April 24, 2025 • 42 mins
If nothing else, our 20s are a time for reinvention and transformation. We become clearer and clearer about the version of us we want to be, and hopefully more confident around expressing our authentic elves, but sometimes this is interrupted by periods of boredom, stagnation, isolation and discomfort. These are all signs that something in our lives needs to change, and it needs to change now. In today's episode we break down five ways to reinvent yourself during your 20s, including:
- Theory of opposites
- Visualisation and choosing the 'theme' for your next era
- The timeline for change
- The power of risk + microrisks
- Changing 'what if' thinking into 'what else' or 'so what?' + more
Listen now when you're ready for transformation.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
the world, it is so great to have you here
back for another episode. Today's episode, though you may have
already noticed, is a rerun, So over the next two weeks,
I am putting out some of my best episodes from
(00:21):
the last four years of almost NonStop podcasting as I
just take some time away to launch my debut book,
Person in Progress, A Roadmap to the Psychology of Your Twenties.
Do not fret. I will be back on the twenty
ninth of April, but I just wanted to give my
book a little bit of extra love these next two
weeks because it's a big deal and I'm not going
to talk about it too much. I'm sure you're just
(00:43):
here to listen to the podcast and probably sick of
me talking about it, but I just want to say
thank you. I want to say a huge thank you
for allowing me to write this book and put it
out in the world. This is only possible because of
you all. Because of you, guys, the listeners. Literally, that's it.
That's the only reason I'm able to do this. And
(01:03):
I've wanted to be an author since I was five.
Twenty years later, you guys made that happen for me,
So just thank you, Thank you so much. I would
obviously love it if you could pre order it, buy it,
gift it to a friend, but you've already done so much,
and I just feel honored to have had this opportunity.
(01:24):
Most of all, I'm just really pumped for you guys
to read it. I hope that you learn something. I'm
sure if you love the podcast, you will love Person
in Progress as well. But it's a really exciting time
and the main feeling I have right now is one
of gratitude. So thank you so much. Without further ado,
I hope you enjoy this rerun of one of my
(01:45):
favorite all time episodes. Hello everybody, and welcome back to
the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk
through some of the big life changes and transitions of
our twenties and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody,
(02:13):
welcome back to the show. We'll welcome back to the
podcast new listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in the world,
it is so great to have you here. Back for
another episode. As we of course break down the psychology
of our twenties. If nothing else, our twenties are this
(02:33):
kind of beautiful time of transformation and reinvention. That is
a universal truth, a universal statement for me that each
of us, no matter what we're going through, what we're
struggling with, what we do or don't achieve, we will
have to rediscover time and time again who we are,
and we also have to rediscover how far off that
(02:55):
is from who we want to be. Probably hundreds of
times during this pero period of emerging adulthood, we spend
so much of childhood and also our teenage years being
the person that others want us to be, or rebelling
against this version entirely to carve out what we think
is our own space. And I think our twenties is
(03:17):
when we start to find balance and we really get
the chance to do that all over again and independently,
and we approach self discovery with a new maturity and
a new sense of truth, things about us become a
lot more clear, and what we're likely to experience is
(03:37):
a bit of a metamorphosis and a shedding of the
old into the new. This is definitely a right of passage,
and sometimes it's deeply uncomfortable. But when you get to
the point of not really enjoying your life, not liking
who you are, not knowing what you stand for, what
your dreams are, who you even want to be, you're really,
(04:01):
I think, called to a place of reinvention. And that
is what I want to talk about today. How can
we reinvent and rediscover ourselves in our twenties when things
start to feel stagnant or off, or we start to
feel a sense of disconnection between who we are right
now and who we really want to be, how do
we kind of shake things up? How do we find
(04:22):
our path? How do we have that refresh where we
fall back in love with our lives through our old actions. Well,
we are going to talk through five tips that you
can work through either step by step or you can
kind of choose one or the other for reinvention during
this decade. This includes some methods for visualizing your next
(04:44):
chapter and how to use psychology to really motivate yourself
to get there, How to use psychology to motivate a
sense of confidence. Also, how we can use that discomfort,
use the bortom, the isolation, the stagnation, the un certainty
in our favor rather than fighting against it. How can
(05:04):
we actually take all of those things that are making
us cravery invention and help us get there rather than
kind of, I don't know, burden us. We are also
