How to Reinvent Yourself Without Starting Over

Have you ever felt like you've outgrown a version of yourself?

In this episode of CEO of Me, I'm talking about what it really means to reinvent yourself without starting over. Because the truth is, most of us don't need a completely new life—we need the courage to make different decisions, build better habits, and become more intentional about who we're becoming.

I share lessons I've learned through building businesses, navigating career changes, earning my MBA, and stepping into new versions of myself over the years.

In this episode, we discuss:
• Reinventing yourself without starting over
• Building confidence through action
• Letting go of old versions of yourself
• Creating habits that support your goals
• Becoming the woman you want to be

If you've been feeling stuck or ready for a change, this episode is for you.

Follow along on Instagram: @angelicamackk

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I think a lot of us really want to reinvent ourselves, but sometimes it feels like reinventing yourself could also mean burning your entire life down, shifting so many parts of your life that it just becomes completely unrecognizable and extremely uncomfortable and just not fun. You think new city, new job, new groups of friends, new body, new everything. And that's actually not true. Sometimes reinvention can be a lot less dramatic. Welcome back to the CL of Me, the podcast, where we're learning and teaching each other how to be women that are in charge of our lives, our future, and most importantly, our decisions. And in today's episode, we're talking about that feeling of being in between. If you are a woman and you're in that space right now where you're kind of feeling in between, like you know that you really want a huge shift in your life, but you don't know how to get there. Are you confused with different versions of yourself or the version of yourself right now doesn't necessarily fit the future version of yourself? You know, where you're just like in between. Because there are times that your life may look wonderful on paper. Everything may be working out just the way you want it to, but internally, how are you feeling? You know something has shifted inside of you. You are craving more and could be more than one area of your life. Could be your career, could be your relationship, could be your friendships. You just know you're outgrowing something. You just cannot put your finger on it. You can't explain what it is, but you just have this undeniable feeling inside of you that's just stirring up. And I think that feeling can be really, really confusing because even though things may look good on paper and internally you feel some unease, a lot of times we are taught that if it's not broken, don't fix it. And you could look at your life and be like, I'm not necessarily broken, but there are some things I want to change. Growth doesn't always come from heartache or pain or this massive breakthrough. Sometimes growth just comes from simply realizing. And yes, following that realization, there can come pain, breakups, heartaches, all of that stuff that will come from that. Sometimes, not all the time, but that can happen. Once you start realizing things, pain can follow after. But all you know is that the version of yourself isn't fully complete. This episode is definitely gonna be for you. And I know I just dragged that whole thing out, but this one's gonna be for you. Let's talk about the word reinvention and let's really dig into what that actually means and what it doesn't have to look like, or what it could look like. I think that social media does a really incredible job of talking about and showing this process of a reinvention for a lot of different people. And it seems and feels that people are using these heartaches and these breakups and these really traumatic situations in their lives, and they are making it into a story, putting a bone it, and selling it. And I have no issues with that, there's nothing wrong with that. I think that we go through things so that we can share it with other people. That's not the problem. But I'm just simply talking about how social media gives you this idea of a breakthrough or a reinvention after a really, really traumatic or horrific situation or life or anything like that. And that's what you see on social media. To you, from the outside looking in, you would think that, oh, I need to go through X, Y, and D for me to go through this reinvention phase. When that's not necessarily true. Although their story is valid and the way that they are expressing it on the internet is valid, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm just saying that that is what our view is on reinvention. Real reinvention, as in in your real life, not just what we see on social media, starts with awareness. Those quiet moments when you start realizing, like, wow, I think I can do a little bit more, I think I can turn it up a notch. Or I think that this situation or this person is making me feel uneasy or insecure or uncomfortable, and that is leading into other decisions that I'm making. Whatever it is, in those moments when you're by yourself and you're quietly thinking, that's where it starts. Awareness of like, oh, I know that I can do more, I want to do more. Or realizing this version of me no longer fits in my life. That's reinvention. It's not chaos, it's not drama, it's not social media posts, crying and talking to people about what just happened. Like, it's none of that. It's in the moments alone, quiet to yourself. How do you know when you've outgrown yourself? If that little whisper is very, very quiet, how do you actually know that your current self no longer fits with your life or your future life? And I feel like that's a lot of reinvention and a lot of reflection. And where that awareness comes is that you're somewhat comparing your future life where you want to go to where you are right now. And you're