The Truth About Reinventing Yourself: How Dreams Transform Identity

Ep 138. Achieving a dream is never a single moment—it is the culmination of sustained effort, sacrifice, discipline, and unwavering direction. It represents the gradual construction of a new level of skill, capability, confidence, and identity. What appears externally as success is internally the result of thousands of unseen decisions, moments of resilience, and acts of courage.

Every transformation begins with a single step. The process is not instantaneous—it is a journey of personal growth, skill acquisition, and psychological evolution. Many people describe this process as “reinventing themselves,” but in truth, we do not become someone else. We become a deeper, more capable, more refined version of who we have always been.

Through challenge, adversity, and persistence, knowledge accumulates. Experience sharpens perception. Courage strengthens identity. Transformation is not replacement—it is expansion.

Like the caterpillar that becomes the butterfly, the human being evolves by degree and magnitude. The same core individual remains, but elevated by discipline, awareness, and earned competence. The person who began the journey and the person who completes it are connected by effort—but separated by growth.

When we reach what once appeared to be the pinnacle, we discover it is not an endpoint. It is a platform. A foundation from which to build further excellence, deeper mastery, and meaningful contribution. True achievement is not arrival—it is readiness for the next ascent.

This is where purpose expands beyond the self. Those who have walked the path of growth gain the ability to mentor, guide, and inspire others. They become living proof that transformation is possible. They bring value, encouragement, and clarity to those who feel confined by limitation or mediocrity.

Personal mastery creates leaders. Leaders create possibility. Possibility creates generational change.

Growth is earned through courage. Identity is shaped through action. Destiny is revealed through persistence.

Become who your effort has prepared you to be.

Take care. Become. Walk well.

Transcript

Welcome back folks to episode 138 of the Running Man Self-Regulation Skills Project Podcast with me, your host Dr. Armando Dominguez, Ph.D. in Health Psychology, licensed professional counselor and an adjunct professor at a local community college. And what we're going to be discussing today is something that I've titled Dream Warriorship. And the reason I wanted to speak about Dream Warriorship as a concept, as a way of doing

is because it's broadly applicable to a lot of people that struggle with self-regulation and whenever our fears, our anxieties and worries and those feelings of hopelessness and helplessness start to work their way into those things that would be the best for us, such as actualizing ourselves, realizing ourselves at the highest level, then

We understand that there is a measure, a large measure of courage required. So what we're going to do is have a very open-ended discussion about what dream warriorship is, what it requires, and what is it that I am a warrior for? What am I fighting to become? Is it about becoming the better me? Which in the process of realizing a dream, we do become different. We do transform. So I'm like the term reinvention of self. I personally don't like that. I still think

that there's a more than a modicum of self that is left whenever we become the new me we never stop being the me that I was when I started the journey when I took that first step so from this point on we'll start with a discussion on dream warriorship one of the first things that we must consider in the concept of dream warriorship is realizing that those things that we call our dreams those places we'd like to get to as far as whether it be a vacation

whether it be a vocation, something I'd like to do for a lifetime, as far as earning money, that sort of thing, or having a job or career, or an avocation, doing something along the lines of like what I do, kung fu, that I don't do for pay, but I do just out of enjoyment and love of the art, are things that we have to think about first. One.

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weighing whether or not it's a worthy goal. Is it something that's going to benefit me? And if I'm getting joy out of Kung Fu, yes, it's very helpful among other things. But just an idea is to think about, what's the value of what I'm going to be working towards? And when we have that goal, that really is the spark or the beacon that is what we drive through to rather versus knowing how I'm going to get there. Cause all of the hows over a period of time, if it's something that

it's a hard-gained skill or career for that matter that requires not only education and practice but time to become educated and earn necessary licensure or certificates for instance to be able to work with that then there is a time involved there yes we know that we have an idea about that it's still not really nebulous it could be a two-year goal if you go into grad school but more often than not you don't see all the minutiae the details of the things you're going to do on the daily to

to able to gain that skill to make it to that goal. So when I'm speaking of Dream Warriorship, we have to understand that we have to have an idea as to where we're going. And we may not know the how we're gonna get there, but the why.