going to discuss the power of risk and this construct
called the timeline for change and how to shift from
(05:27):
very anxious what if thinking to a what else or
so what mentality, which is honestly one of my favorite
ways to think about this. One of my favorite ideas
in this space is that switch, that mental and cognitive
switch from seeing things in a disaster scenario lens, or
from a disaster scenario lens to an abundant lens from
(05:50):
an abundant position of excess and authenticity and growth. I've
got to say this is one of my favorite episodes
I've done as of recent because it just combines all
my favorite like nuggets of advice and theories into one package,
and truly it really represents so much of my philosophy
(06:12):
towards this period in our lives. You know, our twenties
are for exploration, They are for reinvention, rebuilding, transformation more
so than any other time. So I really want us
to be able to unlock that for ourselves, even if
it's through small steps, even if it's not as drastic
as you're picturing. Also, I guess whenever I get the
(06:33):
opportunity to talk about risk and our approach to uncertainty,
that is like a favorite topic of mine because it's
something that I deeply, deeply think is important that we
stop seeing risk is scary and we start seeing risk
as investment. It really falls into this overall concept and
topic of reinvention. So I am very excited to talk
(06:58):
about this. I'm enthused, I'm invigorated. So I think, without
further ado, let us get into the five ways that
we can reinvent ourselves in our twenties. Reinventing yourself changing
your life, I think it really has to begin with
(07:19):
identifying what it is about your current circumstances, your day
to day, your habits that are dissatisfying to you. What
is the main feeling that you have towards your life
at the moment that is giving you this itch to
change things up, that is making you restless. There are
a few big ones that I think are specifically noteworthy
(07:42):
in our twenties. The first one is boredom. Boredom feeling
like not much is happening in your life. Nothing exciting
is happening, nothing is changing, You're not changing the things
that really elevate our day to day experiences, like adventure,
like excitement, like spontaneity. It's just not there. It's this
(08:03):
sense of just like plainness, boredom is the first one.
Then we have stagnation, and this is very similar to boredom,
but it's more so centered on a sense that you've
kind of become complacent in some domain of your life,
even if you're still doing fun things. This is particularly
to do with our careers or to do with some
larger goal finding that you know you're really not working
(08:26):
towards something the way that you anticipated that you would
be or the way that you have in the past,
feeling very stuck. Then we have isolation, lacking connection, lacking community,
feeling lonely, and maybe with that, you know some fomo
that you're missing out on the experiences that others seem
to be having during this time. And then the final
(08:48):
feeling that I think also makes us quite itchy for
change is just a general discomfort, a feeling that's probably
very similar to anxiety that something about your life just
isn't quite right. You don't seem to fit in your
current circumstances anymore. You know, you have these habits, these friends,
these situations that your body is very instinctually telling you
(09:11):
this is not what we want. We're not comfortable here,
we're not happy here. And often it does that through
heightened sensitivity, being very nervous, repetitive thoughts, that again and
again bringing you back to some issue that you're having
a sense of detachment between who you know you can
be and who you are now. So these feelings boredom, stagnation, isolation,
(09:36):
and discomfort, they tell us something very useful, even though
it's unpleasant. And what they're telling us is that we
need to change, we need to shift, we need to
be doing something different, and hopefully sooner rather than later.
The reason that I say sooner rather than later is
because if you don't do something, not instantly, but pretty soon,
(10:00):
the alternative is that we begin to get quite comfortable
with the discomfort. We get comfortable with being bored, with
being lonely, with being stuck, and we think that that's normal.
In psychology, this process is actually called habituation, and it
refers to our tendency to get more and more used
(10:21):
to something that used to frustrate us or bother us
as time goes on. You know, I think about so I,
for example, I actually live under like a plane line
what's it called, like a flight path? Right, And when
I first moved into this house, like the sound of
planes going overhead was so would just bother me so much,
(10:43):
it was all I could think about. But the longer
that I've lived here, I don't even notice it anymore.
Like I'm sure that about five planes had probably flown
over the skies above my house in the time that
I've been recording this. But I've become habituated. And that
is the same thing that happens when we get comfortable
with something that we should not be comfortable with. You
(11:05):
should not be comfortable with being born in your life,
or being isolated, or being you know, stagnant. And we
have a really small window to stop that habituation from happening,
and to act otherwise. It does get harder and harder.
