Before You Can Reinvent Yourself, You Must Know Yourself
The reinvention of self can be a good thing if done right. But many people have no idea what or how to do it. Why don’t people know how to reinvent themselves? Is Personal Growth and Personal Development just words that are realistically out of our reach?
Pushing ourselves to get better, develop, learn, and progress in various areas of our lives has obvious value. It helps us to succeed and achieve more than we thought possible. It helps us to progress. But many people can’t accomplish it.
If you relate to this struggle, you should know that the reason that you can’t just reinvent yourself is that you don’t truly know yourself. Do you know yourself well enough to truly reinvent yourself for the better? If not, then you are probably trying to change for change’s sake. But that usually does not end up successful.
Take a deep breath and pause for a moment. Before you start reinventing yourself, first get to know yourself better. Below are a few simple steps to help you do this.
Get Outside Your Comfort Zone
The only way to truly know yourself is to get outside your comfort zone. Be okay with stretching and bending farther than you usually do. Be okay with trying something you didn’t think that you would enjoy. If you only stay within the areas that you think are going to give you safisfaction, you significantly limit your learning.
Take each and every opportunity that presents itself to you. You might soon find that you have talent or passion in something that you never knew about, or that you didn’t think was possible for you. This type of discovery is the essence of getting to know yourself. The goal here is not only to achieve a deeper understanding of the already established parts of you, but also to gain a wider and fuller view of yourself.
Be Honest with Yourself
The time when you are getting to know yourself is not the time to put your best forward. Your goal is to learn, not to disguise. You should examine your warts and your blemishes. You should expose all the areas that you usually cover up.
One way to make sure you are being honest with yourself is to check in with your emotional state. Typically, when you are not being fully honest with yourself, you can feel it. You will experience fear, sadness, or anxiety. Or you will experience physical pain somewhere in your body. Your body will tell you if you are not being completely honest with yourself.
Take a Trip
Nothing provides you with the optimal environment for getting to know yourself like travel. Exploring new lands and cultures provides you with opportunities and experiences you would never encounter in your everyday life.
When you travel, you are not obligated to act the way others expect of you. You have the ability to be something other than your ordinary self. In a new environment, you have the freedom to respond and think differently. The goal isn’t to become someone else, it’s to stop being caged into your norms and to learn more about yourself.
Use Personality Tests
Personality tests can be useful tools to help you get to know yourself. These tests can provide insights into tendencies and behavior styles that you possess. Take a few different personality tests to gain a complete picture of your personality type. Some of the more popular tests include the following:
• The Enneagram Institute
• The Myer-Briggs Type Indicator
• The Winslow Personality Profile
• Hexaco Personality Innovatory
After completing a few of these personality tests, review and analyze your results. Do you see any similarities between the tests? Are you surprised by the results? Are there outlier results that don’t seem to fit with the rest? The answers to these questions can give you more insight to who you really are.
Now the Fun Begins
Now that you have gained a better understanding of who you are, the fun can begin. You can step into the world of reinventing yourself. Now your reinvention will not create change for change’s sake. It will create change for improvement’s sake. You now know what you want to keep, what you want to modify, and what you want to change. This is a recipe for success, and it all starts with getting to know yourself.