We are becoming new every day. As conscious beings, everything we experience brings us to a new place of learning and being. The core of ourselves can stay the same, but being open to new things means we are evolving. Progressively looking to reinvent ourselves can make a difference in our success in life endeavors.
Reinvention is finding a new reality for ourselves.
Lecomte du Noüy, in his book Human Destiny, published in 1947, discusses that era’s scientific laws as relative to man’s standpoint of observation. He argued that viewpoints held cannot necessarily be imposed on our total reality. With so many changes, new viewpoints, and technologies some 77 years later, how much more true this is now!
“We must not confuse these human subjective laws which our intelligence has superimposed on facts, with the true, eternal laws, since the scale of observation creates the phenomenon. Every time we change a scale of observation, we encounter new phenomena.
Lecomte du Noüy
Those things we thought of ourselves and our world may not be the highest or the real laws governing the universe. The world now stands on the brink of a new universal structure of consciousness, and planet earth witnesses a total world-wide evolution.”
A New Conscious Awareness
Consciousness is always in the Now. It’s not static in the sense that we can be stuck in time. Consciousness is Infinite and always evolving into newness at every moment. It is beyond the brain and form, yet somehow, we can transcend our seeming selves through meditation and introspection. Such is an ever-unfolding in which by tuning our observatory functions spirit-ward, we are made aware of new dimensions and allow for progress and new ideas.
Realize your values.
Examining ourselves and our core values demands a great deal of honest introspection. But this can really pay off. We build more resilience each day. Changes in our surroundings and circumstances don’t hamper us as much. We develop a strong center.
Sometimes, self-discovery can uncover traits you would rather not have. Making a decision to reinvent yourself can help you become more confident as you understand your strengths and weaknesses. You find ways to improve through personal growth. Some people can do this simply through their own determination, reading self-help books, and practice. While others find it more helpful to seek a mentor they admire with a life they hope to emulate. It helps to read about inspired people in every generation. How did they achieve success?
Knowing who you really are and what you truly value means you are not easily edged off your game. It is as if your life’s journey were walking along a tightrope. Poised in knowing your strengths, you walk steadily. The rope moves and changes, but you find ways to keep your balance.
Know how you react in situations.
- Do you get emotional when things get tough?
- Are you angry? Do you take things out on those who are near and dear to you? Find ways to de-escalate. Enlist your partner’s understanding rather than lashing out.
- Do you react with Fight or Flight? There are times that require either of these, but know the difference.
- Are you a loner? It is okay to seek help and advice from time to time.
- Are you an extrovert? Many of us introverts wish we had this trait, but it can have a dark side. Practice listening. Practice feeling the room —feeling what others are thinking. Be quiet once in a while, and be sensitive to others’ body language and expressions. Are you missing something?
- Are you an introvert? Train yourself to present yourself. Hide, then get out, hide again, then get out. Never give up!
- Are you an idea person? Surround yourself with people who need ideas.
- Are you a doer but lack ideas? Surround yourself with people who have great ideas.
- Remember, the world needs all of us and our varied talents.
- BE AN APPRECIATOR
Gaining a new perspective will encourage you to learn new things, roll with the times, and become more agile in your work and life habits. Reinvention can help you see opportunities rather than obstacles and reframe circumstances and challenges as adventures. Sometimes, we all take a situation we are dealing with too seriously.
There is an old Daoist story whose moral is that we can and should learn to manage big things as easily as we can “cook a small fish.”
The author of that story considered cooking a small fish easy, so choose something you find easy and use that as a model.
The original story gives this advice to kings and rulers. However, what most needs to be ruled is ourselves. The standpoint or perspective at our core, which is the one with which we color everything, can make a big difference in our lives. Ruling ourselves means controlling our thoughts and actions. Consider all angles before acting impetuously. Seek to understand the viewpoints of others. First, be kind to ourselves. Understand who we are, and it follows that we will be kind to others—a kind of Golden Rule of the Dao.
Steps Along The Way… in a search to reinvent yourself.
- Decide what you want to achieve. What will success look like? Ask yourself serious questions and be honest when choosing your destination. Remember, for most of life’s goals, there is no end game but rather a journey. Make your journey through life count. Don’t fall into the age-old trap of working towards an end point while forgetting to live along the way.
- Find your direction after you have done some serious introspection. Examine your strengths and weaknesses.
- Make plans, but keep them close to your heart at the outset. Talking about things with someone you trust can help, but once you decide, if you blurt out too much, you may encounter opposition or even sabotage. Enlist the help of others who will not be competitors. Make sure the people you accept advice from care about you.
