How many of us don’t dare take that training job, or do a workshop on evaluation, or draft a proposal, or draw up a program budget because we know we won’t do it perfectly and don’t want anyone to see us performing at less than a perfect level? Or is it just me? Remember the saying, “Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best” by Henry Van Dyke?

As well, anxiety, stress, and/or depression are immobilizing and the cycling is relentless: you have done nothing so you feel depressed, stressed or anxious, which makes you more depressed, stressed, or anxious, which freezes you completely.

Two other quick points that might explain people’s reluctance to reinvent themselves. First, reinvention requires calculated risk taking and making trade-offs (Griffiths, 2001): giving up one desired value for another. Second, successful reinvention requires self-awareness or self-knowledge (Helfand, 1995). Some typical trade-offs made during reinvention are nonmonetary, such as identity issues, others’ expectations/disappointments, and self-esteem. Others are clearly financial, such as salary, insurance, and other benefits. Having created and studied the tradeoff list, try working through this “To Do” list (Helfand, 1995) before making a reinvention decision:

1. Identify your significant life experiences
2. Create a list of transferable/functional skills
3. Categorize transferable/function skills into clusters
4. Identify your specific content/special knowledge
5. Prioritize them according to what you’d like to see involved in your next career
6. Identify issues about which you are passionate
7. List products/program/services/causes you might like to work with or help create
8. Identify your life values
9. Identify your work values
10. Assess your adaptive/self-management skills – personal traits and qualities reflecting how you adapt to and survive in your environment as well as the style in which you use your other skills to accomplish what you set out to do
11. Bring together 3, 5, and 10
12. Decide what new skills you need/want to learn
13. Convert perceived negatives into positives
14. Plan for dealing with personal and professional limitations

As Harvard professor Herminia Ibarra’s studies (2003) have shown, reinvention unfolds through phases. Understanding and anticipating these phases can help pave the rough path though there will always be bumps before you get on your way, along the way, and after you think you’ve “arrived.” The four steps, as shown in Appendix B below are: exploring who you are and who you have the potential to be; testing your possible selves the older ones and the new ones; finding and building congruence between who we think we are and what we do; revising our priorities, assumptions, and self-conceptions as we learn from our experiences.

Conclusion: Tips for Successful Reinvention
This article on reinvention has not been about how to win friends and influence people at work by reinventing yourself so that you “belong” or fit in to every situation in which you find yourself or so that you can accommodate every single person you meet at the cost of your own identity ― not to mention your mental, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, social, and physical health. We are not talking about day to day interactions and group dynamics ― though someone probably has and we could all benefit from reading about it!
What we have discussed here is the benefit of assuming a “poised to plunge” stance (Goldman, 2007; Harkness, 1997; Ibarra, 2003) in which you are constantly on the alert and ready to anticipate or react resourcefully. Being able to reinvent yourself is key to realizing your full potential, which I hope is at least part of the reason why we work.