How To Reinvent Yourself At Any Age

“Just as established products and brands need updating to stay alive and vibrant, you periodically need to refresh or reinvent yourself.” – Mireille Guillano

Change is truly a beautiful thing. They say it is scary at the beginning. Messy in the middle. But beautiful in the end.

It is like the caterpillar who is becoming a butterfly. It is a messy process that doesn’t look to beautiful until the beautiful and colorful butterfly emerges.

Then what happens is that this new insect can never go back to it’s old ways. Because it has expanded it’s vision of itself to emerge anew.

That is what can happen with you when you decide to reinvent yourself. It will be scary and hard and messy.

But if you stick with it, you will emerge anew. Rise from the ashes. And emerge as something better, stronger, more loving and with more life experience. To live a better life and help others do the same thing.

But how do you reinvent yourself?

What are good tips and steps that can help us along the journey?

Well below I have outlined some of the most powerful ways I know on how to reinvent yourself. So you can introduce yourself to the world in an entirely different and more magnificent way.

Enjoy

Steps to Reinventing Yourself

Link Pain With Staying the Same

Have you ever had an alcohol or food that you loved to eat or drink? You would eat or drink it often at parties. Even look forward to consuming it when you got home after a long day. Or the only thing you would eat for your cheat meal.

But then one day, you drank a little too much of this preferred liquor. And then puked all night and was hung over all day. Or that you ate too much of this food and ended up getting food poisoning.

Now whenever you think of this food or drink that used to give you SO MUCH PLEASURE, now gives you SO MUCH PAIN.

It is easy to not eat or drink it anymore right? It takes no willpower.

This can also be the case of someone who smokes. He won’t quit for himself in a million years. But then a doctor tells them that it will give their kid cancer if they keep smoking around them.

These scenarios are where people literally internalize pain linked to a certain thing deeply in their nervous system. So change is more so or completely automatic and with ease.

I want you to encourage you to do the same exact thing with this transformation you are trying to go through. Identify one ore more pains that are so deep that you will experience if you don’t change.

For me, I wanted to change myself and get healthy after I had autoimmune issues. But I put it off. Then it got bad, REALLY BAD. And I linked so much pain to staying the same. Pain of never living life to the fullest. Pain of being stressed and anxious. Which these symptoms were debilitating for a long period of time.

Which naturally, I started to change overnight with way more ease. Once I saw the pain of staying the same outweighing the pain changing.

Link Pleasure To The Experience

I will keep this one shorter than the last because it is simply another side of the same coin. We either change because there is too much pain, it hurts to stay the same. Or we see so much pleasure that we can gain from changing. That we will do whatever it takes because the reward is going to be so great.

What joy and pleasure will you get from reinventing yourself that you will enjoy if you totally reinvent yourself?

Using these first two tips will prime your brain and nervous system for lasting transformation and reinvention.

Believe You Can Do It (Belief = Results)

When it comes down to it, your level of belief will dictate your level of results. What happens when you don’t believe in yourself? You don’t take a lot of action and you don’t get a lot of results. Then you tell yourself “See, I told you I couldn’t do it!”

But the same is true with getting positive results. If you believe in yourself you take better action. You get small and big wins that reinforce your belief in yourself and what you are trying to accomplish.

Your brain and body light up! You take more action and get more results. Until once day you wake up as an unstoppable force.

So it all comes down to belief. Believe in yourself. Know that you can do it. If anyone has done it before you, it means that you can do it. No one is better than you.

Believe in yourself. I believe in you.

Pattern Interrupt

When you catch yourself engaging in habits that are going to set you back. Or habits that your old self engaged in, you need to interrupt it, and fast.

This process involves the work of knowing thyself a bit more than usual. You need to start SEEING your actions and thoughts more. You need to almost watch yourself from another perspective.

It is also known as deconditioning. Which is simply flipping the coin of how we have conditioned ourselves.

Our life is an accumulation of habits. These habits are created by our thoughts, which in create action or inaction. Which results in what we experience in our life.

These pattern interrupts are a way of changing ones emotion, mental or behavioral state. To break free from a pattern that is sabotaging your life.

One of my favorite personal development authors in the world, Deepak Chopra talks about how to create pattern interrupts. Here is a summary of what he talks about in this article: Deconditioning: How To Create Pattern Interrupts 

1. Become aware of the unhealthy pattern.
2. Observe yourself so that you can identify when you derail. Which then you practice the opposite habit, right then and there. Example would be that you hit the snooze button on mornings you plan to go work out. This is where you reintroduce the new pattern. Get out of bed and get your ass to the gym!
3. What can you do to interrupt the new pattern? Instead of having a normal alarm, have one that blares positive and motivational content that gets you up and out of bed.
4. Keep practicing int until it becomes a habit. It can take 21-40 days to create a new habit. Just keep incorporating this new behavior until it becomes more natural for you.

