Reinvent Yourself Checklist: Letting Go of What No Longer Fits

Now that we’ve come to the end of our how to reinvent yourself and rebuild your life series, we’re going to look at letting go of what no longer fits. In order to find your purpose in life and really upgrade your life, you need to make sure that bad habits from your old life are not going to filter into your new life and lead you back to where you started. So how do you let go of what no longer serves you?

How to Live Your Best Life by Quitting What No Longer Serves You

Before something new can fully arrive, we have to make room for it. Reinvention isn’t just about adding good to our lives. It’s also about subtracting—clearing, releasing, letting go. In this book, the author talks about the habit of smoking and why, when smokers try to quit, some manage to quit for good, whereas others quickly revert to their old ways. The successful quitters see themselves as non-smokers from the second they decide to stop smoking, whereas the others consider themselves as people who don’t smoke all the time. It’s really all to do with mindset.

Because not everything gets to come with you. When looking for ways to reinvent yourself, you need to get really honest with yourself about what limiting beliefs or toxic people in your environment are holding you back. Don’t expect to rebuild your life, find your inner voice and for everything to work out great if you keep letting the negative traits of your past poison this wonderful new life you’ve built for yourself. If you’re truly invested in making your life better then you have to change your environment or at least eliminate the things that have a negative impact on your wellbeing.

This is Part 8 of our Rebuild Your Life, Reinvent Yourself series. This is the last post in this series and so today we’re looking at how to let go of what no longer serves you and how to put together everything you’ve learned so far.

Quotes About Reinvention & Personal Growth

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
— George Bernard Shaw
“It’s never too late to be what you might have been.”
— George Eliot
“Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.”
— John D. Rockefeller
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”
— Socrates (as paraphrased in Way of the Peaceful Warrior)
“Your past does not equal your future.”
— Tony Robbins
“Every next level of your life will demand a different you.”
— Leonardo DiCaprio (widely attributed)
“Fall in love with becoming the best version of yourself.”
— Unknown
“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”
— J.K. Rowling
“We must be willing to let go of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
— Joseph Campbell
“Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.”
— Raymond Lindquist
“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
— C.S. Lewis
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
— Peter Drucker
“The greatest act of courage is to be and own all of who you are—without apology, without excuses, without masks.”
— Debbie Ford
“Reinvention is not changing who you are, but discarding who you are not.”
— Deepak Chopra
“You were born to be real, not to be perfect.”
— Unknown
“Sometimes you have to kind of die inside in order to rise from your own ashes and believe in yourself and love yourself to become a new person.”
— Gerard Way
“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”
— C.S. Lewis
“Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”
— Rumi
“Sometimes in the winds of change we find our true direction.”
— Unknown

Reinvent Yourself Checklist

Making your new life transformation a success after feeling stuck and as though you don’t understand your purpose in life is difficult. However, it is certainly possible and the best part is that all you need is a bit of self-discipline and accountability.

Keeping an inner voice journal will help you to reason with yourself when you need to remind yourself why you’re focused on rediscovering yourself and fixing your life. As time goes on, nostalgia can play tricks on us and make us think that our old life was better than our new life. This is why it’s important to stay focused and realise why you’re in this situation, what got you here and the effort and time you’ve invested in rebuilding your life, healing yourself and discovering what really makes you happy.

This healing journey isn’t as soft or as simple as it sounds. Trying to figure out how to heal yourself after a traumatic event or series of challenges is extremely difficult, but you did it! So rather than focusing on what you’ve given up or a false romanticisation of the past, look to the future and be grateful for all that you’ve achieved and what you’ve gained from reinventing yourself and creating a fulfilling life.

Here are some other reminders and things to consider. You might want to write out this reinvent yourself checklist in your journal or even take a photo and use it as your phone’s screensaver, so that you see it every day or whenever you check your phone.

Allow yourself to get bored or just to rest and do nothing. This doesn’t make you a failure if you don’t use all of your time productively.
Losing our identity doesn’t mean failure. Accept the lessons you’ve learned and use your experiences to create a fresh new chapter for yourself.
Rediscover your inner voice and once you’ve found her, make sure you stay connected with her on a regular basis. Daily journaling is one of the best ways to do this!
Figure out what it is that you actually want in life.
Connect with your deep, inner emotions rather than ignoring them.
Visualize what it is that you want to achieve and what your dream vision of yourself and your life looks like.