- It is okay to be idealistic at the outset and aim high. However, you should leave yourself room to course-correct as you go.
- If you encounter untoward experiences along the way, examine their cause, but if you feel you are right, don’t quit. Sometimes, people fail just before they reach their goals. Discouragement is a thief.
- Leave yourself room for serendipity and change. As the saying goes in a poem written in 1785 by Robert Burns, “The best-laid schemes o’ Mice and Men/Gang aft agley.” This means to say things don’t always go as expected or desired.
- Reading the atmosphere as you go along and allowing for spontaneity is a good idea.
- Guard against procrastination. When you decide, —do it. Go until you reach an obstacle. Then you have two choices. Stop and go around the obstacle because it is insurmountable, or find a way to go through the obstacle. If you have not given up, you have not lost! A smart person knows when to go around and when to charge through.
- Achieving anything worthwhile will demand work, perseverance, and, very often, some sacrifice. Keep tabs on yourself to see how you are doing.
- Treat others with respect. No one is an island; we all need the help and encouragement of others. You’ve probably heard the advice saying. “You meet the same people on the way down as you did on the way up!” Most of us fail more than once on our way to success! If you have been good to those you meet, they may give you a helping hand at just the moment you need it most.
- Help others. If you are further along on your journey than someone else, lend a hand. Somewhere along the road, we always get back what we give.
- Last but not least, make sure to look after yourself along the way. Eat nutritious foods, take mental time off breaks, and remember reinventing yourself is a long-distance run, not a sprint. Be prepared to work more than you expected, so look after yourself along the way.
In my career, I’ve reinvented myself and what I do numerous times due to technological changes, personal issues, and normal life circumstances. I can attest to the fact that you will work more at your business and your life than others with regular jobs. But in the long run, you will be freer and more knowledgeable. No matter what, no one will be able to fire you since you work for yourself, either in or out of a job working for someone else. Always work as though you are self-employed and that what you do matters a great deal to yourself and your team. You will stand the test of time!
The Journey is Transformative
None of us start out in life knowing it all. Some years ago, I read somewhere about the stages of competence.
- We start out as unconsciously incompetent. We don’t know what we don’t know.
- Along the way, we learn through experience and become more knowledgeable and competent.
- When we keep going, we transform ourselves. We become more consciously competent. This is the beginning of Mastery.
Remember, We Are All Moving Along The River Of Life.
A New Purpose is the best starting point for reinvention.
By reinventing yourself from the inside out, your goals change. It is not that you don’t desire to achieve success and good things in life. It is more like walking a path towards your goals, working and striving for success, yet it also includes more spiritual leanings along the way. For instance, include happiness and find joy in the journey. Surround yourself with good relationships with family and friends.
Often, we find ourselves mid-journey in life and wonder how we got there. Reevaluating yourself can help you reinvent your life while shifting your actions towards living your most authentic self. When you are happier, you can be more creative in your work and life.
Reinvention is an Inner and an Outer Journey
If you have been going through circumstances that are prompting you to reinvent yourself, you may be being called to awaken to something higher in yourself. Some of us go through life with goals developed in our formative years and going into adulthood. We may experience ups and downs, but we have been on the same path or career for most of our lives. That can be a secure and wonderful life.
However, many of us, particularly those of us who have experienced disruption through technological advances and new theories in the world, or even a change in thinking, have come to find ourselves between a rock and a hard place! Almost all at once, there is a need to grow, reinvent ourselves, and find a new path in life. It starts out as a feeling, perhaps even the downest feelings bordering on depression you can imagine. This is a call to the hero’s journey. Although it is predominantly an inner struggle at first, it also demands action on our outer plane of circumstances.
The Inner Self of you, or Universal Consciousness, is calling you to grow and pay more attention. Throughout history, we have known of those great men and women who listened to a voice higher than their own, beyond faith, religions, or creeds… that which is represented by those in every faith and devotion yet tuning into a much higher source.
This is where we begin to examine our core values and look inward for answers. Often, this is when we really begin reaching out for a higher power than ourselves since, in many cases, what we try to do “out there” does not work. We begin the long inner and outer journey to reinvent ourselves and develop a stronger center of who we are.
Trust! You are not stuck in time; you have access to multidimensional Consciousness that will enlighten your journey.
One of the secrets to success, whether it be only to improve your momentary lot in life, is finding your inner place of peace. As Christ Jesus said, Mark 4:35-41 when he stilled the storm. 39 “And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still.”
Oddly, tuning in to an inner calm somehow transcends everything and changes what happens on the outside. Not always at once, but when you look back, you realize a greater power than yourself had a hand in saving you.
“For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.”
Acts 17:28 – King James Version
