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Advice

Six Quick and Easy Ways to Reinvent Yourself

Posted December 10, 2008

We lied. There aren’t any quick and easy ways to reinvent yourself.

But even though it’s hard, and you don’t really want to leave your comfort zone, and when it comes right down to it, you like the way things used to be just fine — there’s a lot to be said about tackling this task of self-reinvention. Our “new” new economy demands it, after all.

It stinks, but that’s the way it is. If you’ve lost your job in an industry in which businesses are failing and plenty of other people are out of work too, and there are no (count ‘em, no) hopeful signs on the horizon, only the lemmings keep trying to recreate the past.

So, rephrasing our headline in the interest of reality, The Whiner would like to recommend six difficult but desirable strategies that truly will make a difference in your life.

1. Buy into it. The Whiner has done a good bit of self-reinvention along the way and if there’s one point we’ve learned, it’s this: If you’re not emotionally and intellectually committed to profound change, it’s not going to happen. (This doesn’t mean you have to love every second of it. Or even that you have to pretend you’re making big changes because you want to make them. But you do need to be throw yourself into the process and believe that the end will be worth getting to.)

2. Pretending is okay, especially at the start. Maybe you’ll need to tell yourself – or friends and family — that you feel good about trying to embark upon a whole new thing (whatever that new thing is), long before you really feel that way. Acting upbeat can help. You might feel as though you’re trying to brainwash yourself. But the upside of upbeat is this: You’ll be more likely to be open to experiences and emotions that will reinforce the positive.

3. Tap into your “community” for support, not sympathy. This is a hard one because support and sympathy can sometimes feel very similar. But when you’re out there, knocking around, trying to figure out what the hell might be the right next move for you and making your fair share of wrong moves along the way — it can only weaken you if loved ones tell you how sorry they are that you just can’t keep making widgets whatever way you used to make them in the past. (In a way, this is a corollary to strategy #1. Your friends and relatives need to buy into the big change too.)

4. Open yourself to the possibilities. We’re sorry. Sometimes The Whiner can’t help but to sound somewhat nauseatingly touchy-feely. The problem is, being open is what this is all about. You have to force your brain to start imagining new life stories for yourself — new ways to spend your work day, new skills to learn, new kinds of people to collaborate with, and maybe even a new and different financial path from the one you used to count on. Daydreaming can help. So can drawing up all kinds of elaborate checklists of your skills, your hobbies, your childhood fantasies, and your favorite moment from every job you’ve ever had.

5. Don’t be afraid to be afraid. It’s only natural to feel as though you’re taking one step off a cliff. (In fact, what you’re doing is putting your foot on a ladder going somewhere you can’t quite see yet. That’s frightening too, but it’s also secure in a way that you’ll slowly come to appreciate. After all, the really frightening thing would be trying to stay put in a world that’s changing as rapidly as this one is.)

At any particular point in this process, you might find yourself scared out of your wits about the unknown, your financial future, or — this is the worst of all — the possibility that you’re just not talented enough or flexible enough or young enough or old enough or good enough to reinvent yourself. Learn to live with fear and ignore it.

6. Slowly, very slowly, start reining yourself back into reality. Whiner-in-Chief has two self-reinvention fantasies that probably are never going to happen — running a restaurant (costs too much money) and owning a knitting store (makes too little money). But as you know from “About The Whiner,” the last time we went through this process, we ended up right here at EconoWhiner. Where we were always meant to be — we just didn’t know it for awhile.

The Whiner wants to know: Have you ever reinvented yourself, and if so, how? What was the hardest part of the process? The best part?

Reader Comments

  1. Lainie

    In my year-plus of unemployment (in which I have had freelance work, which I’m grateful for), my family has been the worst. Their version of “support” is pity, and they talk to anyone who will listen about their poor sister/daughter that they’re so very worried about, and make me sound like I’m some kind of total loser or mental invalid. I’ve asked them to stop and got nothing but condescension — “we’re just so worried and we’re trying to help you.” So now we’re not speaking. Happy holidays! But I have no doubt that I cannot reinvent myself successfully in that emotional context.
    And thank you for this post – because yes, I’m pretty scared that I’m all of the above, not talented, young, or good enough.

