#181: How to Reinvent Yourself and Let Go of the Old You
Most of us live our lives often unaware that the tension we are experiencing in our lives means that it's time to reinvent yourself. Maybe you’ve found yourself in moments of discontent: scrolling social media, mindlessly eating, procrastinating. It could be a signal that it’s your moment to reinvent.
In this episode, I’m sharing tips for how you can not just reinvent yourself, but realign yourself and become a truer version of who you are, and, in the process, how to shed the layers that no longer serve you.
Release Old Beliefs
So what if you want to change, but feel stuck in your day to day? Maybe you're living a life based on decisions you made long ago. Those decisions may not reflect who you are currently or want to be.
This stuckness isn't just a feeling; it's a state of existence. We find ourselves trapped in a career that once seemed right but now feels unfulfilling. Or, we cling to an image of ourselves that no longer represents who we aspire to be.
We naturally hold onto past identities, beliefs, or habits as they are often rooted in comfort and familiarity; a defense mechanism in our brains against the uncertainties of change.
Embrace Your Future Self
You must release the old narrative to make room for a new story.
We often resist this change because much of it comes from our innate need for belonging and approval.
Questions like 'Do I belong?', 'Am I right?', or 'Am I on the correct side of things?' often drive our actions, keeping us within the boundaries of our current selves. This is often buried in our subconscious.
You can bring to the surface the stories you're telling yourself by looking inward and asking some fundamental questions.
How do you define yourself? If someone were to ask who you are, what would you say?
What are the sources of these definitions? Do they reflect your true aspirations?
Or are they shaped by expectations and past experiences?
What do you worry about, think about on a regular basis? Do the things that you choose to think about on a regular basis reflect where you want to be in your life?
And as you begin to question your old stories, new possibilities open up. It can be overwhelming at first, the sheer number of paths you can take.
But the key is to choose one direction, one vision that resonates with you, and focus on it, for the next 90 days.
Questioning how you see yourself and reconsidering what your life should be is not easy. It's uncomfortable, it's challenging, but it's also liberating. It's about finding that space between who you are and who you want to become, and identifying what could be possible for you in the future.
Action Towards Transformation
If you're not making the progress you hoped, pause. Ask yourself: What would your future self tell you in this situation? What would your future self want you to do in this situation? What would your future self, eat, do, say, or react in any given situation?
The key is in active movement. Too often, we engage in passive movement such as reading and consuming. This is not the way that we will develop a relationship with our future self.
Through the journey of reinvention - the active movement to our new self - we learn to detach our sense of self from static labels.
Your journey of transformation is a testament to your strength, courage, and pursuit or purpose.
Listen to the Show:
Laura Meyer 00:00
Have you ever watched a caterpillar become a butterfly? It is not just a change. It is a complete metamorphosis. It's almost if the ground confines the caterpillar, the caterpillar intuitively just knows when it's time to reinvent. After much struggle, the caterpillar transforms, it becomes a beautiful butterfly with the freedom to explore the skies. This process is graceful and profound. And there's so much that we can learn from nature in this way. Seeing it takes place reminds us that transformation is not only possible, but it is inherently within us. Just like the caterpillar, many of us are waiting for our moment to reinvent we live our lives often unaware that the tension we are experiencing in our lives means that it is time for a transformation. For many of us, it lies dormant within us. And then all of a sudden, it shows up in the form of mindless social media scrolling, eating foods that we don't want to consume and procrastination, worry, anxiety, perfectionism, I'm about to share with you that you can reinvent yourself and let all of that go. And over time, get closer and closer to your authentic self.
Laura Meyer 01:13
Welcome to the Abundant Life Podcast where the paths of entrepreneurship, personal growth and wellness intersect. I'm your host, Laura Meyer, and I'm here to guide you on a journey to a life in business filled with abundance. So let's get started on this journey together and discover how to live abundantly in both business and life.
Laura Meyer 01:31
This is not to say that reinvention is replacement for mental health challenges best addressed by licensed professional but what I've found sometimes our discontent in our lives that shows up as behaviors that don't really serve us is a sign that it is time for reinvention. But most people don't know is that you can let go of the old you at any time and then in turn become more vibrant, joyful, and aligned with your true purpose. This change makes the difference between a life you live and a life that you love. And when we pursue reinvention. It isn't just about us, it will impact everyone around us, our families, our spouses, our teams, our friends, and our communities. So, if you're ready to explore reinvention, think about it like a metamorphosis. In this video or audio if you're listening to the podcast, I am going to share with you how to shed the layers that no longer serve us so that you can embrace an identity full of possibilities and growth a light without all of that endless mindless scrolling. And I promise you this transformation will be as rewarding as it is for you as it is inspiring for others. Your future self is a totally different person than you are today. The challenge that many of us face is we feel this invisible wall to our growth and happiness. It's this feeling of being stuck. It's like you're living a life based on decisions that you made a long time ago. And those decisions may or may not reflect who you currently are or want to be this stockiness isn't just a feeling. It's a state of existence, we find ourselves trapped in that career that what seemed right but is now unfulfilling, or we cling to an image of ourselves that no longer represents who we aspire to be. The truth is that we are a sum of our choices and our lives and your desire for something new might be a result of decisions outside of your control.