Create Goals Around Your Transformation

If you want to lose weight, you need to set short term and long term goals that will get you to your fighting weight. This means that you need to set the goals and have action steps to doing so.

That is where people fail with goals. Either they don’t set them at all. Or they set them but have to action plan behind them.

You need plans on how you will execute that goal. So if you want weight loss to be part of your reinvention, then you need to set a goal like:

“I commit to working out 4 days a week.”

So then the action plan behind it would be:

• Get a gym membership ASAP (today)
• Find a trainer if I need one (Talk about it with the fitness coordinator the day I sign up)
• Follow positive fitness blogs and buy magazines and books that will help me with weight loss
• Identify triggers that have sabotaged me in the past. And get rid of them.
• Identify WHO can help you on this journey.
• Commit to working out every day you want to workout at the same time (Since repetition breeds ingrained habits, so do so at the same time)

This is an example of a goal with an action plan. It gives goals a dose of steroids. It helps you really have a plan within the big plan. I wrote an article for you on how to set and achieve any goal. Check it out here:

Resource: How To Set And Achieve Any Goal

Incorporate Change With People Who Know You Best

People think they know us. They think they know how we are going to react and what we are going to say. But the best way to reinvent yourself is to reinvent yourself to other people.

If people expect you to be very serious, then be witty with them. If they expect you to be a little laxidazical then be more goal oriented around them.

When people start seeing us differently, they treat us differently.

And one of the biggest needs ever for people is to stay consistent with who they think they are and what people think they are.

So when you instill new beliefs in people about who you are, they treat you differently.

Then you start acting in a different way around them and in your everyday life.

Allowing you to reinvent yourself with the help of other people.

Use others as leverage.

Wake Up Early

It is said that when you start looking at early mornings differently, people start looking at you differently. One of the hardest things for people to master is waking up early. Rising and grinding. But once you start this good habit, you will be able to integrate more positive habits and changes into your life with more ease. Because when you change one thing about your life, this momentum carries into other areas.

So why not starting with one of the hardest possible to change?!

At the end of the day, the best way to do this for me has been to essentially sabotage my sleep habit the night before. This means that I started by going to sleep at my normal time. 12 PM. But instead of waking up at my usually time, 7-8 AM, I wake up at 5AM.

Yes this will be one of the most horrible days of your life. You will be tired and groggy all day. But the fact of the matter is that at the end of the day, you will be so tired when you get home that you will be able to drift off into dreamland with ease, and FAST!

A couple other tips on how to wake up early are below, courtesy of my friends over at Zen Habits!

1. Start up slow and get momentum. Start with waking up 10 to 15 minutes earlier than you usually do.
2. Go to bed earlier. Get in bed. Read, meditate and try to doze off a little earlier.
3. Put your alarm clock far away from your bed so you have to walk up and get up to punch it off. This will make you force yourself to get up and not stay under the warm and cozy covers.
4. Leave the bedroom as soon as you turn off the alarm. And then enjoy the early morning with something nice. Like having coffee while watching the sunrise.

Get A Mentor

We can reinvent ourselves and become someone entirely new by modeling someone else. It is the fastest way to become something you have never been. You are letting someone else cut the learning curve for you. Save you months or years.

If you want to reinvent your style, follow people that have the new style you want to adopt.

If you want to be more financially free, read books like

1. Rich Dad, Poor Dad (Robert Kiyosaki)
2. The Secrets of A Millionaire Mind (T. Harv Eker)
3. The Millionaire Next Door (Thomas J. Stanley)
4. Money Makeover (Dave Ramsey)
5. The Richest Man in Babylon (George S. Clayson)

If you want to be better at picking up women, read resources like this:

Resources: 6 Must Know Steps Of Pickup

You get the point. If you want to get better at someone, there is someone better who has rocked this subject. Who have put in the 10,000 hours to reach a level of mastery. You can learn what they know and pick their brain by stocking them. In in some cases, paying them to do more one on one work with you.

Start With A Vision of Your Future, Then Work Backwards

Right now, envision yourself as the person you want to become. What would you look like? How would you stand? What would you be wearing? What knowledge would you now have? Where are you living?

Then ask yourself what the steps are that you need to take to get to become this person. And ultimately create this new person that you now see in your mind. Then set out to do one or more things a day to start working towards that visions with your new plan of steps that you identified that you need to take action on.

Make A Move

If you are able to, move somewhere else. This is a way to create the ultimate transformation. Set new roots. You can be anyone in a new city. This really applies if you are from or are living in a small town.

I put this one last, because obviously everyone can’t just up and move. But if you can, I encourage you to do so. I did so a few years back. Moved, actually from a big town to a small town.