Want that because I can see the benefit of it or I can see myself doing that those are the first parts of it and very important by the way to be able to know why you're doing this and Not worrying about the how but knowing where you're going the why and the where you're going are the two biggest parts on your map So to speak the I am here like at the malls that have the little red dot and it has no resemblance to you But generally speaking you understand that's where you're looking at then you look at the map. It's like well the map looks a little

Confusing well the confusion part that's fair and I would say that's par for the course and that's a cool thing that's part of regulating self and learning how to manage the Understanding of I don't know what I'm doing I don't know where I'm at but I know where I need to be and that's the other part and that's the goal the other red spot where you want to arrive and That's where we start looking at what moves me and what am I going to get along the way and what am I going to gain as a process?

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and what are the challenges, that's going to be the next part whenever you actually take that first step. What is going to challenge me? Some of the potential challenges that could occur could be my own lack of faith in myself, not believing that I can. And faith isn't something that you just change your mind and, okay, I believe in myself now, and you've just switched thought process. It's not quite that.

Often there's a lack of confidence that goes with knowing that I don't know how to do that yet. And from the learning model perspective, the conscious incompetence, the process or the goal and the journey, this is where we gain competence. That first step on the journey is the one that proceed.

the next and the one that's next will proceed the one that follows after and so on and so forth. But each one of those steps gains us not only proximity, closeness to our goal, even if it's two years from now, I'm that many more steps closer. If I stick to it many more steps after I'll be getting to the goal where my last step to acquiring that goal will occur soon enough over time. But we have to maintain that core. Staying the core is very important. But also what we don't understand

is that the actualization of the process comes with its own challenges. Sometimes we'll be tired, sometimes we'll be scared, sometimes we'll have people that are detractors wondering, why the heck are you doing that? What are you pursuing that for? And what they're doing, honestly, is from their own insecurity and the own place they're rooted at, and they may have completed a journey and maybe have forgotten, but they're not necessarily criticizing some might, but critiquing what it is you're doing because from the

best places in their heart sometimes it could be they worry free and they don't want you to hurt because they remember what hurts like but that's unfair in the sense because that means that they want you to get there but without the growth which means if you don't have the growth you can't support where your goal is you can't support yourself you can't be there because you not become the person this is the important part become the person that not only can do what it is that you want to do in that future because you're not gaining requisite

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experience and also the knowledge necessary, but also you haven't become the person you're going to be once you get there. You're not a different person. Some people really enamored the idea of being another person. You're not someone else. It's still you. And I'm hate to say it that way, but it's kind of annoying in a way to hear people say, I'm a totally new person. It's like, yes, you are. And you're precious when you think that I'm totally making fun, but back to the

matter is they're still the same individual but in verbiage it's nice to hear in concept it's a good thing to understand that you become more but you haven't left behind who you were but you do have to transform who it is you are and I like to use the analogy of cicadas here in West Texas where I live during the summer we have this awesome chatter that occurs in the summer when you're out in the parks in the high trees you can hear them chattering after they've gone through their

Transformation being these little grubby creatures in the ground eaten at the roots and finally seven years up to 17 years some of them grow for a long long time and they become what is they're supposed to become kind of like Maslow and they reach to their apex if they become that peak of the hierarchy of needs so to speak and Then they fly off they mate and then they die but that's the sad part of it But it's not really the death in this sense, but rather for us. It's really

What they do is they change they reach that peak and that death to the old self maybe or the old way of doing things Okay, that's a cool idea and that's useful but whenever we realize the challenge of digging oneself out of the ground and not being around those peers that are at the level that you were at when you started and Knowing that not unlike the ground and the other grubs that are still grubbing about you've risen above and you're going to leave behind People not that you're leaving them on purpose

because you don't love or care about them anymore, but rather that is a consequence of elevating yourself. And you don't necessarily have to leave them geographically. In some cases that does occur, but you're leaving them in the way you conceive of things, the way you share ideas and the way you pass time. It's no longer the same. Like when you leave high school and come back to where you went to high school and you see people that used to go to school with you, realize you've grown and you may not have things in common anymore.

