As many of you know my personal journey of reinvention began in 2011 after my father passed away from brain cancer and like all storms the remainder of my world came crashing down around me as well…
The loss of my job, the loss of my marriage – yep, I was at rock bottom!
However, what I learned over that first twelve months was that we are, as humans inherently built for reinvention.
Earlier today while walking with my wife Judy on our 8 kilometre morning walk I was reflecting on how much I’ve personally grown over the ensuing years, but more than that I was in awe of the constant personal reinvention on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month basis that many of us seem to go through – mostly unnoticed.
It’s these small, incremental and often times nuances that keep us moving forward. Whether it’s our thinking on a particular topic, our actions or intentions that flex and evolve that all keep us in a state of reinvention.
Of course, there are the big things like choosing a new career path or exiting a relationship past its prime all the way down to the small things like trying new foods or looking at a situation through a different lens or viewpoint.
Each of these things keep us reinventing ourselves.
Just take a moment to look back at your personal journey. Where were you ten years ago? Perhaps then position that against where you were five years ago, then perhaps last year. Ask yourself – have I evolved or redefined who I am over that time? What’s different about me and the way I think and look at the world?
Do I have the same habits, expressions, views on specific topics? Am I still in the same role I was at each of those milestones? Can you identify what’s different about you now?
Often the first thing we see when we evaluate our lives is relationships and family. Many of us have seen our kids grow up and become adults, others have seen them grow from toddlers to teens, yet others are now caring for our aging parents. Still others are no longer in a marriage or relationship and have forged a new path forward perhaps by themselves or with a new partner.
Each one of these moves us along the reinvention continuum, irrespective of whether you call it that or not we continue to grow, learn and evolve.
Next evaluative point is where we are with our careers and job. Some of us will have seen us promoted, maybe even more than once over the years. Yet others have moved onto new companies in the same or similar roles, while others have chosen to move in a completely new direction. Each path has its merits – there is no “right” path.
Again, each of these markers move us along our path of reinvention. Many of us see things differently across these checkpoints, some of us different points of view now that we evolved. This growth and maturity often leads to us leading, coaching and mentoring differently that what we may have.
However, the one that we didn’t prioritize earlier but which has one of the most important impacts on our lives is our emotional and mental health and well-being.
I know from personal experience that I’ve experienced significant growth over this period in terms of my emotional strength and resilience.
As I reflected earlier today, I realized that losing your parents early in life sets you up for a void that somehow can’t be filled. I know I’ve experienced the feeling of being an orphan for many years now and it never gets easier, but what it does do for you is to ensure you stand on your own two feet.
There is no backup? No-one to help bail you out of a tight situation. You are it!
You learn pretty quickly to become self-sufficient. Now couple this with relationship changes, job changes and other important moments in your life and you can see how this landscape may help you grow and evolve.
I know I’m not the person I was ten years ago, now even five years ago and in some respects not even the same person I was a year ago.
My perspective and mindset continue to evolve, as do my expectations, goals and dreams.
I use a couple of the following tactics to help keep me moving forward.
Each week I set aside “reflection time”. This can be wherever or whenever you choose, in fact it could be ad-hoc although I like to make mine consistent so that I keep it front of mind.
I’ve found that this reflection time is important for me as it helps me revisit what’s happened over the last day/days and reflect on those moments. Importantly it gives me the opportunity to view the situation outside the specific moments, and how I perceived it and more importantly how I handled it either verbally or through my actions.
This is something I would never have contemplated until the last couple of years…
Another tactic is to create a vision board and revisit it on a regular basis. This year I created mine in Canva and now use it as my wallpaper on my computer so that each day when I sit down to work, the first thing I see is my vision for me, albeit recent. It gives me a checkpoint to reevaluate if these continue to be my goals and dreams.
If not, then it’s time for a refresh!
Are you able to incorporate reflection time into your week, or perhaps a vision board so that you can gauge your level of growth and change. Definitely something to reflect on don’t you think?
Here’s to constantly reinventing ourselves, cos no-one is going to do it for us!
Until next week.
Ciao!
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