probably thinking, like, okay, if this is a life I want to live in the future and I'm acting this way, do you really think I'm gonna get there by doing all the things that I'm doing? You may not, you probably won't. I won't. I really feel you have to really let go of a lot of stuff about your current self to get to that next step. It's really hard for any of us to carry bad habits, bad thought processes, bad eating habits, sleeping patterns, all these things into the next chapter of our lives because you're gonna keep getting what you get by doing what you usually do. I'm gonna say that again. You're gonna keep getting what you get right now by doing exactly what you're doing right now. So think about that five years from now. If you're still doing what you're doing and you think that's gonna change in five years by you not changing a part of yourself or killing off that part of yourself that you know you need to kill off, five years from now it's gonna look very similar to where you are now. So you really know when you've outgrown yourself, when you feel restless, when being around certain friends that you used to have a really, really good time with, you are questioning the time that you're spending with them. You're maybe feeling more exhausted after hanging out with them, or you're feeling yourself pulling away. Things that used to really excite you just don't excite you anymore. You feel disconnected from yourself. You keep saying things like something feels off, or this doesn't feel how it used to be, or I remember when I did this last year and I do not feel the same way now. For me, that looked like not going out as much, or being intentional about the places that I do go. Setting a schedule when I'm gonna go out, not saying yes to everything. I used to say yes to always going out to everyone's birthdays, to everyone's uh birthday trip. I would say yes to everything. And now it's just not fun anymore to say yes to everything. It's not fun to be places that I didn't plan or I wasn't prepared for financially, emotionally, all of that. There are times that I used to take trips with multiple people, like four or five people. We would get Airbnb and have a grand old weekend. And right now, that does not look fun to me, and that's not fun to me. I now know what it feels like to have my own space and want to be in my own space, and when I'm traveling, wanting to feel comfortable and not being around five or six people in an Airbnb all day, all night. Back then, so fun, loved it. Right now, no, not into it, not into it. And so I felt that in the last actually couple months, and I was like, okay, something is changing inside of me, and it's nothing wrong, I'm just evolving, and so are you. And any kind of change or massive disruptions in what is usual for you, it's going to be uncomfortable because your old self is fighting with your future self, like they're at odds with each other, and your identity is fighting to stay familiar, it doesn't want to be unfamiliar, it wants to just stick right in, like it usually does. It just wants to be in, it just wants to be in. I'll leave it there. I think one of the biggest reasons that women and me for sure, back in when I was just kind of getting started in this journey of understanding that I'm in control and that you know I have to make all these decisions. Women stay stuck because I feel that a lot of us are natural perfectionists or we like to micromanage. We want to be involved in a lot of different parts of our lives and our friends' lives. We want to be involved in everything that's going on. And we want things to be perfect. Because of that perfectionist mentality, we just don't move. We stay where we are. We allow that little voice in our head to whisper, then it gets louder, then it dims back down, then it gets louder, then it dims back down. You allow for that to happen because it's not the perfect time, or it doesn't make sense right now, or XYZ will happen if you in this, or whatever, you know, like there's all these different excuses that we give ourselves to not truly evolve and go after what we want to and what we feel that we know we want and what we feel we know we deserve. Or we think reinvention needs like a serious starting point, or it needs to feel like, oh, I need to feel like I'm really reinventing myself. I need to rearrange my entire life. And no, that's not how it is. You can always say, I'll start when I have more money, I'll start when I lose weight, I'll start when I get another bundle of hair, I'll start when blah, blah, blah. Girl, life is always gonna be life in it. Something's always gonna come up. There's always gonna be something else that's gonna require a lot more of your energy. So then what? Then what? Are you gonna say five years from now? Oh, I'll wait. I'll wait for another pandemic. Like that's not funny, because that was a horrible time, but you know what I'm saying. You know what I'm saying. We have to stop waiting for the ideal conditions or for it to all feel right to become better versions of ourselves. Do it now. There is no better time like the present, and time is ticking. Okay, that's one thing about being a human. That clock does not stop, it is going. I mean, I guess it's the same for animals and everyone. Well, no, it's not. Animals, I don't think they have any kind of idea of time. So, back to what I was saying. That is what makes being a human very unique, is that the clock is always going. It does not stop. It does not stop. So, do it now. Reinvention, like the process of going through reinventing yourself, shifting your life, shifting your mindset, starts with identity. And I think a lot of people get it wrong, and I definitely got it wrong, was starting with my habits. When I thought of reinventing myself, I was like, okay, let me change X, Y, and Z. And although those are important parts of reinventing yourself, your identity is what is the foundation. If you still see yourself as the same woman, waking up