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And that common level of what our experience was before it doesn't mean that people are common or you somehow better That's not what I'm saying. But what was your common? What was your normal? What was your regular is no longer and there are people that have stayed there and they've even evolved by staying there beyond that and They have done things and grown as well as you have by virtue of your experience Even if you left like I did went to the military and came back to my hometown A lot of people had died tragically. I had heard of one that had

Committed suicide supposedly and it wasn't that she uh She was killed by somebody and left to hang and made it look like a suicide they deemed it that because they had no no suspects and that was sad because she was a Friend in athletics and a great athlete and had lots of potential and and her life was snuffed out very young There are a number of people that got married and had children people that had moved out and I have never seen since and a few that I still see around here

and there but no longer and it's like we're strangers but it's not rude it's just that there's been growth and we probably don't recognize each other anymore because most of us has changed and don't look the same and that that's fair but the fact of the matter is dream warriorship requires that sometimes we get on a path a journey of development and growth and we become more by virtue of our experience and the people that we meet and the things

that we do and we realize that as we grow, as we mature into our, let's say out of our late teens into our early twenties, we start noticing that the way we change is because the quality of our thought process change. We become more mature. We become more myelinated and our brain matures and the types of thoughts that we have are less impulsive generally. So things to think about, of course, but when we're looking at dream warriorship, we're actually fighting for the cause, our cause.

The cause to do what is more so and more accurately the cause to become not what but who it is We're supposed to be who are we supposed to develop into not unlike the cicada? analogy whenever we grow above the level of the ground where we started and then we start climbing that tree that tree is our adventure that's our trajectory upward in Development and adventure we might run into birds that want to eat us while we're still kind of

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and our wings haven't hardened yet so we can fly but once we do we fly about gloriously and do an exchange that sound for experience while we're beating our wings and and drawing not only attention to ourselves or a mate in this case for the cicada but also realizing that at that level we're flying in rarefied air we are doing what we're supposed to be doing if it is most true to us because we're adventuring and excited and seeking and we find every reason

and to continue doing what we do. But if we return in that shape to the ground versus higher up into the trees, our trajectory, our goal for our lives, so to speak, we realize that we have very little in common with the people that we left behind. But it's not that we leave them once again behind geographically, but conceptually. And as far as what we find interest in that has changed. So we have to find those that would be equally in our realm level, similar to ours.

armando (13:26.363)
and top of that it's okay to develop new and become new in the sense that you become more by experience and by what it is that you're chasing now the next part of

That is being confident in how we walk forward. There's such a thing as fake confidence and Pete people put in on the show There are many that put on the behavioral confidence, but yet they don't have the internal Support of that confidence by being what it is that they need to be to truly be honest in that confidence Confidence stems from one big thing. and and that's competence I was in a training yesterday and a wonderful lady with a great speaker by the way I loved listening to her material was talking about

confidence, also some things that she said were wonderful. But one of the things that I didn't particularly agree with, was the fact that she was talking about pouring value into people and I didn't disagree with the idea. I think it was great, but I think the message was lacking a bit and bless her heart. is an amazing speaker. I was riveted. I took notes. She had a wonderful bit of information and she said some things were quite inspiring. But one thing that I noticed when she was talking about leading teams is that when you pour value into somebody, her concept

was abstract once again. she was mentioning bringing people up, but how do we develop people and help bring them? And that has to do with mentorship teaching, which means we're not pouring value in the sense of bringing value out of them, which we do, given them the tools they need to become competent so that they can be confident and therefore bring value to an organization, to their lives, to their journey. And being a leader does not necessarily mean that you're in an organization. Luckily, I've

I'm working for an agency that allows us to have really good training. And this was one of those, really opportune times to gain some thinking that was not common level. And I really enjoyed that. But one thing I noted that in, in the perspective that I have is that the Valley that we give is information that we bring, but getting them to use that you can pour information into a bucket, so to speak. But if they don't use it and leave it in the bucket, well, then they have gathered some really shiny sparkly.

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things but can you do anything with it's my question have you gained skill by virtue of skill and repetition by virtue of over and over again and do this again and do it more often and at some point when it this becomes easier and it becomes easy then on this learning journey this warriorship towards that goal that worthy goal the goal with heart is Juan Matu said in Carlos Castañeda's novels having a path with heart when we get there the how-to that we're

gaining as a process of repetition is what brings about that competence, that gain of skillful will become consciously competent. And essentially once we get to the goal, we should be unconsciously competent. Those skills should be so much a part of us, we can do it in our sleep. And that is a measure of mastery. Once again, I don't like the term mastery in the conventional sense in the West, because I like the idea of it more from the Eastern martial arts sense in the sense you never really arrive.