  2. CMP

    Whiner, Whiner, Whiner. What can I say about how you always pick the right topics to discuss? You are the best. And I always look forward to you photo choices too. This one is so perfect!

    I have reinvented myself so many times in my life that it is more of a habit than not at this point. I was a military brat, moving around a lot, so the urge to see the world was with me from an early age. When you move around a lot, you have to find a way to meet the local culture halfway, and you have to find work in whatever fields the local community offers.

    I’ve done everything from cooking to running a printing press to working in bookstores to editing and research to running my own handy-woman business — when no one would hire me to do something I knew how to do, I would pick something I wanted to learn about and try to get a job in that field. While it hasn’t put too many bills in my pocket, it has kept my life beyond interesting.

    Sometimes we are forced into reinvention, as you pointed out. My first husband bailed on our marriage just months after he had convinced me to move to L.A. where I knew no one but his family. I was even working for his brother, so a really drastic change was needed. After some really scary decisions (like spending the last of the money I had on a train ticket back east), and prevailing upon the magnanimous nature of friends (one of whom saved my life by opening her home to me until I could get on my feet), I found myself living a whole new life in a new place with a whole new (and much better) husband and a new job that led into the best job I’ve ever had.

    Yes, there were truly terrifying moments but if the worst hadn’t happened, I don’t think the best would have happened either. You never know where life will lead you.

  3. Nano

    Sometimes you have to open a door to see what is on the other side.

  4. amy

    “Reinventing yourself” — no, I don’t think it’s possible. But figuring out what you need to do to stay alive and keep your family in shoes, that’s something else. Finding new work if necessary, that’s not such a big deal. Unless you don’t know who you are and you’re defining yourself by your current position.

    I would argue strenuously against pretending and slow approaches to reality. The faster you figure out what “ground under your feet” feels like, and the sharper your sense of reality, the less time & energy you’ll waste and the less expensive the whole process will be.

    I would suggest putting out as many lines as you can realistically sustain, dumping them as soon as you have a sense that they’re not winners, and being willing to let go of the others as soon as you have a good winner on your hands.

    I have a friend whose law firm went bust not long ago, and after 7 years she found herself out on her ass without severance, without vacay. However, you would not want to get inbetween this lady, who’s not young anymore, and her ability to pay the rent. She had a new job at a good salary two weeks later, while other people were drifting around bumping into the walls and talking about what good people they were and how unfair everything was. Is this job what she wanted to be doing, no, but she’s dead realistic about things like rent. She’ll make her move when it’s time.

  5. tfitz

    Interesting topic and article. “Reinivention” is a uniquely American concept, I believe, kind of like the Phoenix rising from the ashes.

    The ‘ease’ of the last twenty years and our ‘high standard of living’ though the safety net has collapses, as Americans we still have no universal health care, no pensions to speak of, and downward spiraling wages. The latest statistics from the OECD, state that the United States has the highest income inequality in the world, with the exception of Turkey and Mexico.

    It’s time to debunk the myths. We will not necessarily have to live with lowered expectations, but we will need get back to basics, and taking the time, off of our cellphones, away from google, to assess what matters, and then go out and try and craft it.

    It about ‘transformation’ after all, but for that to happen, you have to put in the effort, slogging through, and you may see results.

  6. amy

    Jill, it does occur to me that in your drive to maintain a bloggy presence, here, you’re not only being disingenuous but doing a real disservice to people in serious trouble, people who are genuinely poor or close to it. I also get a strong sense that you’re here merely to stir the pot and see what kind of quotes you can generate for future use, maybe another book. And if that’s the case, I doubt very much that you have any intention of either compensating posters who hand you material or connecting them with jobs.

    You’re an unusually well-connected woman accustomed to having a hubby who brings home the bacon; you were well-off enough that you could leave your day job and let him support you and your children in NYC and Montauk. I would guess that you were expensively educated and that your kids ain’t going to state schools either, unless it’s NYU for film or sociology. The advice you’re handing out is suitable for rich kids only. They’re the ones who can afford to psychoanalyze themselves through a recession, spend months maundering and “reinventing” themselves, and letting their friends spot them some proscuitto, and shamefacedly calling Dad for a little five-digit loan.