It's like breaking a bad habit. What we want to
explore is what life would look like if we flipped
(11:27):
those emotional states to be the complete opposite. So when
we felt bored. We made a commitment to pursue excitement
when we felt stagnant. We made a commitment to pursue growth,
to pursue connection over isolation, to pursue peace and boundaries
over discomfort. So what I want from you is to
(11:49):
begin with notice what is driving you to want to
reinvent or refresh your life, and then make a plan
for the next thirty days to do all the things
feel the exact opposite to that initial feeling. We're going
to really shake up your life whilst you're still feeling
motivated by the discomfort. For example, if you are just
(12:13):
feeling so bored with your life right now, I want
you to make a list in your notes up or
on a sheet of paper to put on your fridge
of a series of activities that you've always wanted to
do in your city or your town that you haven't
and I want you to be committed to doing one
every two days, every three days. Or if there is
a class a hobby you've always wanted to pursue, sign
(12:34):
up for a six week course that you have to
go to week after a week, get a new gym membership,
just do something different. Novel experiences quite literally give the
impression of creating more time in our lives. And there's
a twenty sixteen study around this that has become quite
well known that found that the older we get, time
(12:57):
does seem to actually pass quicker, not because it's actually
going any faster, but because we are learning less, we
are exposed to fewer new things, we become more accustomed
to what we already know. But what actually creates the
mental experience of more time is novelty and newness, and
(13:18):
that is what we need to reintroduce to kind of
pull us out of the path towards indifference and monotony.
So put the excitement back in your life, because that
is a choice for you. You know, that is something
that you can change on your own to reinvent how
you feel about your circumstances. The same goes for if
you're feeling stagnant, you know, identify what area that's in
(13:40):
and make yourself a list of a series of things
that you know would help you break out of that.
If it's work related, which I find it often is,
or career related, I want you to change your routine.
I want you to spend thirty minutes a day applying
for new jobs. Instead of scrolling, I want you to
be networking. I want you to be, you know, re
out to people that you admire online, shooting off those
(14:03):
emails so that when you go to bed, you have
a sense that you've done something. You know, sign up
for the networking event, contemplate what you could do next.
I think reinvention is all about movement and picking the
direction you want to go in and actually pursuing it.
Once you've kind of tested sliding the dial to your boredom,
(14:25):
your stagnation, whatever it is, in the opposite direction, it's
time to really begin to visualize your next error and
who this new version of you will be, but also
how this new version of you will act. You know,
in your wildest fantasies, your greatest, largest dreams, who is
your authentic self? Who is the character staring back at you?
(14:49):
If you still are unsure about who that is, how
to even visualize this version of yourself? I have some
questions to really help you bring elements of this person forward.
So what are some of the dreams that you've had
for as long as you can remember that you've always
put off? What truly excites you? What could you talk
about for hours in five years time, what would your
(15:12):
ideal but average day in your life look like? And
how is that different from now? What chapter of your
life are you ready to close? And what is holding
you back from closing that chapter or what is holding
you back from putting everything behind the truest version of yourself.
Your answers to these questions should really begin to direct
(15:35):
you to what this next era of your life is
going to bring. You know, if you were to look
back I think, and if we were to look back
at past version, you know, past parts of our life story,
you start to really see in hindsight these strange lines
or periods that are carved into your memories. You begin
to notice that life isn't one long sequence of events
(15:58):
and I guess it, but actually it's a series of
seasons and a series of periods within which you've had
different goals, maybe different friends, different ambitions, different sense of style.
You maybe've even lived in a different place, your routine
was different. We each have these different errors or chapters
(16:18):
of our lives that represent who we were and what
we were going through at that time. And this next
era for you is going to be one of authenticity.
It's going to be one where you're going to channel
all of those deeply rooted dreams and values and goals
and actually just spend the next six months to a
(16:41):
year prioritizing them. That is how you're going to bring
yourself into this next chapter and reinvent yourself. We can
be in the business of deciding when a new season
begins for us, regardless of what is happening externally, and
that really starts with being able to see, feel, touch, here,
(17:01):
experience what this new era represents for you before it
even emerges. And you've already done that in a way
by focusing on those questions that we were talking about before.
