In the blog post, Four Principles of Reinvention, I introduced the following principles:
1. Reinvention is the focus, but it’s not the main event.
2. There’s no map.
3. Your first priority work in any reinvention is to stay tuned into your true self.
4. Your emotions are your personalized, customized, internal navigation system.

This blog post explains Principle #1 in more detail.

A reinvention is really about who you get to be as a result of reinventing,

Reinvention is commonly described in terms of restructuring outer elements of our lives.

Common examples of reinventions are:
• changing careers
• relocating
• getting healthier
• redefining relationships

When reinventers think about reinvention as an outer event, i.e., changing outer circumstances, then their reinvention often becomes about getting it done, accomplishing it.

Most of us tend to think that when we ‘get there’, then we will be happy, satisfied, fulfilled. This way of being with your reinvention holds you hostage in a way, because your happiness or fulfillment is dependent upon (and waiting for) the completion of an outer restructuring in your life.

This is a very common misconception and it robs of us of what is most precious and significant about a reinvention: rediscovering our authentic selves and expressing ourselves in new and different ways.

Principle #1 is about paying attention to the ‘being’ of the reinvention, in addition to the ‘doing.’

Why do you want your reinvention? Think about it. You may need to dig through a few layers to discover the true motivation embedded in your desire to reinvent.

With every one of my reinventing clients, the bottom line and truest answer to that question is that they want the reinvention because of what it awakens in them, throughout the process of reinventing and when they are living their newly reinvented life. So it is a bit about the destination, but it’s far more about the what the journey awakens inside of them.

They describe it in different ways, but when we get to the bottom of it, it’s about feeling empowered, alive, awake, and engaged with life in a whole different way. The reinvention is calling forth different aspects of them, or different ways to express themselves.

It’s really about them being more engaged in the creative energy and flow of life.

A reinvention activates dimensions of your self that have remained dormant or have never had an opportunity to be expressed.

A perfect example of this comes from the article, What do you really want to do with your life?, in O, The Oprah Magazine, September 2007. Mary South, the author of the article, reinvented herself from Publishing Executive to Sailor and Author. She bought a 40-foot, 30-ton trawler and moved aboard it. She talks about who she gets to be now: “The happiness I found at sea, the sense of accomplishment I felt, made it clear that I was more of myself, more me, standing at the helm of my little ship than I had ever been sitting in a conference room.”

For many of us, midlife becomes an opportune time to reinvent, to make different choices, because of shifting circumstances and accumulated wisdom about ourselves.

What you really want through a reinvention is to be more of who you are, i.e., more of your true self.

At its core, a reinvention is an inner game, not an outer one. It’s much more about being in the journey of rediscovery of your true self than it is about the destination.

How is reinventing different for you when you think about it that way?

Filed under: Four Principles of Reinvention on October 22nd, 2007