One of the first days I got there, I started working out. This because such a big habit in my life that I am now a natural bodybuilding competitor and power lifter. I fell in love for the first time here too.

I was able to make new friends. A blank template in which I was able to become the person I wanted to become. No one knew who I was or had attachments to WHO I USED TO BE.

People always want to see you as how you were. But no one can do this in a new town. You paint the picture FOR THEM.

Monitor Your Mind

Our minds want as little change as possible in our lives. It HATES change. It wants familiarity. Because that is when we feel most safe and secure.

So during this process of reinventing yourself, your mind is going to try to discourage you. Bring up fears that are going to be blown out of proportion. Valid these fears. They are real so give them some credit. But still move forward with your transformation. Let these thoughts go.

Guide: How To Let Go of Any Thought

Become Obsessed With This New Identity

Cut off all other options of staying the same. Become obsessed with transformation. Where our focus goes, energy flows. So if we are constantly focusing on something, good chances are that you are going to attract it into your life. As thoughts are truly like magnets.

Obsessions are not bad, I believe, if they are making you better. Helping you grow. Or helping you get out of your comfort zone.

Speak Differently

They say that the minute you open up your mouth you tell the world who you are. If you want to reinvent yourself, then we need to start talking differently. What are patterns that “make you” in the eyes of others? Do you slur your words? Cuss? Or talk without thinking?

I am not saying any of these things are necessarily bad. It is only what we give meaning to that makes it bad or good. But if we want to drastically reinvent ourselves, we need to die to our old self. And the old self doesn’t speak like the new you.

Figure out a couple things you do with your speech is keeping you from looking and appearing differently. The world and to yourself.

Commit To The Process

When it comes down to it, if you put two walls to each side of you and one behind you, and then start closing them in on you, you will have to move forward. You have no other option but to do so. Or die.

Commit to this process. Make it do or die. Because when people are faced with a scenario in which they have to do something or die, they tend to almost always succeed.

Cut off all other alternatives. Keep doing so until this new, reinvented self becomes your new reality.

Also, evaluate how bad you want to change. Do you want it bad, or is it just something that sounds good. Renewal is powerful. It can create positive change in every area of your life. But it can be scary and require a lot of sacrifice.

If you are serious, you will commit to the journey. But if you are simply interested in it, you will not take the action and exert the effort required to make lasting changes and truly reinvent yourself.

Have A Big Why (Get Disgusted With Yourself)

Why do you really want to change? What is going to help you keep going when you want to go back to your old ways? Maybe it is a feeling of disgust? One of the most powerful emotions that sparks change.

I have been there. So disgusted of how lazy I was being with my life. How much time I was wasting. I was disgusted with my existence. How I was living my life. I was simply existing rather than living.

So I started this blog. Worked out harder than ever. Got into a new relationship where I gave my all. And wasn’t scared to love or be loved.

And it has changed my life for the better 100 times over.

Get disgusted with yourself. Seriously it sounds crazy, but literally see yourself and get disgusted.

What ways are you simply sick of living this way? What ways have caused you to fail in certain areas in life? Or hurt your friends or family? Or get the way of your goals, dreams or happiness?

Then use that disgust to transform those areas of your life completely. Replace this bad habits with good habits. And watch your life change right in front of your eyes.

Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

Make a commitment TODAY to get out of your comfort zone. To seek experiences of discomfort. When you do things that are uncomfortable, you grow. They say the way to end fear is to do the thing you fear. And then the death of fear is certain,

The more you get out of your comfort zone, the more you will meet new people and have new life experiences. But your mind will become stronger. Because a mind that is stretched can never go back to it’s previous dimensions.

And the stronger your mind is, the easier it is to make the right choices that will result in your reinvention.

If you need help on how to get out of your comfort zone, I wrote an article just for you.

Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone (101 Practical Examples)

Be Completely Honest With Yourself During Reinvention

When it comes down to change, we need to truly see how things are. Not better than they are. I am not saying being a pessimist. Not at all. I am just saying that we need to get real with ourselves. No self delusion here.

Don’t fake yourself into thinking you are doing something or getting results that you aren’t getting. Simply see things as they are. As facts.

And your failures along the way need to be seen as feedback. As simple as that.

Be Cool With Standing Out 

When a transformation period starts in our life, we can be hesitant to go all in because of what we think people will think about us.

When I went through a major transformation period in my life, I gave up alcohol. I was never a big partier or drinker. But I gave it up completely. When I went out with friends that I used to grab drinks with, I would start to get coffee instead.

They made fun of me. People made fun of me there that I didn’t know.

It was awkward at first. But I stuck with my reason WHY I was going through all of this. Because I wanted to raise the bar. Get to another level in my life. But it still sucked standing out.