because mastery is sounds like a crystallization of I'm here and that's the max goal and therefore I'm it which means at some point someone else will get there and you're no longer at the peak because there are other people achieving that that also could be indicative of being a really good teacher but also is kind of depending on well how hard is it to gain that skill right but above all what I'm looking at is for an individual for a dream warrior what is your apex is a question well you you hopefully will never

reach it. But I'm hoping that you reach something close to it and realize that once you reach what you thought was an apex, you understand it's more so a platform for further development. And I think that's something that Maslow didn't talk a whole lot about. But one of the levels that's probably not spoken about in self realization or self act realization is that once you reach that peak, the next part is about being generative, especially if you become older in the process. And that is bringing other people along and getting

them to achieve their apex, their peak. And this is where we become the teacher in the greatest sense, but also we become the farmer. And that we are seeding the next generation with greatness as well. And we're not afraid of holding on or warning that someone's going to compete us out of a position or out of my own greatness. That's egotism. But realizing that we must give back to the next generation. At some point, yes, you gain. But beyond that point, you realize you can sit there and be the

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the Only one I am the champion there can only be one like in the Highlander and then you realize we've chopped off the heads of all the people that could come up and keep you company and Y'all could have developed great things instead you you'd knocked him off. So there's only you there's only one. Well, what do you do with that? That's a good question

question, right? Well, Dream Warriorship isn't about lopping the heads off of the enemies necessarily, but rather continuing in courage, stepping forward, and realizing that you're going to have fear, you're going to have those days where we have tears, where you don't know why you're crying, it's like, what is wrong with me? Realizing that we're shedding layers, not unlike an onion, layers of self, layers of the old, not so much that where it's going away, but rather that we're not leaving anything behind, substantially behind us, but these

and

that requires immersion to be able to gain skill in but

Feelings appropriate if you feel inadequate if you feel afraid if you feel scared These are the times the self regulatory skills become incredibly important learning how to manage those things that would come about as anxiety if we feel the fear but yet decide to think and stop then we become anxious depressed and worried and then we might get off the path because it looks too big looks too scary and This is where the imagery part of the dream warriorship is terribly important and that's realizing that whenever we

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think about things forward knowing what we're expecting we tend to over exaggerate what it's going to take to get there to go through it we tend to exaggerate the fear not that we do it on purpose we do not we are wired to seek the negative and also whenever we know that there's a carrot out there we tend to look for the stick first because if you don't know where the stick is while you're eating that carrot bop

Somebody's gonna hit you on the head with that stick if you're unaware. We have to be aware of those things first, but sometimes we tend to over Focus on what we would call the negatives or the dangerous or the potentially injurious and then we exaggerate because our brain Therefore has to make a narrative to be able to make sense of what it is that it took as a mere perception as Signal. Okay, there's a stick over there. Well, nobody's holding it looks safe, right? Well, what if a ghost picks it up and hits me on the head or horse somebody breaks

to my apartment and picks up that stick and tries to hit me. And that's not a rational, reasonable, reasonable way of looking at things. What it is, is me building a narrative to make sense of something that makes me uncomfortable internally. Feelings that aren't rational or reasonable, they're just reactions to my environment. And that environmental stress physically on the outside, my level of stress is not high at all. My assumption of safety, if I were to think about it, is met. have my doors closed. It's just me and nobody here. Nobody's trying

trying to come here and I've not done anything to anyone to make them want to break into my apartment that I would know but you understand we start making these little narratives and that's not just me this is everybody that I've spoken to clinically everybody that ever spoken to generally out in public as a peer or just

walking around in the produce sector having a conversation, we tend to exaggerate what it is that could possibly happen without evidence. And we tend to lay weight into it based on past feelings and experiences of feeling scared or inadequate that may not have had anything to do with that narrative. But yet I give it weight as if that's somehow evidence. This is one of the things that we have to be able to

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Regulate in the sense that it's like, okay, stop. Let's take a breath literally inhale and exhale not necessarily a big inhale But just just a cycle of inhale and exhale give yourself a pause Maybe walk a little bit if it starts to stress you out But the thing is realizing that that's not happening now and it's the now wherever we make the decision To make the then great by choosing to move in that direction whether or not we have evidence for it being Possible or not. That's not what we're asking what we're

asking is, am I willing to put this false narrative down so that way I don't necessarily have to feed the fear because I will make it fearful. And the problem is just like if I were to imagine a lemon and I salivate, pituitary hormone drops and I salivate, that means that mental picture of that lemon is pretty darn compelling. It doesn't have to make reasonable, rational sense. You just have to think it. And this is where dream warriorship is very important because we have to, with courage, look at this and say, that's just me.

