There are times when the environment that we operate in changes so significantly that it requires us to reinvent ourselves (as individuals, leaders and teams). There could also be situations that we end up in which requires us to rethink and reinvent ourselves if we are to remain relevant in the new environment. I currently find myself in one such cross-road where I need to reinvent myself if I want to remain relevant, which I very much want to.
This led me to start thinking about what it takes to “Reinvent oneself” and here are my thoughts on this and by definition, is what I am planning to do to reinvent myself.
Identify a core limiting belief:
The reason why we want to reinvent ourselves is because we think there is a core limiting belief which is stopping us from being relevant in the new environment. So, the first step is always to identify what this core limiting belief is. As we all might know cognitively that belief’s lead to thoughts, which leads to behaviours, which when repeated leads to habits, which then leads to our character. So, if we want to fundamentally change ourselves, it is logical to start with our limiting belief.
But, how do we identify these limiting beliefs? Here are a few ways that I explored to find my limiting beliefs:
Over a period of time, I consciously listened to my self-talk, specially, in the situations where I feel that I am losing relevance. I also listened to the feedback or complaints about my behaviour or habits in that situation. When the feedback was not forthcoming, I asked for the same. I used my imagination, intuition and logic to arrive at the limiting belief. I also used free flow journaling over a period of time to try and figure out the limiting belief. After having done all of this, I saw that there was one particular limiting belief that came up multiple times. I decided that is the belief that I wanted to change.
Flip the limiting belief or an Enabling Belief:
Now that I had identified my limiting belief, the next step is to flip it 180 degrees. That or come up with a new core belief that would supersede the limiting belief. This is an enabling belief.
One of the things that I have learnt over time is that belief’s are like energy – you can not create it, only transform one form to another. Similarly, you can take a belief and replace it with something else. You can not just stop believing in something.
Armed with this info, I decided to do both – flip my current core limiting belief 180 degrees and add to it a new belief that would complement the flip that I made with my core limiting belief.
Create scaffolding for this Enabling belief:
Once this is done, we need to create scaffolding to help this belief stay relevant and believable for us. This scaffolding can come in the form of affirmations that we tell ourselves, can come in the form of vision boards which we can look at.
This can also come from creating social commitments that we make and request others to hold us accountable to. This can come from changing our physical environments in such ways that they support our effort to imprint this new belief as one of our core beliefs.
Create new routines & reinforce the Enabling belief:
Simply believing something to be true doesn’t change anything unless we are able to prove to ourselves and others that we are acting as though the belief is true. In this case, the old adage of acting as though something is true until it becomes the truth or fake it until you make it is super helpful.
The new belief will not be true until it becomes true. This is when we need to understand the concept of Useful Belief’s. We trust and believe the new belief as useful but not necessarily true, until it becomes true. Our mind works in mysterious ways. We can believe anything as long as we agree that it is useful for us.
While we do this, we also need to find as many opportunities to act in ways that proves that we now believe in the new belief. Again and again. Until this behaviour becomes a habit.
Celebrations the Enabling Belief:
In order for us to imprint and allow the new belief to become your new core belief, we need to reinforce it by rewarding every time we behave as if the belief was true.
So, every time we do what the new belief says the we would behave, we need to reward the same, either through physical rewards (ice creams, chocolates or anything that brings us happiness) or emotionally (a hug, a big smile, a personal high five with someone or a congratulatory self talk with ourselves).
This helps make this behaviour (and the associated beliefs) become part of our personality or character and finally part of our identity. We have achieved the goal when this new belief becomes part of our identity.
In conclusion:
In conclusion, I can say with complete certainty and conviction that this is not an easy thing to do. There are mis-steps possible at every stage. The tendency to revert back to the old belief is very strong. The power that it exerts over us is not insignificant.
So, it is important for us to not take this lightly. We need to be vigilant about this. We need to be intentional about it. If our conviction about the importance of this change in our belief is not absolute, the chances are that we will fail in reinventing ourselves. I am at the 2nd stage of this process (I know what core belief I want to change and what to change it to).
I believe with full conviction that everyone of us and our teams are always at a cross-roads where reinvention would be the best step forward but we never go in that direction because of fear of failure or knowing the difficulty of the reinvention process.
Significant success requires us to take this courageous step forward. So, let me ask you this – where are you in the reinvention process?
