How Can You Manage Your Feelings to Start a New Chapter?

This is Johanna Rothman’s July 2025 Create an Adaptable Life Newsletter. The unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email.

Last week, Mark and I were on vacation in Key West. While we were there, we took several wind-and-wine sailing trips. At the end of each sail, the crew passes out dark Dove chocolate pieces to enjoy with sunset and a nice bold cabernet.

This wrapper is from my piece. Just in case you can’t see it, it says,

“Don’t be afraid to start a new chapter.”

While I appreciate the sentiment (and I enjoyed the chocolate!) I’m not sure fear is what prevents us from starting a new chapter. I suspect that sometimes, we don’t know we need to start a new chapter. We often need data and signals to know. I’m going to start with data, because I can’t always trust my signals.

How Often Do You Assess Your Data?

I’m a spreadsheet geek. Given my vertigo, I track a variety of health data to make sure I stay healthy. I am sure that does not surprise you.

I also track my wordcounts for all my writing. I do that daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. That’s not all. I also track a variety of outcome-based business measures at least weekly. That allows me to assess as often as I want to see if I am where I want to be.

Even better, because I frequently check my various business-oriented data, I can treat all my actions as experiments. Then, based on that data, I can choose to continue or change this experiment.

Sometimes, I have feelings about starting or stopping something. That’s often when I realize I need to gather signals.

Gather Signals

Signals, often in the form of feelings, are about how we perceive what’s going on. While I’m getting better at identifying what I feel, I don’t always know why I have these feelings. That’s when these questions might help:

What stories do we tell ourselves? How do they reinforce or weaken our willingness to change?
How do we physically feel? I had both the winter and the spring colds. Could I start a new chapter then? Absolutely not.
Do we have sufficient energy to create new options and consider a new start?

You might need other questions. But these work well for me. When I use them, I can avoid a purely gut-based decision based on my signals and feelings, without also using data.

We Can Manage Our Feelings and Start

All of our data—objective and feelings—helps us choose when to create options and consider a new start. While I appreciated the chocolate (and the wine!) on my sunset sail, I don’t think most of us fear a new start. Instead, I suspect many of us need to integrate our collected data and feelings information. All that data helps us choose what and when to start a new chapter.

You might not be like me (everything in a spreadsheet and a spreadsheet for everything 🤣), but most of us need enough data to start creating options. (You might want to read How Can You Prevent Your Fear From Limiting Your Options?)

I’m one of those people who love to start new chapters. That’s because I have a ton of starting energy. One of my signals is noticing when I’m not finishing enough. That’s because I hate, hate, hate those last little bits that create a finished product. But finishing allows me to start that next project or chapter.

That’s how I manage some of my feelings to start a new chapter.

Announcements…

I have finished integrating the technical review comments for Effective Public Speaking: How to Use Content Marketing With Stories to Show Your Value. I need to have my computer read me the manuscript so I can see what does not make sense. Then it’s off to my copyeditor and all that finishing work. I’m planning a Kickstarter to publish the paper books. When I have the link for that Kickstarter, I’ll let you know.

If you are part of the agile community, consider checking out The Agile Network. Also, don’t miss out on discounted membership options. Use Discount Code: ROTHMANPMC33 to get 33% OFF all memberships.

How Often Do You Assess Your Data?

Gather Signals

We Can Manage Our Feelings and Start

Announcements…

Read More of Create an Adaptable Life

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