thinking. And it's okay to say that you're not trying to fool yourself. Your lower brain thinks in survival protective mechanism. So therefore it's going to project it as if it could potentially be real, but it can't tell the difference it is. So it's going to ramp up the fires and make everything really kind of tense and anxious because it's trying to keep you safe. It's not going to be the smartest riding and driving in the front.

it's going to be that big gorilla that you should be saving for a real fight versus one that is just merely in your mind. And we can get derailed by that. We can derail ourselves. Our greatest enemy is ourself many times because we tend to believe what we think and we allow these thoughts to become runaway thoughts. We very well may take ourselves off a path with heart or the path or destiny that's meant for us. And we could very well take ourselves off of that very journey that will help us self

Realize to self actualize and become who it is that I'm supposed to become warriorship in the truest sense is realizing those dreams and I was inspired this morning when I woke up and I saw that a long distance friend whom I admire quite a bit is in Nagano right now skiing the mountains in Nagano and Basically, she posted on Facebook and said that you know dream check, you know on the picture and what it is is

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she not only realized a dream of wanting to do that, but she became the dream person, that individual that was able to do that. So she was at that point in time, a dream realized as well, the dream of self, the dream of the individual becoming, and then became more deserving of those things that she was trying to work towards. That probably has been years that she's had this in her mind, but that's such an exciting and motivating perspective. So,

You are right now the realized dream of yesterday to the degree that you've allowed yourself to dream that I am guilty of this. I think too small sometimes Sometimes I need to think bigger think bigger in the sense that if I were to do that man that that from where I'm at right now That's scary, but it doesn't necessarily mean I'm scared of doing in the direction of that It just means that sometimes it's like wow that that's kind of grandiose and it's okay to do that That's not delusional thinking there are people that are at the level of the

little grub that will tell you that's crazy that's delusional but they're also telling you from their fear from their little hole of comfort that they're great and then there's nothing wrong with that and they have their little grub roots that they can chew on and watch their Netflix and chill that's fine nothing wrong with that

If that's good for them, that's good for them. But what about you? You can't measure yourself nor anchor yourself to them and what they do and say that, well, I want to do these things, but you're not leaving them behind. Even geographically, if you do not move, you can change and move away from those things that ground you. Sometimes it's moving away from the critique, moving away from the criticism, moving away from the fear that's being projected at you because out of love, family and parents, the ones that are most close to you will tell you things because they fear for you.

the care for you and they don't want you to hurt and that comes from the warmest of hearts and you gotta appreciate that. Don't throw that away. Just don't live your life by their fear or their lens. Bring your own. Bring your best game. Bring your A game. But what I'm telling you is to be a dream warrior is to dream and to become that. Take that path. Take that step. Move forward. Do your best.

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as best you can take rest when you must and it's okay to rest nothing wrong with that your path won't go away because you take a rest but just don't stay resting for too long because then you lose momentum then you have to reiterate the beginning process again but don't worry you don't lose the progress you made you just lose some of that time that you need to acquire some things and time is something we'll never get back it's a precious commodity but what i'm telling you today is become that dream realized transformation

of self is a process.

I'm going to share a very personal thing right now that I will close this podcast with today. And that is many years ago, a young man before I had married or had children, had a deep dream and it was very illuminating to me over time, but I didn't understand it completely. But what I saw was an expanse of water, shining, glimmering water in my brain when I was sleeping. And I saw what looked like the visage of a face, right?

up out of the water and the water was running off of the face and it only came up to about the temple or ear level but then a butterfly was flying and what a light on the nose of the face that came out of the water and the wings flapped downward and covered the entirety of the face and from there came a new face that was profound for me looking back butterflies from cocoons

usually indicate transformation. It doesn't mean you're a new person, it doesn't mean you have invented yourself anew, but rather we transform and we become. So from a very deep place, we become not better, only we do, but more.

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More of ourself comes to comes to light that part of us that lays dormant like that little Worm in the cocoon the caterpillar that becomes the beautiful butterfly We have to allow ourselves to become that you're here for a reason. You're not here by mistake. It's not by coincidence No such thing. So there's something that you want to achieve and dream for don't be afraid of it Keep it in your mind. Take that step. I'm encouraging you and I want to tell you thank you for being part of my journey and

I certainly want to say thank you for sharing this early Saturday morning with me. And that's a little cool today. And if you have any comments, questions, or concerns, no concerns, questions, please feedback. Awesome. Send them to me at the email running man, get skills project at Gmail. I'd love to hear from you. You take care. Walk well, journey well, warrior well, and become. Take care.