The 4-Step Process For Building The Life You Actually Want
Dr. Ava Cadell goes in-depth with a process that makes it possible to reinvent your life for a more authentic "you".
Harry Cooke | Pexels We've all felt stuck at some point in life, wishing we could shed the old versions of ourselves that may have been disappointing. But how can you do that? After all, the past is done and cannot be changed.
While that's true, your instinct to shed the past is correct. You cannot change what has happened in the past, but you shouldn't allow your past circumstances to define your future.
It’s too easy to remain in the place of pain and surrender to a lack of self-worth when we are stuck.
That doesn't mean you should be ashamed of your past. Instead, you can be thankful for your mistakes to learn life lessons. They bring an opportunity to embrace new perspectives and help you reinvent yourself while taking the lessons from the past so you don't have to repeat them in the future.
When is it appropriate to reinvent yourself?
You may find yourself daydreaming about what you’d rather be doing, so your motivation is not based on dissatisfaction but more on curiosity. Whatever the reason is, you can reinvent your life.
A few reasons you may want to reinvent yourself:
- Ending a relationship to heal or start a new one.
- Recovering from illness or injury to improve your well-being.
- Making a career change or thinking of retiring.
- Replacing bad habits with positive ones.
- Losing a loved one to start a life alone.
- Feeling the effects of growing older to adopt a positive new mindset.
- Lacking the inspiration to find your passion.
- Your motivation has gone, and you want a more fulfilling life.
- Stress rules your life and makes you unhappy, so you need to change.
These are all good reasons to start fresh, as long as you aren't doing it out of fear or going into it blindly. Fear of failure is scary, but you can conquer fears when you focus on how to find your path and reinvent your life with purpose.
RELATED: How Your Body, Mind, And Spirit Evolve Every 7 Years
Use the H.E.A.L. method to reinvent your life from a healthy, purpose-driven place
H.E.A.L is an acronym for healing, energy, awareness, and love. With each phase, you will experience life-changing transformations to reinvent your life by healing from your past traumas, activating new positive energy, and attracting true love to become aware of your power and manifest all you desire.
Gratitude is the most crucial step in your journey to reinvent yourself. Being thankful for all you have will open your heart emotionally and heal your soul.
Creating a gratitude list of all you are thankful for will enhance your well-being. One of my favorite exercises is called "Body Gratitude," where you look in a full-length mirror and thank each part of your body for all it enables you to do daily.
Start from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head as you take a moment of gratitude for all that your body does for you, carrying you to visit loved ones and explore new places, enabling you to enjoy nature’s beauty and the ability to engage each of your senses in the miracle of life!
Be sure to include all your organs that you cannot see, such as your heart that beats and pumps blood to other parts of your body, your lungs that give your body oxygen so that you can breathe, and your brain that controls your thoughts, memories, senses, and every process that regulates your body.
Four empowering steps toward reinventing your life
1. Write a gratitude letter to yourself.
This letter is a celebration of everything you have accomplished, big and small. Be as kind to yourself as you are to your loved ones, and include compliments you want to hear from others.
Physical compliments should include how great you look, and emotional compliments should be about how you feel when you’re happy. Mental compliments can be about your productive brain and your beautiful imagination. Appreciative compliments are the most vital part of this letter, as you write down a list of things you appreciate and value about yourself.
Thank yourself for those moments of self-care when you give back to yourself. Every moment of self-care and compassion is an acknowledgment of your value.
2. Shift your focus to what you want & who you want to be.
When positive energy flows and circulates throughout our bodies, it makes us feel happy and healthy, whereas negative energy can make us feel stuck and unhealthy. But you can change your energy because your consciousness and energy are one, so you can transform your energy by using your thoughts.
Consequently, wherever your focus goes, your energy flows. And where your energy flows, your focus grows. That’s why being mindful and focusing on one thing at a time is more powerful than trying to accomplish many things by multi-tasking.
When we say positive affirmations, they empower us and enable us to replace negative energy with positive energy. We can use our energy to manifest anything that we want or need with the help of affirmations. They empower the emotional body, mind, and spirit. For example, if your affirmation is focused on finding true love, your energy will attract that for you, but you must conceive it and believe it to achieve it.
The first law of thermodynamics says, “Energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be changed from one form to another.” Everything is energy. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality.
We can increase our vibrational frequency by walking in nature, meditating, art therapy, listening to music, holding crystals, water therapy, healing foods, pet therapy, yoga, and other healthy activities that make us feel positive.
Write down your affirmations for reinventing yourself, For example:
I have overcome suffering. I am ready to reinvent myself to be happy, healthy, and wealthy.
I am the writer, producer, director, and star of my blockbuster movie.
I will set an intention every day for my guaranteed success personally and professionally.
Affirmations are the ‘secret’ to manifestation!
Shift your mindset to create positive energy, clearing the toxic energy of negative beliefs away.
3. Learn more about what fulfills you.
Do you know what makes you feel like a winner, successful, valued, powerful, happy, healthy, and wealthy? If you said yes, you are ready to reinvent your best version of yourself.
If you are not aware of what makes you feel that way, start by envisioning your future self. Visualize the best version of yourself that includes your ultimate goals because you cannot reinvent yourself without being aware of who you are now and who you want to become.
To help you to become more aware, answer these questions:
How do you visualize reinventing yourself?
Why do you want to reinvent yourself and your life?
What emotions do you want to feel as the new you?
How do you want people to perceive you after you have reinvented yourself?
