Alessandra's Angle
Alessandra's Angle
The Art of Reinventing Ourselves
Ask yourself:
- Are you feeling like you're not doing what you really want with your life?
- Do you wish you could pursue a dream you've held in your heart for years?
- Does your personal brand need a refresh?
- Have you thought about turning a passion into a profession?
If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you'll be happy to know that you can do all of these things. The art of reinvention isn't a "new age-y" concept. It's a reality, and the best part about it is that you are in total control of the process. As James Altucher once said, “Every day, you reinvent yourself. You’re always in motion. But you decide every day: forward or backward.”
Are you ready to move forward? Join me for this episode where I'll provide practical tips and insight into how you can create your new reality.
Alessandra Cavalluzzi: 0:00
Hello and welcome to the inaugural episode of Alessandra's Angle. I'm so happy that you're able to be here with me today for the first show, and one of many that I hope to broadcast here for you. The topic of today's episode is reinventing ourselves. I love this topic and the reason why is it's one that I feel can apply to just about anyone because we're always feeling the need to change things up from time to time; and, reinventing ourselves can mean so many different things. It could be changing your image. It could be going down a new career path. It could be maybe starting your own business. Maybe you work for someone now and you feel that you are ready to strike out on your own. It could be pursuing a passion that you have and turning that into a profession. Whatever the case may be, whatever your definition of reinvention is, the first thing I want you to keep in mind is that you have total control of this process.
Alessandra Cavalluzzi: 2:02
It's never too late, as I say in my opening, to change the path that we're on. It is never too late to rewrite your story. If there's a different direction that you feel you're being drawn to because you feel your purpose in life isn't being fulfilled in your current situation whether that's a work situation, a personal situation, your passions that you're pursuing -- you have the power to change direction at any time. I don't ever want you to forget that. What we're going to talk about in this episode are some tips and ideas for how you can take the idea of reinventing yourself, or the dream you have in your heart that you want to pursue, from an aspiration that's sort of looming out there on the horizon just out of reach to a reality. I will be throughout this process, throughout this episode, and in the upcoming episodes using myself from time to time as an example on how to illustrate these tips and ideas. There will also be occasions when we have guests on the show that will be doing the same. I feel that this is important because what I want to provide to you, my listeners, is a tangible example - real life examples - that you can draw from and that you can keep as a reference for when you're going through the situation. It will help really underscore the points and the tips that I give you here in this in this podcast.
Alessandra Cavalluzzi: 3:43
So let's start off with the idea of reinvention. Several years ago, I went through a reinvention of myself. I always had it in my heart to be a published author. That was a dream I had. I wanted to do it since I was a young girl. I love books, and I always had a dream of publishing my own one day. So around 2014-ish I said, "I think it's time to pursue this dream". I love to write. I had a subject that I always wanted to put out into the world to share a message about, and I felt "now is the time to do it". The first thing that I did, which is tip number one that I give to you: I had a very honest conversation with myself about what the reason was, personally, that I wanted to pursue this sort of reinvention. Why did I want to write this book and become a published author? The next thing was did I have the expertise in order to do it? Because my book is a non-fiction book I asked myself "do I have the subject matter expertise in order to write this book?" Did I know enough about it where I could speak about it confidently?Because with writing and publishing a book comes speaking as well. Did I feel confident in my ability to speak on this topic, and did I have the skills and abilities to actually write this manuscript? So those are some examples of some personal questions, some soul searching type of questions, that you'll need to ask yourself. What is the reason for going down this path? Is it something that you have the skills and abilities and the knowledge to be able to pursue? If not, can you acquire those skills and abilities? What will be required in order to be successful in this endeavor and are there other resources that you'll need? Are there financial resources involved? Is there time that you'll need to set aside that you can set aside? What are other responsibilities that you have that might get in the way? Ask yourself those questions because being honest in those answers is going to be the difference between whether you succeed or whether you struggle. So for me, once I sat down and asked myself those questions I said, "OK, I have the knowledge and the expertise because I've done this. This is part of my career. This is what I've been doing for the last 20 years. I have this experience and this knowledge behind me to where I can confidently write on this topic and speak about this topic. As far as the writing skills, writing was a big part of my career as well and I've been published in magazines, I had done interviews and the like, and I had submitted lots of content and created content for various roles that I held in my career throughout the years. So I felt pretty