Reinventing Yourself
Are you feeling stuck and don’t know where to go? You feel as if your life has already been defined by a certain narrative or you’ve grown accustomed to the lifestyle you’ve lived out for the last couple of years. Sound like you?
Rest assured - most of us have all been there in your shoes. We understand how you might feel like you’re in limbo land and want to inspire change as a result of some meaningful or prophetic event. How can we reinvent ourselves when this moment arises?
Change is not easy, but there are concrete steps you can take to look for a fresh start no matter your age. I fittingly call these the Eight Steps to Your Own Muse..
Step 1: Identify the Now
To reinvent yourself, you need to take stock of the present. Dig deep to understand your identity, which can comprise of your career, relationships, like/dislikes, etc.
Your journey to reinvent yourself will begin from the present moment. Acknowledge your present self and envision where you want to go - this is the basis for your reinvention.
Step 2: Establish Core Values
Before setting out on the actions to reinvent yourself, we need to establish and define your core values. Think about what truly matters in your life.
While not an easy exercise, I have a previous post that can serve as some inspiration to help you identify your core values. As the post mentions, remember that these core values can, and will, change over time and are not fixed.
Step 3: Daily Reflection
As you begin to fully embrace the act of reinventing yourself, take note of how you’re feeling and progressing through daily self reflection. This can come in the form of journaling or another activity that works best for you.
Daily reflection will allow you to accomplish both:
Developing a healthy mindset to build self-confidence
Providing a reference to see how you’re transforming along the journey
Step 4: Multifaceted Exploration
You’re about to embark on a journey that requires you to see other sides to yourself and your personality that you’ve never known before. For some, the proposition is exciting whereas for others, it leaves you feeling lost.
It’s important to experiment with different versions of our selves to see what it is we truly vibe and connect with. Many of you might think how do you even start or you’ll never get good at whatever new thing you want to try.
Give yourself ample time and patience, and go in knowing that not everything will work out. It’s about experimenting with yourself to get one step closer to reinventing yourself.
Step 5: Mind Muscle Connection
You’ve started to get a flow for the type of life you want to create for yourself - great! Now, it’s time to start building your foundation for a reinvented life.
In order to have your new lifestyle stick, you should aim to take action every day and center those very actions around goals that you can incorporate into your daily reflection practice - you didn’t forget about that now already, did you?
Fear will be a major obstacle at this point in the journey, but if you incorporate visualization and concretely set out your aspirations for a new, reinvented life, you’ll have all the courage to face up to those moments of doubt. Best yet - this will only continue to reinforce itself over time through repetition.
Step 6: Learn through the Bridge
By this point, you’ve done most of the internal foundational work and have a clearer vision of your reinvented future. However, you might say that things look still a bit foggy a bit further out.
Fear not - now is the time to start learning to bridge the gap between where you are to the next jump up in your reinvention. The bridge represents bridging your connections, knowledge, and career. What do I exactly mean?
Connections
No one ever got anywhere meaningful without the support and care of others. I urge you to build your circle of friends and mentors that will help support and encourage you along your journey to reinventing yourself.
Knowledge
If there’s one thing to take away from this post, I want you to always keep learning. Seeking out more and new knowledge will serve you through the twists and turns of experimenting with your different selves.
Career
Getting a bit more practical, your dream, reinvented career might not come within the snap of a finger. I urge you to bridge the time gap between now and then by taking on projects and/or jobs that will facilitate your exploration process.
Step 7: Charting the Path
By this point, you’ve learned numerous techniques and personal tendencies that aid in your journey towards reinventing yourself. As you continue on the path, it’s important to keep on reflecting and self-assessing.. you didn’t forget about the journal again, right?
Self-reflection can come in the form of answering questions like:
What types of challenging work do I learn from the most about myself?
Have my core values, strengths, and goals changed along this journey?
Is the dreamer and/or realist side of me getting in the way of creating the reinvented self I truly desire?
Continually reflecting on these sorts of questions will help you avoid stagnating along the journey and keep moving forward to reinventing yourself.
Step 8: Incremental Victories
Reinventing yourself will take you on a journey that will seem like an eternity, but that’s what’ll make it worthwhile in hindsight I promise you.
Break up the long road ahead of you into smaller, more digestible chunks and attack those one step at a time. After all, as Will Smith puts it:
You don’t set out to build a wall. You don’t say ‘I’m going to build the biggest, baddest, greatest wall that’s ever been built.’ You don’t start there. You say, ‘I’m going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid. You do that every single day. And soon you have a wall.
Celebrate the small wins on your journey to reinventing yourself. Those small celebratory moments will provide you the force that propels you further in your journey to reinventing yourself.
Big changes aren’t easy to make, but I assure you that with this Eight Steps to Your Own Muse framework in mind now, you’ll be one step closer to reinventing yourself. Oh, and before I forget, you have your reflection journal ready to start right this instant, right?
“There’s nothing more addictive or incredible in life than reinventing yourself and allow yourself to be different every day.” - Thalia