earlier or going to the gym four or five days a week is not gonna make a difference. You are gonna see yourself the same way. You have to start seeing yourself as your future self. Start seeing yourself as the woman you want to be. Start dressing, start acting like the woman you want to be. You have to literally shift your identity about yourself so that the world around you will start to shift as well. You have to change your mindset about yourself. You have to think positively about yourself, and it is a struggle, it's a fight. Every single day, you are literally talking to yourself and hyping yourself up. You have to be your biggest hype woman. Like every single day, multiple moments out of the day, I will say that I have to pick myself up in my head and remind myself, girl, you got this. You are that girl. You have these gifts, you have these talents, and you are going somewhere. You know the woman that you want to be. So you have to act like that. You have to put on the shoes like that, you have to walk like that. And so I have to remind myself that throughout the day, some days, not every day, but throughout the day, there are some days that I have to remind myself, and that's something that we all have to do. This is not sometimes natural. It's a shift in mindset to start thinking about your future self and then walking in those shoes. It's very different, and it really requires you to think bigger and really think of yourself as this evolving creature, and that you are not meant to just be how you are right now. If that was the case, I would still be the 13, 14-year-old girl in my head if I didn't evolve. You know, like that's kind of wild to think about. That's why we are evolving. We're evolving creatures. That is a point, and that is why humans are humans. Like we have brains, we evolve, we grow, we change, we adapt, we do all these things. Reinvention really starts by asking yourself, who do I want to become? How does this woman dress? How does she act? What kind of people does she keep around her? What does she tolerate and what does she not tolerate? What is she prioritizing? What does her life look like? What does her routine look like? What do her habits look like? All these things you need to ask yourself to kind of understand where you want your future self to be. And if you ask all those questions right now, and your answers make you think like, oh, the way I'm moving right now, I cannot be her, then that's okay. We're on the right track. We are on the right track. And I had to do that same thing, ask those same questions a while ago, and really understand what does, and I'm still figuring it out. I'm still figuring this part out about how does my future self look? Spiritually, physically, financially, how am I moving through life? How am I showing up for myself, my friends, my family, how am I showing up in the world? What does that look like? And I drilled that into my head. I drilled it, I drilled it, I drilled it because I've always known where I want to go. I just didn't know how to get there. I've always known the kind of lifestyle that I wanted and the things I wanted to do and how I wanted my life to feel, but I didn't know how to get there. And those questions will really help you decide where you are now and how to take steps to get to where you're going next. I always say this: put one foot in front of the other. Step by step. It's not all gonna be clear right now. It wasn't all clear for me back then either. But every year, every step, it's becoming more and more clear. So let's talk about how do you actually start reinventing yourself? Like, what does that even mean? Let's go through a couple of things that I've done that has helped me, and I think this is gonna help you too. Hopefully, you can reinvent yourself without blowing it all up. Number one, I would definitely say take a very, very deep audit of your life. And I mean deep, deep. And I mean specifically your environment. Where are you spending your time? How are you spending your time in that environment? Who is also in that environment with you? Take a deep audit of your environment. Start there. Our environment is everything. We are influenced by our environment. We're influenced by the people that we keep in our space. So that is step number one. Take an audit of your environment. Your environment, the people in your life, your habits, your friends, your family, the place you live. It really shaped you. Number two is to start small. Change one identity-based habit. For example, an identity-based habit is something that reinforces the version of yourself that you're trying to become. So for example, instead of saying I'm trying to save money, start thinking I'm becoming a financially independent woman. Those are the kind of shifts. So change one of those. Switch it up. If you're saying I'm trying to work out, I'm trying to live a healthier life, start thinking I want to or I am becoming a strong, healthy person. So change one of those habits. If you are trying to save money, then start putting $5 aside every week. $2, $1. If it's just the coins that you find in your car, something like that, change one of those habits. One, not 10, not five, just one. If you guys haven't noticed by now, this podcast is all about baby steps. I am definitely not gonna be the girl that's gonna push everything on you, do all this, do that. I truly believe in small steps, and so that's gonna continue to reflect throughout. So I hope you guys are okay with that. If your future self is healthier, start walking every day. If your future self is more confident, start thinking more positively about yourself and stop the negative talk. The negative talk is gonna kill us, girls. You have to stop talking negatively about yourself. Positive thoughts about yourself. And if the negative ones come, I'm not gonna say they're not gonna come. You have to rewire it. You have to change it out, switch it out. Switch it out. The last one is my favorite one. Stop