Reinventing yourself - part 1 of a series

Why reinvent yourself?

Personal reinvention is not for everyone. It is just one way of changing the game of life you are currently playing. If you feel you have reached the point in life where you have everything just the way you like it, this is definitely not for you. Your best course of action may be to continue what you are doing, with a few minor course corrections as conditions change.

Just don't be surprised when your carefully constructed lifestyle capsizes and you find yourself scrambling to put the pieces back together again. Life has a way of smacking us alongside the head when we aren't watching what is happening around us.

There is no rest point. There is only motion. Things get better when you do the necessary actions to make improvements. Things get worse when you leave them alone and hope for the best. Your body, your house, your occupation, all require constant attention or they will gradually break down and disintegrate.

Whether you are working or retired, you will gradually go downhill unless you are accomplishing something worthwhile. If you are not needed by somebody or lots of somebodies, there is less and less reason to live. This is probably the biggest reason for sudden death immediately after retirement.

Keep your options open. Consider what might happen if you could manage to reinvent yourself.

Signs you are overdue for reinvention

You find yourself complaining how unfair life is
You keep telling people the same stories again and again.
You haven't had a new idea in several months
You are frustrated by your job, spouse, yourself
There is no magic in your life. Everything is dull and boring.
Other people in your environment seem to be busy and productive and are enjoying themselves

Signs you understand reinvention and practice it effectively

You don't have time for complaints, either your own or from others
Your attention is on what you are doing, not what you have done in the past.
You tend to enjoy life and find it continually interesting.

Where do you start?

Locate that area of your life which is least optimum. That is the best place to concentrate your talents. Take a long, hard look at the things you have been trying to change. How many of them were efforts to change others?

You have almost no chance of success at making others wrong for what they are currently doing. You have to be extraordinarily skilled to get others to a point where they are willing to change their minds about things they consider important.

Your best approach to almost any hopelessly deadlocked situation is to figure out who you would have to be in order to solve the problem and then take steps to become that person.

Recognizing that you can change and being willing to change are the first steps to reinventing yourself. How to accomplish desirable changes in a way that is right for you will be the subject of a future post.

One observation: blogging may force people to reinvent themselves. When a person writes enough articles about a subject area, they begin to run out of new material. If they aren't open to reinventing themselves, the blog shuts down due to lack of interest.

How many of you find that you have had to reinvent yourself since you started blogging? How many feel you need reinvention, but don't know where to start?

Comments

[GBGames]

I don't know about reinvention, but since I started blogging, I've noticed when I needed to focus on learning more about specific topics. When you post on a forum, it can be easy to write a few lines and be done with it. There isn't a huge incentive to do some research before you write; someone else might post before you do!

When you blog, you tend to want to make sure you're writing the right thing. You become more knowledgeable about the issues you write about, which means that your readers can look forward to more enlightened and educated posts as well.

[Carl]

Hmmm.... my introverted side is screaming "people, who needs people! I've got so many books to read!"

But I would agree, everyone wants recognition, but not necessarily in the same time frame nor in the same quantities nor measures. That's why some folks who thrive as paramedics would become zombies if they were researchers...

My maternal grandfather passed a secret on to me when he was in his eighties. He said you have to have passion. He was a successful meat wholesaler who was well known in the countryside, had a large clientel and several slaughterhouses.

His passion in his late seventies/early eighties: fishing.

He studied the types of fish, the fishing spots, the lures. Even a day with no catches was about the areas he tried, the plans he had executed, and hope that the next round would yeild... fish.

Passion. Whether its art, reading, or service to others. That is what we need. Passion.

[Sean Pecor]

Self improvement for me is continual. For each personal milestone I achieve, either I or my environment sets before me a new series of challenges and my life is less about self reinvention and more about living the life of a true Idealist. An Idealist views their environment in terms of how they can improve it. I'm viewing my environment like that from the moment I wake up until I fall asleep, and I'm not sure I don't have Idealistic dreams. I walk through my home and see a room as it is, but also as it will be when I remodel it. I walk through a barn and see it for what it is and what it will also be when I add storage. I look at a grass covered ridge and also see a ridge full of wildflowers come Summer. I watch my girls grow and help them grow stronger by being there for them whenever they need me. I load up my web sites and envision them better and faster. I look at business growth and see how I can speed it ever faster.

I think every day people need to be their own best Devil's Advocate and never marry themselves to a singularly defined goal. They need to continually attack their own vision; I think this creates an important catalyst for growth; entire bad ideas or at least bad components of a good idea are thrown into one's cerebral scrap heap.

Sean

[stephen read]

lovely post,
having just quit a bad dead end job that was giving me an ulcer, I am passionatly reinventing myself this week, so your post was incredible timing for me...thanks as always David...you have a knack for the right stuff......Stephen