Fill in the blanks to help describe your mission statement:
I envision a future where I…
My vision is …
My professional vision is…
I envision a life filled with…
One of the benefits of creating a personal mission statement is it gives you clarity for reinvention and the confidence to overcome obstacles in your way.
Photo: Dean Drobot via Shutterstock
What Self-Awareness Is and How to Cultivate It
There are four keys to becoming more aware: mindfulness, self-compassion, reflection, and feedback. Incorporating each one into your reinvention goals will empower you to reach them. Daily mindfulness while you eat, walk, drive, work, and play helps you become more aware of your habits. You can choose whether you want to release them or take them with you on your journey of reinvention.
Practicing self-compassion will give you the feeling of being loved with a sense of security so that you can reinvent yourself not because you are broken but because you want to expand your horizons. Forgive yourself for not being perfect, and forgive others who were cruel towards you so your anger doesn’t turn into resentment, sickness, and pain.
Reflection is necessary to grow and evolve. Looking back at your strengths and weaknesses can help you be more aware of what you do well and what you need to work on to reinvent yourself. For example, your communication skills determine how successful you are at stating your needs and how good you are at listening.
Feedback provides valuable insight into your skills and the outcome of your decisions. Without feedback, you cannot grow or reinvent yourself. Ask for feedback from at least three people you trust. They have your best interest at heart.
4. Develop a practice of appreciating and loving who you are.
Love is the final force you need to reinvent your life, but the biggest challenge is learning to love yourself unconditionally.
Do you treat yourself with the same compassion and kindness as your friends and loved ones? If you don't, you need to make self-care a priority before anything else in your life, especially if you want to reinvent yourself. By nurturing yourself through self-care for your mind, body, and spirit, you can reduce anxiety and stress to create emotional healing and wellness. A well-balanced self-care routine involves mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, and social activities to promote health and happiness.
Wrap your arms around your heart and hug yourself every day when you wake up and at night before you sleep.
Show respect to yourself by setting boundaries and prioritizing your needs, so don’t say “yes” to someone and “No” to yourself.
Reward yourself with gifts, no matter how small, whether it’s an emotional gift, like sleeping in longer than usual, or a tangible gift, like buying your favorite coffee, flowers, or fragrance.
Identify why it’s the right time to reinvent your life.
Unveiling the transformations
Your reinvention should result in greater personal and professional fulfillment, as it has done for me, and I’ve reinvented myself several times. Since coming to America as an Actress, my first job was in the theatre, then TV shows and movies, then I decided to go back to university to earn a Doctorate in Human Behavior and Sexuality to open a private practice. I realized I enjoyed helping people overcome shame and guilt much better than acting.
I wrote eight books, created an online university at Loveuniv.com, and was a global speaker. Then COVID hit, and I wanted to reinvent my life with an emphasis on healing, so I created a self-healing course, a certified program for healing professionals, and found a 45-acre spiritual retreat that I bought. This all came to fruition when I least expected it.
Many successful people have reinvented themselves, such as classical piano player and singer Lady Gaga with her mezzo-soprano voice, who reinvented herself as a superstar pop artist and actress by changing her appearance, environment, and career but still stayed true to herself.
Elton John is another example of reinventing himself by playing classical piano at London’s Royal Academy of Music and singing in the Academy choir. Now, he is known as Sir Elton John, one of pop music’s greatest singers and composers with a wonderful family life.
Arnold Schwarzenegger reinvented himself three times, each one more successful than the other. He was an immigrant from Austria and pursued his dream of coming to America to become the world’s greatest bodybuilder. After that, he reinvented himself as the highest-paid movie star in Hollywood. If that wasn’t enough, he reinvented himself as the Governor of California.
Arnold Schwarzenegger claims his mindset created all the success in his life. He visualized what he dreamed of and made it happen, “I’ve learned that your mind is your most powerful tool in manifesting the life you want.”
The first secret to reinventing yourself is to heal from your past suffering so that you don’t carry emotional baggage with you. You need to leave the painful past behind if you want to reinvent yourself and your life for a bright future that is waiting for you.
Self-love through forgiveness leads to a life filled with unconditional love, both giving and receiving.
Find forgiveness for whatever you didn't get enough of as a child, whether it was a lack of love, affection, attention, or recognition. We all missed out on something, but whoever denied you your needs in the past can be forgiven and released to make more room for the love you deserve in your life. When we forgive someone who has hurt us, we heal ourselves within. Whatever happened to you that was unkind, painful, abusive, or traumatic can be healed because your mind is the most powerful tool you have for healing, and you are the medicine.
An exercise for forgiving others is to list everyone who hurt you and visualize them so small that they fit in the palm of your hand. And say, “I forgive you for intentionally or unintentionally hurting me.” Then, use your breath to blow them out of your hand into the Universe.
We must forgive ourselves because we will continue to make mistakes, so accept that our mistakes are part of life's lessons, and without mistakes, there can be no forgiveness, and without forgiveness, there can be no self-love. Forgiving is a very bold act of love and a show of confidence in yourself.
Replaying your pain over and over in your mind makes you feel worse, so press your stop button in your head and replace your negative self-talk with compliments of what makes you unique and loveable.
Studies have found that the act of forgiveness can reap huge rewards for your health, lowering the risk of heart attack, improving cholesterol levels and sleep, and reducing pain, blood pressure, and stress.
Dr. Ava Cadell is an author, clinical sexologist, sex counselor, and founder of Loveology University. Her mission is to empower people to overcome sexual guilt and shame so they can enjoy the benefits of healthy relationships. She is a featured expert in the YourTango Healers & Helpers Summit launching February 14, 2024. Registration is open now!