The 2 Articles That Have Helped Me Reinvent My Life

There are a lot of stories, articles, blog posts on the World Wide Web. Stories that hope to convey information, be an inspiration, and to make an impact on whoever should come across it.

I spend way too much of my time browsing the Net. Most times, I read articles and quickly forget about them but there are days where I come across an article so poignant and life-changing that my mind automatically goes back to it when I’m feeling uninspired, unmotivated, or just down in the dumps. These articles jump start me and because someone took the time to write them, my life has been forever changed by their words.

Amongst the thousands of stories and articles I’ve ever found on the Internet, these 2 articles have made the greatest impact on my life thus far.

"The Ultimate Guide To Reinventing Yourself" By James Altucher

There are about a million guides to reinventing ourselves, each one with very similar advice. But James Althcher’s article on reinventing ourselves is really, as he claims, the ultimate guide.

Most reinvention articles I’ve read are listicles that tell us to focus on ourselves, figure out why you are the way you are, change your habits, wake up early, plan for the future, etc. While this type of advice are helpful reminders, these articles make the act of reinvention sound easy, that it should happen for us relatively quickly even if the author spent much of their reinvention process in anguish.

Reinvention is not easy. Take it from me. I’ve been trying for years with little success.

James’ ultimate guide isn’t some vague listicle and it doesn’t give you a disillusioned sense that reinvention is easy but it doesn’t need to be that difficult either. To start the process of reinventing yourself, all you need to do is start reading, writing, and think. I mean it’s what we teach 5-year-olds.

As much as I loved the way he addressed all the FAQs that one could possibly have about reinventing oneself, the one point that really stood out to me in this article is that it gives you a timeline for how long it should take for one for reinvention.

5 Years.

Most articles won’t give you a specific timeline for reinvention but James does.

He says “It doesn’t take longer than 5 years and it won’t take less” and he also succinctly indicates that you are basically floundering like a fish out of water for the first four. It isn’t until year 5 that you really hit your stride.

5 Years.

That one detail has kept me going when I feel like a complete failure, when I didn’t want to keep going, when I thought that whatever effort I put in was inane and useless, and every time I wanted to pull my hair out.

With this ultimate guide, I realized it’s supposed to be like that. The anguish, doubt, fear comes with the territory. You are supposed to feel like crap when you’re trying to change yourself. After all, change kind of sucks.

Reinvention isn’t going to necessarily make your life perfect and it might not make you filthy rich but it could make you 1% better than you are today and I’ll take that 1% over zero any day.

So 5 years.

Okay James. I’ve put my faith in you that in 5 years, there will be a ME 2.0 if I put in the work and just ride out the dips of the reinvention curve.

Many won’t want to ride this wave for 5 years because 5 years seems like a lifetime and we all want instant change, instant gratification, even instant noodles are delicious. We want instant everything but we need to be in it for the long haul if we’re really going to see change in ourselves.

Bill Gates said,

“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

In this world of instant gratification, we highly overestimate what can be achieved in a day or I like to argue, how much we feel we’ve achieved in a day. But steady work and feeling like you want to pull your hair out every day can get us to where we want to be in 10 years' time, or in my case, hopefully in 5 years.

Five years might seem like a long time but it will also come faster than we know. Might as well flop and flounder towards a better me than be exactly where I am right now in the next 5 years.

"Parents, Live Your Lives. Your Children Are Watching" by Jack Preston King

Sometimes you find a story that gives you that “Aha” moment. That article for me was this one written by Jack Preston King and I’ve never been able to get it out of my head. It gave me so much clarity about my upbringing, the person I am now, and the type of parent I want to be for myself and for my family.

It’s a provocative and sad story about Mr. King’s own upbringing, how his mother was too burdened by her children to live a life of her own and how this has impacted his own life.

Call it good timing or luck but I found this article when I was pregnant. I was going to be a first-time mom and I had no idea how I was going to navigate being a mom and being me at the same time. As a new parent, you often think that your life needs to be given to this new life you created but that’s not the case and shouldn’t be either.

This story has changed my mind about how I want to raise my child and how I want to behave as a parent. My parent’s world revolved around us kids. They worked and worked for us. My mom has been in the same job for 30 years and my dad has always been in manufacturing. Both working manual labour jobs for decades. My parents have so much talent. My mom is a top-notch cook (I would even call her a chef) and my dad just attracts people to him. As talented as they are and as happy as they seem, I sometimes wonder if they wasted their potential to raise our family. We never felt like burdens and I don’t believe they ever thought of us as one but did they sacrifice who they could’ve been to raise us?

I don’t know and I’ll probably never find out.

When we become parents, we can either see ourselves as limited or limitless. We can see our children as the reason why we can’t chase our passions or we can see them as the reason why we should.

Before I found this story, I was a bit of a mental and emotional mess about becoming a mom. I had moments when I thought I would have to sacrifice everything I built and my potential to take care of a baby.

Total mental and emotional breakdowns in the bathroom.

But since I’ve found this story, I automatically think about it every time I feel guilty about sending him to daycare rather than staying home or writing while my husband watches and plays with him. I think about it and work through the guilt because I want him to know that he is not and will not be the reason why I don’t chase my dreams or why I don’t even try to test my potential.

Because he’s not a burden to me and he’s watching me.

All the time.

Kids are more observant and absorbent than we think. They see everything and soak it all until it becomes a part of them. They can feel resentment and anger through our touch, our words, and attitude towards them or they can feel joy, independence, and laughter.

We can give them the latter if we pursue our own lives rather than dismissing it. So I’ve chosen to live my life not despite my baby but because of him.

This article was originally published on Medium