What would your post-covid self tell your pre-covid self? Mine would have said, really enjoy this conference you are speaking at because it just might be your last. Enjoy the laughter and energy in the room. Enjoy the hotel and the upgrade you got for the flight home. My post self would tell my pre-self to find other parts of yourself to identify with. Being entertaining onstage is not the only thing I am. So if you can identify with any of what I’m saying, take this journey with me and let’s Re-Imagine, Re-Energize and Re-invent how we want to be moving forward through the next year and beyond. The good news is it’s not too late to become the person you want to be. Reinventing yourself isn’t an easy process, but it’s worth the effort to finally begin living life on your terms. Start your journey today with these 5 tips on reinventing yourself and you’ll be on your way to a more meaningful life.
1. Admit to Areas of Unhappiness
Do you do things that you later regret doing and tell yourself that you won’t do them again? But then you do. In spite of your regrets, denials, resolutions, cover-ups, and excuses – do you find yourself falling back into familiar patterns and routines? Then take heart: Nothing is set in stone. You can change anything you want to. If you feel as though you’re living a life that isn’t truly you, then decide to make a change.
The first step to reinvention is admitting the need to make a change. So go ahead and admit it; something isn’t going the way you want it to. Maybe you have a specific goal in mind, maybe you don’t feel that you’re moving in the right direction, or maybe your whole life is a mess! If you want more from your life, or if something is growing more and more un-manageable, then it’s time to regain control. If you feel moved to, say it out loud to someone else, but just admitting it to yourself is an excellent place to begin.
2. Break Your Bad Habits by Unbelieving Things
We do a lot of individual, group and team coaching around principles and standards of behavior; those personal values and shared values that communicate what’s most important in our work, our relationships, and our life. Your life is made up of your experiences, and your beliefs guide your actions. You’re not you if you don’t develop your own value system – you can certainly apply what you read, learn, and experience to your own goals and desires – but there’s no fulfillment in adopting what others believe is important. It’s simply impossible to be happy trying to live someone else’s life.
While you’re figuring this out, remember this: If you continue acting in the same way that you’ve always acted, you aren’t changing anything – you aren’t reinventing yourself. You can break any habit from biting your nails to staying up too late at night playing on your phone to the way you interact with others. Remember that these changes take time and practice. You’ll catch yourself falling into old habits every now and again – and when you do, just get back on track without judgment. Good habits take just as long to create as bad ones. The important thing here is to continue to pursue being the person you want to be, living the life you want to live. There’s value in the journey so long as the journey is your own.
3. End Relationships That are Bad for You
Motivational speaker Jim Rohn famously said that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. Take a quick inventory. Who you spend time with (and what you spend time on) influences the person you eventually become. Who you are with can elevate you as much as it can bring you down.
When reinventing yourself, you might have to end friendships or other relationships. Sometimes people aren’t good for your life, but you don’t realize it until you begin to better yourself. If you’re working on having a more positive attitude, but you have friends that are chronic whiners and complainers, it’s probably a good idea to distance yourself from them. It’s important that you don’t feel guilty for ending relationships that are bad for your mental and emotional well-being. Negative people can be time and energy drains on even the most positive people. If you feel like the life has been sucked out of you after talking to or being around someone, it’s time to consider distancing yourself. Focus on surrounding yourself with positive people who make you feel better after spending time with them. Consider finding a mentor, mastermind group, or coach – folks who can be a positive influence or a thought partner – and begin turning your “wants” into reality.
4. Have a Vision for Your Future
The truth is, everything starts with a vision. If you’re a leader then you already recognize that enrolling others in your vision requires that you first have a vision. So here’s the question: If a recording made today of your vision of the future was played to your friends and colleagues in 10 years, how visionary would you be?
When you begin to reinvent yourself, it’s important to look ahead at the future. Who do you want to be and where do you want to be in five or 10 years? Here is the take-away: You can begin the journey of being your future-self today. Thinking about where you want to be in the future is enough motivation to start making a change – save more money, get fit and healthy, or even change your career.
5. Clear Away the Clutter
Years of living means years of accumulated stuff. And maintaining order of all this stuff requires time, money, energy, and attention (all of which are fuel for our anxieties, by the way) in an effort to preserve that which will not last. The same is true with our thoughts. Never feel obligated to stick with an old version of yourself.
When reinventing your life, it’s important to let go of the old. Clarity creates freedom. It releases the constraint on your time, money, energy, and attention (and also therefore, on your anxieties) and allows increased capacity to pursue the things that you find truly fulfilling. The goal here is to remove your distractions so that your greatest priorities may be elevated. It can be difficult to let go of things and thoughts that you’ve had forever, but once you see and feel your space opening up, you’ll be glad you did it.
It’s important to remember that these tips are just the beginning of an exciting journey, and it’s best to remain as consistent as possible with the changes that you implement. If you find yourself backtracking that’s normal; return to your mission and keep trekking forward – you’ll find your happier self is waiting for you to arrive