Laura Meyer 02:00
Martha Beck calls this a catalytic event, it might be a divorce of financial loss, the closing of a business, the betrayal of a friend or family member, just a really uncomfortable situation that you can't get out of your head. It may also come from an internal desire, a sense of restlessness, places you dream of going but you feel blocked and getting there. We might even self-sabotage to avoid the transformation within the things I mentioned earlier, like procrastination, even when we have a sense that we're living below our full capacity. The reason why we naturally hold on to past identities or beliefs or habits is they're often rooted in comfort and familiarity. It's a defense mechanism in our brains against the uncertainties of change. And then one day, the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change. And it's in this discomfort and dissatisfaction that we find a hidden gift, the realization that it is time to shift. Here's something crucial to understand our attachment to these old versions of ourselves can be the biggest hurdle. So, we have to ask ourselves, are we ready to let all of that go to burn it down for the chance to build something new, something more joyful, something more purposeful, something more authentic. For those of you who are listening right now, you might feel a little called out know that recognizing the need for change in itself is a huge victory.
Laura Meyer 04:44
So as we begin this process, we don't want to just identify the problem. We also want to understand it feel it and finally take the right steps to move through it warning you right now this can be extremely uncomfortable work. Going back to our butterfly analogy the transformation of chrysalis is nasty business. The liquid that drips from the chrysalis during a butterfly's metamorphosis is called meconium. If you've ever had a newborn baby in your home, you will know exactly what meconium is. I've had three and I've had my share of it. So going back to our analogy, the chrysalis is made of waste products or meconium. From its transformation into a butterfly, it only expels this gross substance when it emerges from the chrysalis and becomes a butterfly. It lives in its own waste in order to experience a new version of itself. This is the work we get to do to experience reinvention in our own lives. The first step in reinventing ourselves is to bring to light the stories of where we're starting from.
Laura Meyer 05:41
As Elizabeth Gilbert says in her book, Big Magic I've never seen any life transformation that didn't begin with the person in question finally getting tired of their own, you know what so when we begin reinvention, we must examine fake stories, the BS, we need to let go up now let's think about why we often resist this change. Much of it comes from this innate need for belonging and approval from wired for tracing back to our tribal roots. This need can keep us tied to familiar paths, even when they don't lead us to where we want to go questions like do I belong? Am I right? Am I on the correct side of things often drive our actions keeping us within the boundaries of our current selves. This is often buried in our subconscious and the muck and mud of our metaphorical chrysalis. There are times I've reinvented myself out of necessity during extreme pain. I've experienced depression, anxiety, and self-hatred been the results that I was getting in my life and business. Other times my reinvention has come from deep personal desire for growth, just wanting to share my experiences with the world in a new way, both times I had to confront the unconscious thoughts and mental constructs that were creating those results in my life that
Laura Meyer 06:52
I was unhappy with. So this is about the hard work of asking, What if I step out of this familiar pattern in my head? And what new story could I create this process is a lot like swimming in a sea of meconium you're hanging around, and a lot of things that are hard to see, in order to experience that transformation. If this is hard for you. Here's a shortcut you can bring to the surface the stories you're telling yourself just by looking inward and asking some fundamental question, how do you define yourself? If someone were to ask who you are? What would you even say? What are the sources of these definitions? Do they reflect your true aspiration? Or are they shaped by expectations and past experiences? What do you worry about? Think about on a regular basis? What do you complain about? Do the things that you choose to think about on a regular basis reflect where you want to be in your life.
Laura Meyer 07:39
And this is where we get to construct a new way of being that aligns with our deepest desires and truest self. As soon as you begin to question the old stories, a lot of times new possibilities open up. And this is when you know you're ready to move into the next stage of reinvention, which is creating a new vision as you begin to question those old stories, new possibilities open up and it can be pretty overwhelming at first, just the sheer number of paths that you can take, especially when you start releasing some of those limiting beliefs. It can feel like a multiple choice question when every single one of them seems right, it can also feel very unnatural, because your brain is wired to live in those stories of your past, not your future. But the key is to choose one direction, one vision, one path that resonates with you and lights you up and focus on it for 90 days, this direction could be personal, maybe you want to evolve as a parent or as a partner. Maybe as a friend or as an athlete. If you're an entrepreneur like I am, it might be about business, maybe you've been stuck at a certain revenue level, or you keep experiencing the same types of problems in your business. This is where we start to let that old thinking become part of something new. It's about releasing the old narrative and reversing it to make room for a new story. So as you craft this new vision, you might experience something called cognitive dissonance.
