reply by Jon Fergus on April 18, 2012 at 1:19pm

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Permalink Reply by Jon Fergus on April 18, 2012 at 12:57pm

if I alter my viewpoint to one of 'It's a journey; pick yourself up and continue', how do I determine how long I've been raw? How do you count?

Oh, it's fine if you wanna count, and set whatever parameters you wish for the specifics. Just don't buy in to the idea that if you get to 'day 35' and then have one cooked meal that you're starting over from scratch. If you wanna say you're then on 'day 1', so be it, but that's not the same 'day 1' as the previous 'day 1' - in other words: you can't discount the 35 days of 100%. So it's a new day 1, with the backing of 35 amazing days, which is much different than going back in time to the old day 1 - everything in you is different because of those 35 days; they don't suddenly not count (that's the main point here). Make sense?

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Permalink Reply by Al-Nisa on April 19, 2012 at 12:02am

Yes, Jon this makes clear sense. I never saw it this way!

Thank you so much! I feel so much better now. You should see how many times I've crossed out the dates in my log book and wrote 'Failed again: Start Over - Day 1'.

Done with that...forever onward

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Permalink Reply by Stacey Marriott on April 18, 2012 at 4:53am

thank you so much i needed this i started to tear up a lil :) ! this is why i love this site!

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Permalink Reply by Zesty lime on April 18, 2012 at 6:12am

Ok but i have to say, if it is me thats falling it also means a mean osteopath bill the next week, lol. Only kidding, just wanted to say thanks for that it is brilliant. I is like the raw food is a choice of train tracks and no matter what we eat that is not raw we still are gonna be on the tracks. Sounds really good.

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Permalink Reply by Zesty lime on April 18, 2012 at 6:38am

My tohught on the how long have you been raw for? And being able to determine how many weeks months or yars is this: does it really matter how many weeks, days minutes or seconds or is it the fact that you decided to climb the mountain more important? You want to be raw, right, no matter how much of it you can manage right now, or you did last week... What matters is that you are generally aiming for that. So in a way who cares how many days. Personally i think that i like to know roughly when i made the conscious decision to become raw, e.g. April 2012, but for the rest it is part of it all, sometimes you can, sometimes you cant but it doesnt make you a fraud. I doesnt mean that you failed, it just means that you are on the tracks, but the train stopped, but anyti e now it will start again, and you still gonna be on the same tracks, going towards the same destination, radiant health, and heavenly body lol. Just check out my blog and you will see that since i have officially anounced that i am gonna be raw, i have never been more cooked. But is that stopping me? No!nothing and noone can stop you. Just keep on going. Plus, in the long run of your life, every time you put raw food into your body it is goodness that you invested in you life and healtg. Be proud of that. And now i just have to try and use my own advice lol. Not so simple. :)