The expression turning over a new leaf is a way of starting a fresh chapter in our life by abandoning negative actions and qualities in our past and behaving better going forward.
A fresh start is an opportunity to start over again without judgement, ties, or baggage. A clean slate. Way back in the 16th century, pages in books were referred to as leaves. So, turning over a new leaf meant that one was turning to a new blank page.
Starting over can feel scary because it’s all about change. But if we want to improve and to evolve as a person, we must move forward. Whether that’s a new relationship, a new home or a fresh look at our life and routines. It is about opening doors, stepping forward and embracing the new.
Imagine we are writing in a diary. We can’t change the past, or what we have already written. However, we can change what we will do in the future, and what we will write on the upcoming pages. Just as the next page in the book is empty and fresh, so is our future. We can choose to break bad habits, reform, and be better people going forward.
A bird sitting in a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking because its trust is not in the branch but its wings. We may have a fresh start any moment we choose because what we call failure is not falling, but staying down. It’s never too late to become whom we want to be.
Why is it at the beginning of the year we have this tradition, it’s something inside of us that makes us want to make things better. I think part of it is that a calendar gives us this idea that we can have a fresh start, that we can start from fresh and have this great victory.
The secret to transformation is progress. Progress equals happiness, and if we can make progress regularly, we feel alive, and that’s why at the beginning of the year we get this feeling of turning a new leaf. If we can have this fresh start, we can do what our soul desires. We could expand, grow, improve, or maybe better than change, we can progress.
Every moment is a fresh beginning, and it is never too late to be what we might have been. Although we can’t go back and make a brand-new start, we can start from now and make a brand-new ending. Forgiveness says we are given another chance to turn a new leaf.
To turn a new leaf is to resolve something. When we resolve, this is how it’s going to be. That’s when we cut off any possibility except the thing we’ve committed to. If we want to take an island, we must burn the boat, because when we burn the boat, there’s no going back. We’re going to find a way to make things work.