On Re-Creating Yourself
“The character you seem to have been born with is not necessarily who you are; beyond the characteristics you have inherited, your parents, your friends, and your peers have helped to shape your personality... Remake yourself into a character of power. Working on yourself like clay should be one of your greatest and most pleasurable life tasks. It makes you in essence an artist — an artist creating yourself.”
Introduction
Those who me as I approach 40 would agree that I am a much different person than I was at 30.
I believe I have changed for the better, but others can have their opinions.
I have changed physically, mentally, and emotionally. I have better health and more energy now. As I have learned new things and exposed myself to different ways of thinking, I’ve dropped parts of my identity and picked up others. As I have changed, I have become less judgmental and more accepting of how others choose to be.
I did not set out to re-create myself.
I just started changing. It was a slow building process, one stone at a time. And it continues to this day. I plan on being different at 45 and again at 50.
One of the most frequent questions I see on the Quora boards is some form of:
“My life is a mess. Is it too late to change at 20/30/40?”
No. Not at all.
Re-creating yourself is a matter of applying a growth mindset to a set of habits that embody who you want to be.
“I didn’t reach my athletic peak until I was 43. I didn’t write my first book until I was 44. I didn’t start my podcast until I was 45. At 30, I thought my life was over. At 52 I know it’s just beginning. Keep running. Never give up. And watch your kite soar.”
Why You Should Re-create Yourself
“Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough.”
For some reason, in our culture, people tend to stop growing and maturing at a certain age. It usually is around college years and seems to coincide with the time we might stop growing physically. It is a shame, because the idea that you should set your course for the rest of your life based on what little you know by age 20 is absurd.
As we enter our 20s and 30s, our experiences change dramatically. We have more money in our pockets which changes how we live; we meet new people as we go into our careers; we take better trips; we (you) marry and have kids. All of these new experiences should impact your personality and affect your identity. You should not try to continue to adhere to the personal characteristics you had at 20.
One challenge that holds grips people into their current identity is fearing what others around them think.
Social and familial pressure to not change and to be consistent is real. People don’t respond well when someone around them starts improving themself. They will poke at you, mock you, and call you a poser.
But if you stick with it, it becomes who you are. You are not trying to be something different any longer. This is the new you. It is interesting to watch how some people more quickly accept your changes than others and can serve as a sort of mirror to their own challenges and insecurities.
But the opinions of others are a lousy reason to stop trying to grow. You should strive to become better, and influence those around you to do the same.
Growth vs Fixed Mindset
Before embarking on a radical change, you must understand what’s holding you back.
Many people suffer from a fixed mindset. They see themselves as “I am what I am”. I can do this and I can’t do that. I’ve never been good at running so I don’t like to run. I can’t focus so I don’t like to read.
A growth mindset sees things differently. They say “I can’t do that, yet.” A growth mindset approaches areas of unfamiliarity as a puzzle that can be solved.
“You try something, it doesn’t work, and maybe people even criticize you. In a fixed mindset, you say, ‘I tried this, it’s over.’ In a growth mindset, you look for what you’ve learned”
While some people are genetically advantaged over others in some areas, you can learn to do anything better than you do it now. You likely can not be an NBA basketball player. But if it were your dream to be a great player, you can start practicing and playing basketball 2-3 hours a day. I expect that you would become pretty damn good if you stuck with it.
Adopting this simple change in mindset will change how you look at your life.
Obstacles do not block you, they intrigue you. You see something you want to learn and you go after it. Understanding that you will be embarrassingly bad at first is part of the process. But because you understand the long game, this doesn’t bother you. You look forward to the journey.
Habits – Who do you want to be?
James Clear’s Atomic Habits is a must-read for understanding the power of habits, how to form them, how to break bad ones, and for understanding the compounding effect of trying to grow 1 percent better each day.
We are our habits. If we eat poorly, we have bad health. If we overthink and worry about trivial things, we become neurotic and high-strung. If we sit down and work on all of our blogs for 30 minutes each day, we will become the terrific bloggers we all dream to be.
If you want to re-create yourself, develop the habits of the type of person you want to be.
Is physical health your goal? Prioritize nutrition and exercise.
Do you want to be smarter? Read every day.
Do you want to be wealthy? Develop smarter spending, saving, and investing habits.
Let me show you my example.
I want to be physically and mentally fit, and I want to use my blog to become a writer or creator. To support these goals, I have daily habits that lead to them. Because these are my top priorities in life right now, they are attended to first thing in the day.
My morning routine is:
Stretch for mental and physical fitness.
Meditate for 30 minutes for mental fitness.
Read for 30 minutes for mental fitness.
Eat a healthy breakfast for physical fitness.
Lift weights, run, or do yoga for physical fitness.
Take a cold shower for mental fitness.
Do 30 minutes of personal writing to develop my writing.
Then I begin my work day.
These habits did not start that way. And they did not start all at once, as trying to change too many things at the same time is a recipe for failure and frustration.
I started years ago with better eating habits. Then I added a physical exercise habit. Then I added a meditation habit. Then I added a reading habit. In the last year, I added the cold shower and personal writing habits. I also increased the time spent on some of these as they became a bigger priority for me. And correspondingly, I am much further along on my physical and mental journeys than I am on my personal writing one. But I also am confident that if I stick with it, I’ll continue to improve.
I also have other habits I try to get to later in the day, like journaling, studying Portuguese, and taking online learning courses. Predictably, because I don’t prioritize them early in the day, they are the ones where I am most inconsistent. But that’s a factor of prioritization – at this point in my life, my career comes before those tasks. It does not come before my physical and mental health.
My habits also will not stay this way. Depending on how I shift my goals, I will add or drop habits to support them.
“On average, it takes more than 2 months before a new behavior becomes automatic — 66 days to be exact. And how long it takes a new habit to form can vary widely depending on the behavior, the person, and the circumstances. In Lally’s study, it took anywhere from 18 days to 254 days for people to form a new habit.”
Once you have learned the process of habit formation and seen the power of small incremental improvements, you will have the confidence to take on new challenges and grow in other ways. You will look at goals and challenges not as insurmountable, but as achievements you have not gotten to yet.
Conclusion
If you are not happy with the person you are, you can start changing that one step at a time. Even if you are happy, you can improve. Our development does not end when our bodies stop growing.
You not only can re-create yourself, you should.
“The only thing there is to get from life is the growth that comes with it. Life itself is your career.”