Variations on steps on how to reinvent yourself are abundantly accessible through a quick Internet search. But, typically the steps aren’t easy to implement, thus don’t yield the results you want. While a good framework, there’s more to it than following steps. So, what’s the key to reinventing yourself and being a better you?
Your Mindset and How You Self-Resource Yourself Determines Your Success
How you approach each step matters. Your mindset is critical. Are you open and willing to embrace change? Or, are you strongly wedded to your self-image, thoughts, beliefs, and personal boundaries?
Probably the greatest resistance people face comes from within themselves.
A second limitation is the inability to self-resource. Human beings have capacities that most people are unaware of or don’t utilize for various reasons. For the reinvention process to successfully unfold, you need to access those resources.
For example, learn and use simple practices to identify and challenge limiting beliefs to see alternative perspectives (realities) that better support your wants and goals. You can also learn to make peace with your emotions and develop a mutually supportive relationship with your inner Self through curiosity, self-compassion, and productive introspection.
Steps For Reinventing Yourself
Review the standard steps to reinvent yourself because you’ll need them. But, note the information on how you can approach them for greater success. The text incorporates elements of a conductive mindset and suggestions on how you can better resource yourself.
1. Reflect On Who You Are and What You Want
This step is paramount because you’ll want to know yourself well, be as clear as possible about what is right and important for you right now, and gain the self-confidence and commitment born of this clarity and certainty.
Self-Reflection Techniques
There are many ways to practice self-reflection. Choose what works well for you. Some options include journaling, meditation, and answering powerful self-reflection questions.
To enhance and deepen your process combine them. For example, start with a powerful guiding question, and incorporate it into one of the many available meditative practices. You can also meditate on something that came up for you around the question you were considering and you want to explore it further. Then journal about what comes up for you during the meditation and how it relates to your quest. You can also use additional self-reflective questions to guide your reflective journaling process. It’s your practice. Make it what you want and what works for you.
Introspection and Interoception – Listening to Your Insides
One of my favorite practices that I teach my clients is listening to your insides, your embodied cognition.
The idea is to get in touch with your inner wants and viewpoints rather than limiting yourself to your superficial thought process.
In simple terms, you turn inward, get curious, and sense how your inside responds to your current actions, aspirations, and thoughts about them.
Through cultivating a relationship and listening to those senses (the inner wisdom) of your embodied brain, you vastly broaden the range of your self-reflection, deepen your connection to the Self, and make a strong connection to your values, truths, and authentic self. (See my blog post on how to be more in touch with yourself and be your authentic self.)
2. Explore
This step is straightforward. Do the research. Learn what can give you what you uncovered in the previous step – what is intrinsically important to you and what you want to bring into your life that aligns with it.
Stay open-minded and curious about what’s possible and challenge your negative self-talk and limiting beliefs. These will include thoughts about what you can’t do and what you must or should do. You want to maintain a growth mindset that will help you move forward, not a fixed mindset that keeps you in place.
Ask yourself if what you want is something immediately available to you now. Or, is it something that requires a strategy that will build toward it?
This question is critical because if what you want will require time and multiple points of focus, you have to embrace that you’re embarking on a journey and plan accordingly.
3. Choose Your Goal (or Vision) For Reinventing You
Most people think in terms of goals, but the word has an uninspiring and value-laden ring to it. I prefer vision because the word tends to lead to imaginal thinking and openings.
Whether a goal or vision, make sure that it’s clear and specific, even if what you seek is a feeling state such as peace. In this case, ask yourself how will peace feel and how will you know that you’re at peace.
5. Make a Plan For How to Reinvent Yourself
You’re bound to face challenges during the process of change and transformation. See these challenges as opportunities or doorways to something more. In these instances, you’ll likely have to clear away more limiting beliefs.
Make sure to cultivate compassionate perseverance. This means having compassion for yourself, for the effort you exert, and for your setbacks. Acknowledge your successes, even if they appear insignificant or insufficient to that critical and impatient part of you. Commend yourself for your hard work and commitment as well. Building muscle is part of building a new and better you.
Break down your plans and challenges into baby steps and actions to better empower yourself, and to experience more wins and a greater sense of progress.
You might be highly reward-focused. In this case, establish a reward system. However, make sure your rewards don’t counter your goals (e.g., treats for weight loss goals, and drinks for successfully maintaining sobriety).
6. Identify resources
Consider how you want and need to resource yourself. You might want to identify friends or family with whom you can share your intentions, plans, and progress. Be clear about what you need from them. Maybe you need an accountability buddy, a sympathetic ear, or something else.
Professional help in the form of coaches, therapists, teachers, and alternative healers could also be a key resource for you.
As a spiritual life coach and energy healer, I see many clients who seek more meaning and purpose and want to create a life that better reflects their preferences and inspires them. They want to reinvent themselves and change their lives.
Energy healing is particularly helpful. It’s holistic, working on the whole mind, body, and spirit continuum always in ways that are in your highest and best interest. Thus, its essence is to help you shift your life in ways that are consistent with your values and purpose. It can orient you to solutions you couldn’t imagine, but match your current and/or future authentic self and aspirations perfectly.
7. Monitor progress
As with all plans, monitoring is critical. Make sure you identify some clear and measurable milestones. Be realistic in your assessments. Celebrate your successes, learn from your setbacks, and modify your plan or timeline if necessary.
The Key to Successfully Reinventing Yourself
In sum, your mindset and resourcefulness will help you move through the steps to reinvent yourself.
You’re more inclined to fulfill an authentic heartfelt goal as opposed to one you’ve designed strictly with your thinking mind. Engage your power of interoception and access your full intelligence – your head brain and body brain.
You’re more apt to make the right choices if you stay curious, maintain your self-compassion, act strategically, and stay open to opportunities that point you toward your goals even if somewhat indirectly. Following a North Star typically involves a bit of wandering, which can open you to insights, mind shifts, and beneficial modifications to your plans.
As you progress along your journey, you’ll want to embody the change in yourself and you see yourself for who you are becoming, not for who you were. People change every day. Thus, every day you are a new person – one similar to yesterday or one who foreshadows tomorrow. If you’re doing this right, you’ll be creating a different mind than you had when you started.