announcing every transformation before it happens. Telling your social media friend, your friend, your family, oh, I'm about to do this. Oh, I'm about to do this. Don't announce anything until you're actively in it, if you even announce it then. I truly, truly believe in privacy. I think the world does not need to know everything about you. I don't think the world needs to know what your partner is saying to you, what your partner did for you last week, even though it's positive. I really believe the key to life is privacy. The key to a happy life is privacy, in my opinion. Not everyone needs to know everything. Keep some moments between you and yourself, and you and your partner, you and your friends. You and God, heck, like keep some things to yourself. There is a reason for that. There is a reason for that. So stop announcing before it even happens. Keep it to yourself. Not everything needs an audience, okay? And it feels good to keep things to yourself. I really think it feels so nice to have a private moment with someone that you really love, you really care about, and only you guys know about those moments. Obviously, if you tell your friends or he tells his friends or she tells her friends, whatever it is, that's different than publicizing it on the internet. I feel like it ruins so many special and private moments when you start taking out your phone and you record the thing. Like privacy, privacy, privacy, privacy. That's all I gotta say. And in my opinion, a lot of growth needs privacy. Not all, but a lot. And I think with reinvention and what makes it a struggle is that we feel that we're gonna miss our old life. We're gonna miss our old friends, we're gonna miss the way we used to party. We feel like we're really gonna miss that part of ourselves. And I think that's what stops us a lot too, because that thought of literally being like, okay, I have to get all new friends now. I no longer fit in. How am I gonna do this? I only know this one way. Becoming something new is uncertain, it's scary, and that's what stops us. And I get it. And uncertainty doesn't mean we're doing anything wrong necessarily, and most importantly, it's okay if you miss your old self. That's the whole point. Once you realize you can't keep doing the same things you're doing to get to where you want to go, you lose that whole idea of missing yourself because the new version of yourself you love so much that that old version is just a thing in the past. And yes, it's fun to reflect and look back. There's nothing wrong with that, and that is great, and we have to do that. But moving forward, you have to love the version that you are becoming because that's the version that's gonna really carry you through these other experiences that are completely different than what you had already lived in the best way possible. And this means you're growing. Uncertainty and uncomfort means you're growing. So good job, girl. So if you've been feeling restless, confused, in between, like I said, you really need to have some awareness about it. And I think you do, which is why you're here. And I love that you're here. So you really have the first step done already, which is awesome. And so after that, you want to start with one little thing that you can change. Look at your live, do an audit. So you've been feeling any of these emotions that we talked about today, you're feeling restless, confused, all over the place, disconnected, like you're craving something, but you just don't know what it is, but you know you want more. This is your sign. Your reinvention does not have to look like what it looks like online, doesn't have to be dramatic, it doesn't have to be big. It can be small little changes that get you to that reinvention. It doesn't have to blow up your entire life. Things don't have to be on fire, flames, or anything like that. You don't need permission, most importantly, and you don't have to hit rock bottom to reinvent yourself. You really just need the courage to stand up and say, I want to make a change and actually take the steps to doing it. It's a beautiful thing when your current version of yourself no longer fits with your life. I think that that is an incredible spot to be in as a woman who wants to change her life. That can mean so many different things, whether that's leaving an abusive relationship, whether that's leaving a job that doesn't appreciate you, whether that's getting out of a friend group that you feel like you have been taken advantage of, whatever that means for you, it's a beautiful place to have that kind of awareness. So pat yourself on the back, show yourself some grace, and let yourself know that this is a part of growing up. This is just a part of it. Your reinvention started the second that you told yourself that you wanted to make a change and that you wanted to do something different and you started doing it. That is reinvention. So if you got anything from this episode and it made you feel something, pass it along to a friend and let her know this episode is perfect for her and that she is doing a great job. If she's in her transformation season, like I'm in a transformation season, then we should be doing this together. That is what being the CEO of your life is about taking charge, changing, adapting, making things how you want it. That is what the CEO of your life is all about. So, as always, thank you so much for being here. I hope you got something from this. And feel free to subscribe. I would love to become friends. Send me a comment, let me know if you have any questions or clarification or something you would like me to talk about because I'm open to it. So, have a lovely night or day, morning, whatever time of the day is. I'm glad that you're here with me. Have a lovely rest of your day. I just said that, but have a lovely rest of your day. Take care of yourself, be kind to yourself, and always, always, always show yourself some grace. And I will see you on the next episode of C O V. Bye.