Our Old Conditioning is Blocking Our Becoming
A letter to those on the journey of starting over. Restarting is supposed to be messy. Not predictable, not familiar. I hope we remember to embrace this new person we are all becoming.
To us, on the journey of starting over,
For the longest time, we were sold a single, predictable map. We walked the path with our heads down: graduate school, find the degree, secure a full-time job, climb the ladder, retire. We were taught that stability was the ultimate prize and that straying from the “given path” was odd.
But it is now 2026, and the air has changed.
The old system is starting to feel outdated, and our collective psyche is no longer satisfied with comfort at the cost of our souls. We are living through a massive transition, a period where many of us are choosing to hit the “restart” button at the very age society told us we should be peaking.
But here is the question we must ask ourselves:
Are we actually ready to restart?
Handing in a resignation letter is easy. Serving a two-week notice feels like a countdown to New Year’s Eve, a promise of a “new you” and “total freedom”. We pack our boxes, walk out those glass doors, and never look back. Great!
But there is something we carry out with us that isn’t in those boxes: our old conditioning.
Too many of us are trying to build a new life while still running on old software (as my therapist said). We expect to excel in something new at the speed we used to, and results we knew how to make happen in one quarter. Completely forgetting that we are now starting from scratch with little to no foundation.
Our old conditioning is blocking our becoming
I think of my friend who moved abroad to follow her dreams, only to realize she had brought her rigid, hometown expectations with her. She was in a new country, but her mind was still stuck in the old one, trying to force a new culture into her old habits. She eventually shared her learning: “No matter where we go, if we don’t update our mindset, we’ll just create the same problem and face the same challenges.”
Another friend of mine recently tried to escape burnout by immediately starting a new job. She realized she had miscalculated the timeline and overestimated her capability for “healing” the burnout. Two months into her new role, she felt the same dread. She learned that burnout doesn’t disappear because you have a new boss or a new role or a better salary; it follows us until we choose to recognize it and heal it.
And last, I think of myself. I left the corporate world to build my marketing consultancy, only to find that I had become my own worst boss. I expected myself to be an expert in a brand-new field in a brand-new country by month one. It was like trying to win a marathon I have never trained for! I’ve finally realized that this was the source of my anxiety.
Giving ourselves a grace period
These stories have taught me that every restart requires a grace period. I mean… even full-time jobs have probation periods, no? So if you experienced something similar, please hear this:
Give yourself time to grieve the old you: We have to let go of the person we used to be to make room for the person we are becoming. This includes accepting that some people will be disappointed by our change, which could also be ourselves. Let it happen.
Nobody tells you that there is grief in starting over. - Borja Raga, Finding the Courage to Disappoint to Build A Life for Himself
Give yourself time to be “bad” at new things: We are exploring brand-new territories. It is okay to be a beginner again. It takes time to build new networks, tools, and systems from scratch. Most of us didn’t give ourselves enough time to be bad, and this is why most of us fail in the first place.
Give yourself time to update your perspective: You are no longer playing the role society expected of you. This is a new persona. It requires a new set of beliefs and a new vision. It will take time to shape, and it will also shed the wrong people away and attract the right people to you.
A brand new persistent you
The bridge between our old lives and our new ones is built with persistence. But we must first redefine what that word means.
In the old system, “persistence” meant the “grind,” pushing until we broke. This time, it has to mean something else, and we get to decide what it is. We didn’t leave the old system to build a new version of misery. Some of us may leave it for freedom, agency; for me, I left it for balance.
If doubt starts telling us that “we are not doing enough”, recognize it for what it is: our old conditioning. When that voice tells us we’re failing because we aren’t moving at “corporate speed,” listen instead to our new selves, the ones asking us to slow down and breathe.
So, if you are restarting, too, remember: You don’t have to prove anything to the old system anymore. Be kind to the person you are becoming. Let’s keep going, and let’s do it differently this time.
Sending strength and rooting for you.
Annisa.
Thank you for your patience in April!
There are quite a lot of things happening in the background, including growing a bun in the oven! Realistically, I’m pushing back my marketing consultancy launch towards August, but I’m still committed to publishing on Substack, 3x every month. Why? Because I realize this is where I found most of my joy!
That being said, up next in May, we’ll explore the very familiar topic of “imposter syndrome”. I’m featuring a guest who has a PhD in engineering, and she is “using neuroscience to reverse engineer a better mind.” We’ll dive into the inner workings of our brains, and explore what is actually happening when we doubt ourselves and how we can befriend it.
Speak then!
💙