How to Completely Reinvent Yourself: 6-Step Plan to Change Your Life

Feeling stuck and desperately wanting to change your life? This post has the ultimate six-step process to reinvent yourself (with examples!). 

Your alarm clock sounds and ugh, you don’t want to wake up to another day of doing the same thing. I’ve been there – being in a rut can feel so draining and all you want to do is go back to bed. 

Luckily you’ve come to the perfect place – this post has everything you need to start to reinvent yourself! It’s not easy by all means, to reinvent yourself, but it’s way harder to stay complacent in a life you don’t love. 

So, happy first day of becoming the best version of yourself! Cheers to creating a life you can’t be more excited to wake up to. 

This post is all about how to reinvent yourself completely.

HOW TO REINVENT YOURSELF: A 6-STEP PLAN

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#1. Create a vision of the person you want to be.

The first step to transforming your life is designing a life vision. Your life vision is like a destination on a road trip – without it, how would you know which direction to go? In this step, it’s important to spend some intentional time deciding what you want your life to look like.

Start off by dividing your life into categories. Asking yourself what the ideal state in each category will be a good kicking-off point to designing your dream life. Here are some examples of life categories you can use.

• Physical health
• Mental health
• Relationships
• Career
• Finances
• Personal Development
• Spirituality
• Recreation and Leisure
• Environment

Of course, take what you need from this! These categories will definitely depend on your individual circumstances.

FOR EXAMPLE…

VISION: My ideal self is financially abundant and feels secure. She has lots of savings, investments, and income streams.

#2. Evaluate where you are today.

Rate how close you are to your vision today on a scale of 1-10 for each of your categories. Then, write a few sentences about where you are today. Be very honest with yourself!

FOR EXAMPLE…

CURRENT: (5/10) I am currently okay financially. I have the means to pay all my expenses while saving some each month. Sometimes I overspend and use my savings unnecessarily.

#3. Identify the gaps between where you are today and where you want to be.

Now that you have your vision and your current state, identify where you need to put in some work to reinvent yourself. If you aren’t where you want to be, why is that? What types of things might be holding you back? Can you work on overcoming some of those blockers?

FOR EXAMPLE…

GAPS: I’m not diligent about tracking and budgeting my money. This causes me to overspend in areas I shouldn’t. When I earned raises in the past, I let lifestyle creep set in, so my recurring monthly expenses make me feel constrained. I also only have one current income stream, which is my job. 

#4. Establish goals, actions, and habits for areas you want to reinvent yourself.

From the gaps that you’ve identified, you should focus on creating goals, habits, and systems.

Goals:

Goals are incredible for direction and motivation. They tell you where you want to be. In this exercise, creating specific goals are great for providing more structure and detail to your vision. A great framework for writing goals is SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. SMART goals provide clarity, focus, and trackable progress.

However, it’s important to recognize that becoming the person you want to be isn’t just setting goals to reach a destination. When you reach your vision, you don’t just stop doing the actions it took to get there. Ultimately, to reinvent yourself, you need to change your lifestyle.

HABITS AND SYSTEMS:

With that being said, you’ll need to develop habits and systems in addition to goals. Goals tell you “what” and systems tell you “how.” James Clear dives super deep into this concept in his book Atomic Habits (HIGHLY recommend, literally one of the best reads ever. Click here to find it on Amazon). He argues that building better systems is the best way to make consistent progress toward your objectives. 

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In each life category, set some overarching goals to get you from your current self to your future self.  Write down WHY achieving these goals is important to you. The “why” for any goal is so crucial because it provides the underlying purpose for achieving the goal. A strong “why” will drive you to stay committed to these goals, even when there are obstacles. 

Then, break down these goals into smaller action steps and habits. Action steps are items you only need to do once. Habits are repeated behaviors that will allow you to consistently progress toward your goals. 

FOR EXAMPLE…

Goal #1. Have no credit card debt at the end of each month and at least $2,000 in my checking account at all times.
Why: To ensure I am spending more responsibly and don’t have debt
Action Item: Research how to budget and create a tracker
Habit: Track purchases and expenses once a week

Goal #2. Save up $20,000 in an emergency fund by 2024.
Why: To feel more financially secure and have a safety net
Action Item: Create a recurring deposit of $300 every paycheck into my savings account
Habit: Evaluate the budget every week to see if there is additional money I can save

Goal #3. Create and launch a new side hustle to generate $1,000/mo income
Why: To create an additional income stream that is not dependent on my job
Action Item: Research different types of side hustles and choose the best fit
Habit: Work on the side hustle for at least one hour per day.

#5. Create a schedule and establish systems. 

Okay so now that you have all your goals, actions, and habits in place, decide how you want to start. It can be EXHAUSTING and HARD to try to accomplish everything all at once – especially if there are multiple goals in the different areas of your life. You might have a long list of goals and that’s okay! Realize that becoming your best self will take time and that patience is required. 

Take some time to decide if there are particular areas of your life that you want to prioritize. Are there certain aspects that are super misaligned with your vision? Focus on those first. Are there particular goals you know will make reaching your other goals easier, like getting your health back? Choose those instead! After deciding which ones to start with, create a timeline for when you hope to start working on the remainder of your goals. This can be a general estimate – having a timeline will ensure these goals aren’t forgotten! 

Now, create a schedule for when you’ll complete each action item and habit. Identify specific times you’ll perform each habit and where. By establishing systems, you’ll be able to stay on track and be consistent in meeting your goals. 

#6. Monitor your progress and adjust as needed. 

The final step is to decide how you’ll track your progress. By regularly checking in, you’ll be able to see what’s working and what’s not working. A great way to measure progress is through input and output metrics. 

Output metrics are the measures of the results or outcomes of a process and focus on evaluating the effectiveness of the inputs and process. They help us evaluate the effectiveness of the inputs and make informed decisions about changes we should make. In the plan you’ve developed above, these would be metrics for the goals you’ve outlined. 

Input metrics are the measures of the resources, efforts, or actions you put into a process. These are things we can control – ie. the number of days you work out a week, how much money you save in a month, and who you hang out with.

Once you’ve identified your input and output metrics, you create a way to track them! Define a period of time you’ll be working on a specific goal. How successful are you in meeting your output metric? If you’re unsuccessful, is it because you’re not meeting your input metric? Or do you need to change your input metric?

FOR EXAMPLE…

Goal #1. Have no credit card debt at the end of each month and at least $2,000 in my checking account at all times.
Output metrics: $0 in credit card debt, $2,000 in checking account at all times
Input metrics: Frequency I’m checking my budget

Say after three months of checking my budget once a week, I notice that I still have credit card debt and only $500 in my checking account. I look further into my budget and see that I’m constantly overspending on makeup. Now that I know this, I can say – hey, do I need those purchases? If I don’t, then one of my next focuses is to be more intentional about spending on makeup. I can create a budget allowance for makeup, say, no more than $50 monthly.

By consistently monitoring your progress, you can tweak your inputs as necessary to get to your goals! Maybe even along the way, you’ll realize your output metrics need to be adjusted too.

Congrats on making it all the way through! You’re now ready to hit the ground running. Remember that reinventing yourself is a consistent, ongoing process. This exercise was a powerful way to identify your vision, access where you are today, and create a strong plan to achieve the life you truly desire. You got this – I believe in you!! Don’t forget to be kind to yourself and remember to celebrate all the little wins along the way. 

This post was all about how to reinvent yourself.