In all the work I have done with clients who are reinventing, and with my own reinventions, I have come to understand four core principles of reinvention. There are many additional important points about reinventing, but these four have really stuck with me as central and significant.

Knowing about these principles can help you navigate your reinvention with more confidence and trust.

I’ll be writing about each of these in more depth, but here are the four principles, briefly:
1. Reinvention is the focus but it’s not the main event. What you really want through reinventing is to be more of who you are, i.e., your true self. At it’s core, a reinvention is an inner game, not an outer one. And it’s much more about the journey than it is about the destination.
2. There’s no map. The planning paradigm doesn’t work for reinventions. You need a compass, i.e., your inner guidance, not a map.
3. Your first priority work in any reinvention is to stay tuned into your true self. When you stay in alignment with your true self, you will be inspired to take the next action and it will feel right to you.
4. Your emotions are your personalized, customized internal navigational system. When you think of your emotions as indicators, or directional signals, they can be your ally in your reinvention. More specifics to come about this premise.

I would invite you to consider these four principles as hypotheses, subject to verification through your own reinvention experience.

As the first step in this discovery process, you might ask yourself the following questions about your own experience with reinventing:
• How does my reinvention allow me to become more of my true self?
• What if there is no map to follow for my reinvention? How would I feel differently about my reinvention if that were true? In what ways would I behave differently?
• How do I stay tuned into my true self? How do I recognize my true self?
• What would become possible if my emotions were my ally in my reinvention? What if they were accurate directional signals for me?

More to come on each of the four principles of reinvention. The next four Reinvention Revolution blog posts will be about Reinvention Principles 1 - 4 in more detail. Stay tuned!

Filed under: Four Principles of Reinvention on October 15th, 2007