Do We Really Reinvent Ourselves?
Are you feeling the need to reinvent yourself or your career? Personally, I don’t like using the word reinvention when it comes to your life. It’s semantics, I know, but I think what we do when we create a “new identity” for ourselves is more about evolution than reinvention. Several years ago I noticed I was very resistant to the idea of reinventing myself. It felt like I needed to learn new skills, market myself differently and see myself as someone new. I now realize that all the fragments of myself have been forming with each job I worked and each class and personality test I took. I’ve been evolving into who I want to become so there is no need to reinvent myself.
Reinvention means taking our lives and creating something new. Yet, what we really do when we start a new career or business is called evolution. It’s the natural progression towards fulfilling our life mission.
When we repackage all of our skills, talents, experience, and knowledge and present it to the world, it is the next step along our life’s evolutionary path. Here’s an example. A person who is a carpenter for a living fulfills his life long dream of being a writer. To the rest of us it may look like a career reinvention but what it really means is the carpenter is doing what he felt destined to do. What we don’t see is all the years he fantasized about becoming a writer, studied writing, wrote ideas in his journal and wrote short stories. His career evolved into something new behind closed doors.
If you’ve been feeling pressure to reinvent yourself, all you really need to do is reframe your life from a different perspective. There is no need to become someone new. Just allow yourself to evolve into the person you are destined to become.
How do you feel about reinventing yourself and moving into a new career or business? Can you see how you have consciously or subconsciously moving into a different direction?
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- A New Direction | Sherrie Koretke | The Niche Clarity Coach - [...] while back I wrote a blog post about how your career evolves, not invents itself. I wrote this post ...
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Sherrie, I believe we’re always reinventing ourselves in one way or another. I consider life a continuous learning experience – me becoming the best me possible. So, reinvention is part of that. Congrats on the new site – very nice!
Lisbeth Tanz recently posted..Empower Someone Else – Ask For Help
Hi Lisbeth, thanks for visiting my new site! It was a lot of work but totally worth it. I love the new commenting functions.
Words are so powerful. The most important thing is to not throw the “baby out with the bath water.” Keep what’s good about yourself and improve on what you have, I say!
That’s a great take on the subject. It’s like plants that grow. The original branches and leaves wither and die. They need pruning off to allow the strength of new shoots.
Marty recently posted..Life is too short
Marty, you are such a beautiful writer! Loved it! Thanks for commenting.
My life has been a series of changes and adaptations to circumstances and new information. Sometimes I say I have had several “lives” (I’m a Leo with 9 lives).
Currently I am “reinventing” myself, or if you prefer, evolving. “Evolving” seems to be more accurate because I am not leaving behind the skills and experience gained in the past.
Life can be compared to a game — the greatest game of all. To win you must play the hand that is dealt to you or respond to moves by the other players.
One important factor in our evolution is the network of allies we accumulate and nurture. “No man is an island, entire of itself.” Our new life includes the relationships that are part of who we are and what we can do.
Buddy Hodges recently posted..How Are Social Media Changing Relationships
Buddy, thank you for stopping by and leaving such a great comment. Love it. The words we say to ourselves are so important. It may not seem like much but when we reframe what we think sometimes magic happens. My goal is to teach people how to see themselves. Evolving seems more progressive. Reinventing seems to mean I wasn’t good enough I need to change into something new. Life is a game! Let’s learn to play it well.
Love what you wrote in quotes!
Great message in your article. Change is a part of life, and sometimes we just have to accept it. But that doesn’t mean that we do not have choice, because we always do. If we do choose to reinvent ourselves, then it should always be for the better and not the other way around, regardless of profession or career.