confident based on that and feedback I'd received about my writing throughout the years that, yes, I can take this on. The next step is tip number two: creating a plan. Making a plan for how you are going to get to that end stage - to that dream - to that goal. How do you get from where you are today to your desired end state? So going back to my example, I knew that I wanted to be a published author. I wanted to be able to say "I wrote this book and put this book out into the world so that it could benefit others". The topic of my book happened to be about corporate social responsibility; and it was about how companies can engage their employees through social good, to make positive impact on the communities where we live and work. The name of the book is "A Million Dollars In Change" and it's out on Amazon right now - just putting a little plug in there for it! But that was my desire, to put this [book] out there so that it can inspire others to do good. But how would I get there from the point where I was at in 2014 which was "I'm just sitting here brainstorming. I still haven't written one word on a piece of paper. Haven't typed one sentence of this manuscript, but I know that that's where I want to end up, being a published author." So what are the steps that I need to take and the things I need to do to take me from where I am today, to that desired and state? That is the plan and you have to build a plan with the strategy for how you're going to deploy that plan, and have goals or markers along the way that you will hit in order to get to that end state. It's very important to do this because without a plan chances are you will get sidetracked, because life gets in the way. If you don't have a set road map, you will have things that come up. You have family responsibilities. You maybe have a full time job that you're working at the same time. My example: I was writing a book while working a full time job so I was coming home after work, sometimes during crunch time I was there until 7:00pm or 8 o'clock at night, I would come home and I knew that I had to get some pages typed. I had to get a certain number of words typed because I had set that goal for myself that every week I had to have a certain number of words typed. Every month I had to have a few chapters done. I knew that by a certain point in my timeline I had to have my manuscript completed. So it really kept me on track and on base so that even if I did take a day off, if I was sick or something else came up, I knew that I had to make up for that. It kept me focused and grounded and kept me from being derailed completely. So have a plan, have those goals. On the topic of goals, there was an article that was published in Psychology Today not too long ago, and it featured a professor of psychology by the name of Art Markman. He is the professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, and he was talking specifically about reinventing yourself and the goals that you need to set for yourself when you're going through this process. Without goals we tend to get tied up in the little everyday things that we do in life and eventually what happens is we get frustrated, we feel unfulfilled and we start feeling, according to Markman, that we're not contributing to our future. The other point that he makes is that having a "big picture goal" or "big picture items" to look forward to makes us feel like we have more meaning in our lives, like we're working toward what we feel is our life's purpose. So it's important to have those goals for many reasons. To keep you on track and also to keep inspiring you to keep looking forward and feeling like your life has meaning, like our lives have meaning. But to expand a little bit more on goals because I think it's really important to keep this in mind as well: when you set the goals for yourself, be sure that you make them attainable. Oftentimes we have the tendency to set goals that are a little bit too big because we want to accomplish things quickly. So we may set goals that are a little bit unrealistic or a little bit too aggressive. And if we do that, you run the risk of not meeting a goal or falling just short. What that does psychologically is it starts to deflate you, make you feel defeated. It starts chipping away at your confidence and before you know it, you give up. So for example, for me, I knew that because I had never written a manuscript before I needed to give myself some realistic goals. I couldn't give myself a goal of typing 300 pages in two days because it wasn't going to happen. But I did set a goal of a certain number of pages and a certain number of words that I knew was realistic, that I would be able to accomplish. Then I scaled it up and as time went on I added more pages to my goals, my daily goal. That's how I was able to build up my confidence and able to keep moving forward. Because once you hit one goal, you get that confidence boost and you want to move on and go for the next one. So make sure those goals are attainable. They're not so big that you bite off more than you can chew. The third tip that I will give you once you have that road map completed and you know you have your plan set is: find your tribe. This means surround yourself with people who are supportive of your desire to reinvent yourself, that support your desire to change course. People that will be there to lift you up on the days when you feel that you just want to give up. Or maybe some self doubt creeps in and you feel like you're starting to second guess yourself. You start to think that maybe you're not doing what you're supposed to do. Or maybe you underestimated how hard it was going to be. These are the people that will be your cheerleaders. They'll also be your sounding board. They'll also be people that will be honest and give you feedback on what you're doing. You