    This advice is actively dangerous for people who must find work _today_. Who must find two or three jobs today, and neglect their kids for a little while in order to avoid falling into genuine poverty. I don’t believe you know or understand what that means, even though you seem to have spent plenty of time writing about it. You just haven’t lived it, as far as I can make out. You may not recognize it, but you’ve got a lot in common with that first Bush — you know, the one who’d never seen a supermarket scanner, and who urged overweight Americans to do like him and get their own Stairmasters.

    I would urge those who are not hubby-supported, or friends with CEOs, Bloomberg editors, and well-connected alumnae, and who don’t have summer homes, to seek advice elsewhere — or to quit reading this blog altogether and get on the stick. This lady’s advice may feel good, but it’ll do you in.

  7. AlphaWhiner

    Amy, you are way, way out of line here. I have known Whiner for many, many years and she has done more than her share of bringing home the bacon. Whiner is one of the hardest-working, most finance-savvy people I know and yes, she is very good at stirring the pot but that’s what bloggers do. Your personal attack is ignorant, inappropriate and, honestly, somewhat mystifying. Maybe you should be the first to quit the reading (and commenting on) the blog. Many of us would be eternally grateful.

  8. Ed

    amy, it occurs to me that perhaps you should have your own blog so we could enjoy NOT going to it in order to be spared your ridiculous aspersions. I for one would not want to take financial advice from Whiner if she weren’t some sort of proven success. And yet you see that as a bad thing. So according to your reasoning, we’d be better served by Whiner if she were a bag lady?

  9. Justthefacts

    In the end, Amy, you’re just a bore.

    Let’s get back to the more important questions brought up by Whiner’s great post. I’ve been feeling very constrained by current employment situation for some time now–there’s no space for in-house advancement, I’m stuck doing mostly mundane administrative tasks when I’d rather be developing my professional skills and experience, and I feel like there’s little room for much intellectual growth. I’ve also recently learned that because of the ongoing economic crisis, the institution where I work is experiencing a significant financial shortfall, which may lead to staffing cuts in the coming months. I know the job market is terrible right now, but I feel like now might the time to start trying to “reinvent” myself, which I’ve been dying to do even before I learned that the ax might fall any day now.

    Is anybody else feeling this way now? Should I be battening down the hatches and waiting until the economy improves before trying any serious reinvention; or is now the time for drastic action?

  10. famblymatters

    People can and often do reinvent themselves. My brother has gone through several unexpected career changes in the last 5 years and, thank god, found himself (just under the wire) in a job that shows no signs of succumbing to this crap economy.

    Personally I’ve been ignoring Amy’s comments for a week now. The more we talk about her (dammit, I just did!) the longer she hangs around stinking up the place.

  11. silvia_b

    I am “scared out of my wits” that I’m going to get fired. I’m in a very narrow field and the openings dont come around too oftem. I’ve thought for years about going into dealing, with my knowledge of antiques, so maybe I should form a backup plan in case things go screwy.

    **CONFIDENTIAL TO “AMY”** You’re not helping anyone, since your comments all start off with an attack, the rest is completely disregarded. Thanks for making it easy.

  12. AlphaWhiner

    Amy, you seem to be making a devastatingly faulty assumption here — namely that if a woman happens to be married, she automatically has a “serious safety net” and can go about working here and there as she pleases, gazing at her navel, and eating bonbons. If she enjoys what appears to be a relatively comfortable life, it must be because her husband is bankrolling it. Corollary: only struggling single moms have the right to dole out financial advice because they have suffered infinitely more than the rest of us. As someone who has at least half a dozen female, married friends who are the primary breadwinners for their families, I’m utterly offended by this sexist perspective. And no, they aren’t all professionals.

    Justthefacts, my advice to you is that if you can hang on to your job while dipping your toes into reinvention waters, you should do so. I don’t know what you have in mind, but I can tell you that plenty of the entrepreneurs I write about planned and started their businesses while they were still employed. Now is the time for action, but maybe not “drastic” action. If you’re thinking of changing industries, seek out contacts and ask for informational interviews; expand your network as broadly as you can; re-write your resume so that the focus is skills, not job descriptions. Lay the groundwork while you’re still getting a paycheck; don’t wait until the ax falls.

  13. amy

    I will note, JTF and FM, that nowhere in my comments do I resort to namecalling. I’ll thank you for refraining and keeping things civil.