You do already have an idea, but then you have
to get it out of your mind into some physical form,
either through action or through something like visualization. So some
ways that people do this is through like vision boards,
(17:23):
you know, spending an afternoon really putting to page or
to poster what this next chapter looks like for you,
you know, with pictures of destinations that you'll visit and
accomplishments and the nature that you'll see, the mornings that
you'll have, the hobbies that will relax you. You need
to have an idea of what you're actually aiming for here,
and visualization is extremely psychologically powerful. There was a recent
(17:47):
study that said about a quarter of successful entrepreneurs use
vision boards or a similar process to map out change
for themselves. And there was a twenty nineteen study that
also suggests that vision boards, as much as we sometimes
think that they're silly, actually no, they almost double an
individual's level of confidence in their ability to effectively execute
(18:10):
actions necessary to achieve a desired outcome. And it really
promotes people to seek out supportive resources, and it keeps
this vision of who they want to be, who they're
working towards, very squarely in the front of their mind.
Because life is full of distractions. There are lots of
(18:31):
things pulling us this way that way. You know, you're busy,
you know, there's people's expectations, there's money to worry about,
there's you know, relationships to worry about. But this method
really squarely says, very deeply, says no, this is what
we're working towards right now, This is who we want
to be. Another way to do this if visualization and
(18:54):
you know, mood boards, vision boards sorry, aren't really your
favorite method. It's too idea identify a theme for your
new Error that you really want to embody and that
you will use to charge, motivate, direct everything that you're
doing in this new season. As in, you know, when
(19:14):
it's time to make a decision or you have a
hard choice ahead of you, I want you to have
that one theme, that one word that decisively chooses for you.
Let me explain this a little bit more so with
this new Error. Your theme could be discipline, It could
be reinvention, rebirth, passion, creativity, authenticity, exploration, intuition, focus, courage.
(19:43):
I want you to choose one of those, or one
of your own, a theme that is going to sit
at the core of everything you aim to do for
the next six months. Let me use the theme of
reinvention here to explain why this works. You know it's
very appropriate for this episode, but to embody reinvention, that
really means doing things differently right, making space for what's new,
(20:05):
making space for things that you haven't tried before. Maybe
because you're scared, you're embarrassed, you're held back by the
judgments of others, but you're going to do it anyways.
You are stepping into this new era, You're reinventing yourself.
So if someone invites you to a party that you'd
normally not go to and you're kind of arming and
erring about whether you want to go, you have an
easy solution here, what decision would best align with that theme? Reinvention.
(20:31):
The decision that best aligns is to go to the party.
That is your directive. If you're back and forthing over
leaving the house and I don't know, an outfit that
you probably never wear and you're like, maybe I should
take this off. I don't really know. Well, you have
to be guided by reinvention above all else. Everything is
coming back to this theme for the next six months.
(20:53):
It is a very simple, you know, compass for you,
a decision making tool that's like, Okay, if I'm face
with two choices, the one that best aligns with my
theme is the one that I have to do, is
the one that I need to pursue. This is just
such a powerful, I think, mental trick, because sometimes we
(21:14):
set out to reinvent our lives and like I said,
you know, you kind of try and do a whole overhaul,
and you want to change everything right now at once,
and eventually, like this version of you that you're actually
aiming for gets a little bit lost in all the chaos.
When you simplify it, when you bring it back to
one theme and one theme only, you are just better
(21:35):
able to truly focus and not get caught up in
the clutter and not get caught up in the chaos
that transformation often brings. Moving beyond this method, let's now
turn to some longer term activities for refreshing recharging your
life in your twenties, specifically to do with goal setting. Now,
(21:55):
I'm going to say something that might be controversial, that
might be unexpected, but goal setting to me is one
of the most boring things to talk about in the world.
And that might surprise you, but I really struggle to,
you know, be around people who have a million goals
for every single thing in their life because it just
feels so intense and disciplined to me. And my natural
(22:17):
inclination is and was, to really feel my way through
things and to like go with my gut rather than
having like a two year, five year plan. You know,
I could work very hard at things for a long
period of time, but you know, I wasn't really into
resetting goals every six months and planning out where I
wanted to be and doing distinct things to make that happen.
