New Beginnings: It's Never Too Late to Live Happily Ever After

New beginnings come in all shapes and sizes … maybe you’ve separated from your partner, lost a loved one, lost a job or a business you put your heart into building, experienced a health crisis, relocated to a new place, or simply experienced one of life’s periodic speed bumps.

We all need to reinvent parts of our lives from time to time, in fact millions of us initiate various forms of New Beginnings on an annual basis - better known as New Year Resolutions.

How we arrived at the point of a new beginning or start over is not as important as how we move forward. But there are things that we can do to insure that we move on to the next phase of our life, not with resignation or broken hopes and dreams but with a positive outlook toward a better, more fulfilling life.

Here are some tools to help you make the most of your next starting over.

* Having to start over is different from choosing to start over. It’s important that you allow yourself time to accept and mourn the loss of your old life and begin thinking about your future. Often we think we know what we want out of life, but when faced with a major start over our priorities change.

* Don’t waste time on ‘could-a, would-a, should-a, or if only I’d-a’ thinking. Whatever the reason for your start over, don’t waste time stewing over how you could have done things better in the past. This is a new beginning … your opportunity to write a new life story!

* Accept that moving through life is not a straight path. Life is filled with twists and turns and the occasional detour. Nothing is ever a straight shot. Have some patience with yourself and with your newfound direction.

* Make the Commitment. Make a full commitment to implement your new routines and create new habits. Think this through, develop a plan and write everything down. If you’ve never used a personal journal before, this is the perfect opportunity to create one as a record of your transition into a new life.

* Change may feel scary, but it's really a cause for celebration. The opportunities of change can’t fully be appreciated until you can bravely face the inevitable uncertainty. The key to bravely facing change is to face your fears and have faith in yourself and your ability to be resilient. Change is rarely as difficult as we anticipate, and we grow stronger more self-confident for the experience.

* Forget About Perfection. There are times when we just try too hard to get it right in our quest for perfection. Forget about it. As a member of the human race, there is little if any true perfection and you’ll be chasing the near unachievable. Simply try to be better than most others by putting in the extra effort without getting bogged down in pursuit of making things perfect.

* Get Rid of the Negativity in Your Life. If there are there things (or people) in your life that are dragging you down now is the time to get rid of them. This can be tough but it is absolutely necessary. A successful start over is not about dragging into your new life the same things or people that may have contributed to past failures or unhappiness.

Starting over is about giving yourself a chance at real happiness. A start over in life can be a good thing and should not be viewed as the worst of situations, but rather, an opportunity to create a happier, more fulfilling life. Yes, you may have to be brave and you may even have to learn new things, but how bad can acquiring new skills and meeting new people be? We all need a start over at times; a sort of mental cleansing that provides a much needed boost to our outlook on life.

What would you add to the list?