want these people around you because it will be very difficult to accomplish your goal if you don't have a support system. When I was taking on this, what felt at the time, monumental task of writing a book I made sure that I had not just the family and friends support system, but also surrounded myself with subject matter experts in the world of publishing. I joined author groups. I joined writing communities. I signed up for writers conferences and author conferences. I spoke with published authors about their experience and what they went through, and kept in touch with people that were in the writing community that were going through the same process as me. Those that were in process of writing a manuscript. That was helpful because we were able to share our experiences. On those tough days it was so helpful to know that other people were going through the same thing. [I spoke to] literary agents and publishers about what they look for the process, how long it takes start to finish, what I could expect as far as writing query letters and responses from agents, what are the pitfalls to look out for and common mistakes that people make when they're in the process of submitting queries, etc. Anything you could think of, I was picking their brain about. So find your tribe, find the people that will lift you up, that will surround you and will talk you off the ledge when you feel like you've just had enough and you want to throw in the towel and can't go forward another day. These are the people that are going to say "you've got this. We believe in you" or they'll say to you, "yeah, I know you think that's a great idea, but I'm not sure that's going to work - and here's why". For me, it was Beta readers that I gave my chapters to read and give me feedback on, people that I showed my [book] cover art to and got feedback about, others that I shared my website with for feedback on how to tweak that. Whatever it is, you need these people around you. Okay, so let's recap. Tip number one - before you even go down the road or start on this journey - is to ask yourself the questions. Ask yourself the tough questions and be brutally honest with yourself on whether or not you're able to take this on or if this is a good move for you- if this is aligned with who you are, your authentic self, and what you feel your purpose in life is and what your values are. That's number one. The key to success is asking yourself those questions. Number two: make a plan to get you from Point A - the aspiration, to Point B - which is the reality. Set goals for yourself along the way and make those goals attainable and realistic. Start small and build up. Scale up. Remember, it's a marathon, not a sprint. We hear that saying a lot and you may say it sounds a little cliche, but it's so true! It IS a marathon, not a sprint. You want to take your time and you want to do things right. So make sure those goals are attainable. Finally, tip number three: find your tribe. Surround yourself with people and subject matter experts that have been through it before. People that can guide you through the pitfalls and what you need to think about while navigating through the process. Friends, family, colleagues, people that you're close to, loved ones, significant other - whoever - that will lift you up, push you forward, and give you that confidence boost on those days when you feel like you just can't do it. Remember, you CAN do it. This is all in your control. So whether it be reinventing your personal image or going after that dream you've held in your heart for years, remember that these three tips will help you get there. Also remember that action is key. Thinking about it is not going to make it happen. Don't put it off until tomorrow, or next week, or next month. Thinking about it won't make it real. Action is what's going to make it real.
Alessandra Cavalluzzi: 17:20
We've come to the end of our time together today. I hope you enjoyed this episode and you found the tips and the ideas helpful. Feel free to send me an email at ascavalluzzi@gmail.com and let me know if there are other topics you'd like for me to discuss in the future, if you have any feedback or questions, or if you'd like to discuss this topic further. Send me a note any time. I'm happy to receive messages from my listeners! I wish you all an amazing March and a joyful spring. I hope you'll join me next month when our topic of the show will be "Cultivating An Attitude of Gratitude". Until then, take care beautiful people.
Alessandra Cavalluzzi: 18:06
A reminder to connect with me on social media on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/alessandra-cavalluzzi-874ba59/, on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/alessandra_cavalluzzi/, on Twitter @ACavalluzzi and I'm also on Facebook, but on Facebook I'm at https://www.facebook.com/milliondollarchange/
Alessandra Cavalluzzi: 18:26
If you'd like to sign up for the Alessandra's Angle newsletter, you can go to my website at alessandracavalluzzi.com and click on email updates to receive the latest newsletter. Or you could just drop me a line and let me know what you think of the show and what you'd like to hear about in future episodes of this podcast.
Alessandra Cavalluzzi: 0:00
Finally, here are some links to a few articles on reinvention including the Psychology Today article referenced in the podcast:
Alessandra Cavalluzzi: 0:00
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201405/reinvent-yourself
Alessandra Cavalluzzi: 0:00
https://tinybuddha.com/blog/5-steps-to-reinvent-yourself/
Alessandra Cavalluzzi: 0:00
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dorieclark/2014/10/10/how-to-reinvent-yourself-and-change-your-life/#555b84a22e44
Alessandra Cavalluzzi: 0:00
https://jamesaltucher.com/blog/ultimate-cheat-sheet-reinventing-self-2/
Alessandra Cavalluzzi: 0:00