    JTF, I would also worry less about reinvention than about getting out of there. No point sitting on the railroad tracks. The priority list goes like this:

    1. Get new job that pays enough money
    2. Start thinking about what you really want to do, and make a plan
    3. Execute plan

    You might get lucky and jump from this job into the perfect new career, but the better your plan, the less likely your career will end up driven by other people’s exigencies, because you’ll have a clearer idea of what you want.

    Taking action on what work you want to do should not have much to do with the economy. Even in terrible times there are jobs and opportunities.

  14. Kubiak

    Justthefacts, if I were you, I’d hold on for a while. You say your company is having financial difficulties–who knows how things will shake out for you if you make it through the staffing cuts. And besides I’ve been in your shoes before. I worked a series of dead end jobs for the first ten years after I graduated college with a degree in communications. What I found was that so long as I kept up some interesting freelance work, or side projects, I could make it through the drudgery of an office job that was going nowhere. And that was good for me–one of my regular freelance gigs was as a graphic designer for a small alternative music label. I hung around doing work for them for a while, until they began to get big and could offer me a regular salary. I bolted as soon as I could and haven’t looked back since–but thanks to all those years of boring office jobs, when I was pulling down a regular pay check that allowed me the time to explore other interests, I ended up somewhere I really wanted to be.

    Guess I kinda reinvented myself, as EconoWhiner calls it.

  15. Diane

    Whiner, this is a great post. Nowhere here do I see you recommending anything IN PLACE of a job, or only for the unemployed. These are strategies for any time in life, and they don’t necessarily include or exclude or preclude or postclude any particular circumstance. I for one think that they are great. It’s actually very invigorating to think about looking positively in a new direction, even if you’re unsure exactly what you are up to. This is where inspiration comes from. Get new eyeballs. Borrow an attitude if you have to, but look in a new direction. Thanks for your post. It’s great.

  16. AlphaWhiner

    amy,

    When your know-it-all comments begin to venture away from the issues being discussed on the blog to the personal details of lives you know very little about, it really does make you sound like a creepy stalker.

  17. Sadie

    First time commenting on a post, altho I’ve been visiting the site for a while now. Want to say – thank you for pieces like this. I appreciate the combination of good humor, savvy tips, and emotional support, which is really important during a time like this. You’re especially right about being frightened. It’s always scary to try to something really new and different. But that doesn’t mean it’s the wrong thing to do.

  18. Ana

    Whiner, thank you for some good ideas. Lainie, I didn’t want to lose sight of your comment – it’s really hard when your family members are undermining you, even when they “think” they’re “helping” you. Good luck with everything. (Also, good luck to you, JustTheFacts. I’m rooting for you.)

  19. PoorMe

    AlphaWhiner, that’s a really interesting point about entrepreneurs doing one thing while they’re also experimenting with something new. I’d be curious to know if you see any patterns when people do that — certain kinds of companies or men vs. women.
    I’ve noticed your comments on other EconoWhiner posts and always find them interesting. Thanks for your input.

  20. Phil

    An obvious point: Reinventing yourself is a good thing to think about at any time, during any kind of economic conditions. It might be hard to do. And it might be frightening to some people. But my own life experience has told me it’s invaluable.

  21. AlphaWhiner

    PoorMe,

    I do see some patterns. I see lots of 20-somethings in boring jobs with time on their hands to experiment with their own ideas on the company’s clock. They’ll typically buddy up with another bored employee and talk about striking out on their own. Secondly, I’ve spoken to tons of entrepreneurs who start companies because the company they work for approaches a particular process or market in a way that seems inefficient or just completely boneheaded. The response is “I could do this better.” I think this happens in all kinds of companies but is probably more prevalent in service-based firms that don’t require huge start up capital investment.
    True entrepreneurship is really about the passionate desire to do something new and different. Honestly, if you’re merely thinking of starting a company that looks exactly like the one you’re working for, save yourself the trouble. I think entrepreneurship is a lot like journalism in that you had better love it obsessively. Otherwise, it’s just too damn hard!

  22. Joy

    Whoa, Amy! Just because NYU has the name of a state in its name doesn’t mean it’s a public university or cheap. The state university system schools are SUNY, State University of New York at Whatever.

    And now that I think about it, no universities are cheap these days. Once upon a time, City College of New York had free tuition, as did the whole California state system.