If you want to feel younger, consider reinventing yourself, or at least a part of yourself. Reinvention helps keep your synapses firing and building faster connections. Working to change part of your personality or life also means you’re thinking new thoughts, interacting with new people, and finding new perspectives. These are all things that keep you young and vibrant. If you’re thinking about trying a new venture, here’s why reinventing yourself makes you younger and 12 ways to do it.
Grow and Progress
Reinventing yourself means you become a new, better version of yourself. It means you’re growing. You are pushing past your boundaries and doing the uncomfortable work of making yourself be the new, highest version of yourself.
Alignment with Values and Goals
Our values and goals change. Our global and social awareness increases, and we recognize our new needs. Reinventing yourself means you’re working to be aligned with those values and goals.
Life Changes
Sometimes life pushes us through a change whether we want it or not. Every life change gives us the opportunity to become stronger. It peels back our layers and shows us who we are and who we can be. Yes, these changes can be difficult. They can even knock us down. But, they can also be the catalyst for progress.
New Calling
Being called to a new passion is a great reason to reinvent yourself. Your interest will drive your reinvention. Using your talent to create more opportunities or solve problems can help you overcome the difficult parts of personal reinvention.
How to Do It
#1 | Change the Trunk – Not the Roots and Leaves
Reinvention can seem like we’re changing our entire beings. But it shouldn’t be that way. You need to honor where you came from and the parts of you that make you special. It’s like a tree – you can’t change the roots and what the leaves look like, but you can nourish and fortify the trunk.
#2 | No Rushing
When we’re ready to reinvent ourselves, it can be exhilarating. We want the changes now. But it’s important to remember that you need to be strategic and not rush. I don’t mean that you can’t move quickly. You can. But you also need to go through all of the steps in the process.
#3 | See Yourself Clearly
To fully reinvent yourself, you’ll need to change a large part of your current self. And to do that, you need to see yourself clearly, according to writer Nicholas Cole. Make sure you know what your weaknesses are and where you’ll likely fight yourself to put in the work. For example, if you decide you’re going to get up every morning to work on the business you want to start, but you stay up until midnight every night because of your Netflix habit, it’s likely you’re going to meet with a lot of resistance when your alarm rings in the morning. You need to be ready for it.
#4 | Set a Goal
Goals give us something concrete to work toward, so when you’re creating a goal for yourself, make sure it is as clear as possible. It’s not, “I want to make more money in my business this year.” It’s, “I want to make 13% more each quarter this year.” The 13% is specific. You know the exact moment you reach your goal.
#5 | Only One, Though
Reinventing yourself takes a considerable amount of focus. Choose one goal, so you can laser focus and make the changes you need to. You can still do other things too. They just aren’t your Reinvention Goal. You can build a business and eat healthily, but maybe this isn’t the time to build your business and begin learning how to count macros. Focus on one goal at a time.
#6 | Have a Clear “Why”
As you become a new person, or even just change parts of yourself, you need to have a clear “why.” If you think about why you want to start a business, your real “why” probably isn’t the first reason that comes to mind. Ask yourself why you want to create this particular change. Whatever your reason is, ask again. Keep asking until you can’t get deeper. That’s the “why” that will keep you going.
#7 | Embrace New Thoughts
When you want to reinvent yourself, there is dissonance between who you are and who you want to be. To get over that gap, you need to think like the new you. If you want to become someone who makes healthy food choices, beginning to think like the person who already is who you WANT to be, can get you there.
#8 | Start Small, Build Momentum
Reinvention is exciting. Wanting to develop your “new you” can motivate you to do all of the things all at once, according to SoulSalt.com. Then you get hit by overwhelm. You stop and you don’t get to where you want to be. Instead, make small changes that you can sustain and work toward the larger changes. It’s like the debt snowball, but with changing your life.
#9 | Do It – No Matter What
Reinvention is work. There will be times when you won’t want to do the work. You won’t want to get up early to build your business or eat the grilled chicken instead of the burger. But do it anyway. Practicing the discipline of not needing to want to do something in order to do it will make your reinvention easier to create. And I know you can do this. In our socialization as women, we’ve been well-trained in doing things we’re supposed to do, even if we don’t want to. Use that socialization as power this time around and get what you want.
#10 | Make New Friends
This is an awesome way to reinvent yourself. According to Entrepreneur.com, when you hang out with people who have what you want or want what you want, you are in the energy you want to create. If you’re a newbie runner who joins a running club, you may be the most untrained person there, but you’re a runner. If you’re creating a business and you join an entrepreneurial mastermind group, you can learn first-hand how women got what they wanted. Seeing their success validates your desire to change.
#11 | Use the Present
This is another mind trick for yourself. When you talk about who you want to be in the future as if you already are, your brain automatically starts looking for ways to make it happen. When you talk about something in the future, your brain agrees: “Yes, we will do that … someday.” To reinvent yourself, start talking about what you want like you already have it.
#12 | Accept Failure
Reinventing yourself is not linear. There will be setbacks. Prepare for them ahead of time, so you’re not blindsided by the negative emotions. If you’re building a business, you can accept failure by reminding yourself that no one who’s built a business has made all of the right moves the first time. Also, keep in mind that failure just means you did something wrong – not that you can’t do something right. If you expect failure, it will still hurt, but it won’t throw you off course as easily.
Reinventing yourself, or at least part of yourself, is a good way to keep your mind and body young. It can be uncomfortable sometimes, but it allows you to grow and develop. You learn new skills, find new passions, and grow new relationships. How have you reinvented yourself in the past? Let us know in the comments!
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