Laura Meyer 08:55
Cognitive Dissonance is the discomfort that you feel when your current reality clashes with the new ideas and beliefs that you're embracing. It's like an identity crisis, where the familiar self-conflicts with the emerging self-breaking free from the need to control how others perceive me has personally been one of my most limiting factors in life, I grew up being the great student, the well-behaved child, the star athlete. And during my own times of reinvention, I realized I needed to let all of that go in order to create something new questioning how you see yourself and reconsidering where you want your life to be is not easy. It's uncomfortable. It's challenging, but it's also very liberating when you let go of right and wrong and good and bad. So, as we move forward, remember this is a journey of exploration and discovery and finding that space between who you are and who you want to become and just identify what could be possible that you've never considered before. So once you start to create new possibilities for yourself and a new vision, the final step for me has been the most joyful, it's time to make decisions. It's as if you are already the person that you aspire to be. This is the essence of reinvention. It's not about waiting until you arrive at that future state. It's about becoming.
Laura Meyer 10:10
This isn't just about having a clear vision. It's about backing that vision with action. The transformation we experience happens in the doing and the choices we make every day. I like to think about it as developing a friendship or relationship with that person that holds the new vision. This is where you literally become best friends with your future self. This is where you give yourself advice as if your vision has become a reality. If you're not making the progress that you had hoped for your goal, stop and ask yourself, what would your future self-tell you in this situation? If you have a decision, ask yourself what would your future self-want you to do in this situation? What would your future self-eat, do say or react in any given situation, your future self is like a new character in the story of your new life. They view the world through a different lens and have unique goals, concerns and habits. Your future self isn't just like an upgraded version of you. It is a completely new being. It's born from self-reflection and a sincere desire for change.
Laura Meyer 11:12
As you develop a relationship with your future self. Remember to be open to the how the ways in which your journey might unfold often surprises. For many of us, we want to know the how before we even get started. But the way we know the how is by making active movements. We do this by making choices and taking action that align with that future self. And then as we develop a stronger relationship and friendship with that person through trial and error, we start to become him or her Do you think the change can be harder than being forced by circumstances. So for example, if a traumatic event forces you to change, you have to react in moments like that. In my own life. This has been some of the most pain I've ever been in and I had no choice I had to face it. But when you choose to change, you have to be proactive and willing to let go of good in order to get to great sometimes it's just easier to not make progress when you don't have to. But what I found is that I grow bored and stagnant and become motivated by that future self when I start to develop a relationship with her. Through this journey of reinvention, we learn to detach our sense of self from static labels. This detachment is not just a loss. It's a beautiful byproduct of reinvention. It frees us from the confines of what so many of us struggle with on a day to day basis, and it releases us from under living and under earning. I've personally found the work of reinvention has been critical to my overall joyfulness and purposefulness in life.
Laura Meyer 12:41
I know it's time to reinvent when I'm complaining about things or I'm bored or dissatisfied. I'm looking at external factors to make me happier when I'm going through reinvention. It's often really difficult, but through experience, I know on the other side of it is greater self-expression, creativity, and just a deeper understanding of my true purpose on this planet. When you engage in this process, you will notice a gradual unfolding. It's a subtle evolution and it's so profound. One day you might look in the mirror and realize that you don't even recognize yourself anymore. This is very much been the case in my own life. Your journey of transformation is just a testament to your strength, courage and pursuit of purpose. So when you're experiencing reinvention, you're working to create a life that truly reflects who you are meant to be.
Laura Meyer 13:30
Thanks so much for joining me today. Whether you're building your dream business seeking personal transformation, or striving for a more balanced life, you are in the right place. If you loved the audio version of this, I think you'll really enjoy seeing my YouTube channel. So make sure to check out the show notes and see the corresponding video as well. I really appreciate you being here with me today, and I'll see you next time on the abundant life podcast.
Welcome to The Joybrand Podcast! Join host Laura Meyer, a 20+ year veteran entrepreneur and marketing expert, as she explores how to navigate the challenges of being an entrepreneur, develop a winning mindset, and maintain wellness in our hectic lives. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur, a seasoned business owner, or someone seeking a richer, more balanced life, The Joybrand Podcast offers insights and inspiration to fuel your journey.