But my reason for doing so was big enough so I started to shrug it off. Then people thought I was actually cool because I wasn’t conforming.

So push through the feelings of sticking out and being different. See it as you being a maverick. As you pioneering a new path for your life. That if people make fun of you, it is because they can’t comprehend changing in their life. They don’t have a bigger vision for their life and for themselves.

YOU ARE DIFFERENT. Embrace it. Begin with the end in mind. Always think about your big goal of transformation and let that pull you through times where you feel as if you want to go back because people are hating on you.

Body Posture

Our mind and body are one. When you think thoughts, your body moves and reacts to them. It is usually in a subconscious fashion. But a lot of the times we are not thinking thoughts conducive to having a good posture. A posture that is going to help us have more confidence. Confidence to feel more positive and optimistic about ourselves and about our transformation.

The big one for me that has helped me feel more at ease is simply pulling my shoulders back. Retracting my scapula so that my chest is pushed out more.

The other one is standing up straight. I envision that there is a string pulling me straight up into the roof. Or into the sky. And that I am standing up strong and sturdy.

Here is an resource that goes more into depth about creating good body posture for higher confidence levels.

Resource: Confident Body Language (9 Power Positions)

29 Reinvent Yourself Quotes

1. “Every day, you reinvent yourself. You’re always in motion. But you decide everyday to move forward or backward.” – James Altucher

2. “You should have the opportunity to be more than one person with different people because you have that within you. It’s not like you’re faking it. If everyone knows you so well and you can always get a hold of you, then you’re stuck to this thing that people think you are. You should have the opportunity to reinvent yourself. Because you do, naturally.” – Kristin Stewart

3. “Life isn’t about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself.” – George Bernard Shaw

4. “If you are not where you want to be, do not quit, instead reinvent yourself and change your habits.” – Eric Thomas

5. “Be prepared to reinvent yourself. Be prepared to go out on a limb occasionally, and be prepared to do the things that you feel strongly about.” – Hillman Curtis

6. “Your power to choose your direction of our life allows you to reinvent yourself, to change your future, and to powerfully influence the rest of creation.” – Stephen Covey

7. “I thought, I need to reinvent myself. I want every day of life to be wonderful, fascinating, interesting, creative, and what am I gonna do to make that happen.” – Karen Allen

8. “You are never to old to reinvent yourself.” – Steve Harvey

9. “I feel like I have a job to do, like I constantly have to reinvent myself. The more I up the ante for myself, the better it is in the long run.” – Kevin Hart

10. “You have to constantly be reinventing yourself and investing in the future.” – Reid Hoffman

11. “It’s never too late, never too late to start over, never to late to be happy.” – Jane Fonda

12. “Every day is a chance to reinvent yourself and become brand new.”

13. “People who cannot invent and reinvent themselves must be content with borrowed postures, secondhand ideas, fitting in instead of standing out.” – Warren Bennis

14. “Don’t ever feel like your best days are behind you, reinvention is the purest form of hope, make today your best.” – Phil Wohl

15. “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.” – Dolly Parton

16. “We fear the future will mirror our past, because we are born to believe history repeats itself. But human beings are not history, the reinvent themselves.” – Rania Naim

17. “I need to keep reinventing myself.” – Orlando Bloon

18. “We must reinvent a future free of blinders so that we can choose from real options.” – David Suzuki

19. “Every next level of your life will demand a different version of you.”

20. “When things are bad, it’s the best time to reinvent yourself.” – George Lopez

21. “You are never too old to reinvent yourself.” – Darlene Quinn

22. “You may not know this, but you have the ability to reinvent yourself endlessly. That’s your beauty.” – Lidia Yuknaritch

23. “People think immigration is only about the dollar, but it’s so much more complex. This is a place where you can reinvent yourself. I don’t know that you can do that anywhere else.” – Esmeralda Santiago

24. “Don’t be afraid to reinvent yourself as many times as you need to.” – Lain Ehmann

25. “Every time you reinvent yourself, you will be a fuller and a better woman for it.” – Katie Mitchell Hall

26. “Every day you have to reinvent yourself.” – Oscar de la Renta

27. “As an artist you have to keep reinventing yourself.” – David Hammons

28. “It’s not a case of reinventing yourself, it’s a case of trying to be adventurous.” – Alex Kapranos

29. “I want to always find new ways of reinventing myself.” – Nicholas Cage

     

Conclusion To How To Reinvent Yourself

So there we are my friends. A guide on how to reinvent yourself at any age. At any point in your life. To rise from the ashes and emerge anew. An entirely new person. Creating a deep sense of fulfillment because of your transformation.

I hope you received value from it and got a lot out of it!

Share with me what tip resonated with you the most. And if you have anything to add!

Lets chat in the comment section below!

 

Peace,

Chris