(22:41):
I have slowly begun to retire that philosophy that you know,
I think I was misguided. I thought that goal setting
had to be really intensive, when actually, no, it doesn't
have to be that way. It doesn't have to make
you an ultra disciplined person. Actually it's really about change,
(23:02):
right And you know, as we always say, nothing changes
if you don't and in a similar vein, nothing changes
if you can't imagine them changing. And that is really
what goal setting is all about, saying to yourself, this
could be different. This part of my life, my routine,
my lifestyle, my job could be different, and I could
(23:22):
be happier. And I'm going to trust myself and I'm
going to believe that I am capable of doing that,
of bringing about that change. I think, instead of having
one big goal that is miles away. I was recently
introduced to this concept called the timeline for change. And
the timeline for change is another way of conceptualizing your
(23:44):
goals or setting up benchmarks that is a bit less
intensive and more daily and broken down into these small pieces.
You have a one year goal, a six month goal,
a monthly goal and a day or what we would
you know typically call a micro habit, the thing that
you do each day that hopefully builds to the big
(24:07):
win at the end. You can really then apply this
like timeline for change to whatever area you desire, whatever
area needs reinvention, needs a refresh. It could be Korea, friendship.
Health finance is a creative passion. Think about, you know,
transforming your health. For example, you know, perhaps your timeline
(24:28):
for change would be to every day walk for thirty minutes,
and then your one month goal would be to go
to the gym twice a week. Your six month goal
is to run a five k and by one year
to have a gym routine and be able to run
ten k. I think fitness related goals slot very easily
into the timeline for change, but you can kind of
see how this method really allows you to combine both
(24:51):
momentum and sustainable habit building with that long term planning.
You know, because your your goals are sitting along a
gym nie, they're sitting along a timeline rather than just
consisting of a start line, an ambitious big dream, and
a finish line. You know a sense of what is
going to be like when you get there and you
(25:13):
know nothing in between. And I think that is exactly
why most New Year's resolutions often fail. You know, there
was a poll done by the University of Ohio that
showed twenty three percent of people will quit their New
Year's resolutions by the end of January seventh, and almost
fifty percent by the second week because we underestimate how
much progress we're going to make, so we think too big,
(25:34):
and we lack the positive reinforcement along the way because
we're only thinking about the beginning and the end and
b to enact those significant and immediate changes you know,
psychologically and physically speaking, is it's very very difficult. It's
very difficult to just come in all guns blazing and
change everything about your life. You need to build that
(25:56):
foundation through consistency, not through new peaks with and you know,
dashes of effort. So, to summarize our third tip, give
yourself the necessary space for reinvention by making things actionable,
by making things realistic, and really implementing a sustainable timeline
(26:16):
for change that you are both excited about but is
also very very doable. Okay, my lovely listeners, we are
going to take a short break. But when we're back,
I want to discuss so more of you know, more
of our spontaneous, rebellious maybe refreshing paths for change, a
more energetic, you know, perspective on reinvention. We have a
(26:40):
lot more to talk about, so please stay with us.
At some stage you are going to have to do
something that really scares you or that you didn't think
was possible. If you want to grow into your next
phase long term goal setting, having a planning phase, visualizing,
(27:02):
articulating what you want, labeling this new error for yourself
is so wonderful. You know, by that stage you really
you can't go wrong. But one of the easiest ways
to almost guarantee transformation and to speed up your reinvention
your realignment is to take risks, big or small. Risk
(27:23):
in my mind, is like the fast forward button. There's
less accuracy about where you're going to end up right,
like you're skipping through a movie. You want to get
to the action quicker, but it means that you really
propel yourself even faster into this new era. There is
not a single person that you admire, that you respect,
you idolize, whether that is professionally or personally that has
(27:46):
gotten to where they are without being a little bit
daunted and unsure of whether they made the right decision.
You know, actually, for me, if you're questioning whether you've
made the right decision, you are exactly in the place
you need to be, because those are the decisions that
really contribute to growth. Easy decisions feel great because they
(28:07):
don't require you to really question anything fundamental about yourself.
But hard decisions risks. That is where you really have
to look in the mirror and question what do I
actually want from my life? A lot of people don't
do that. Another way I think about it is, you
know how when we build muscle at the gym or
(28:28):
when we're working out, what is actually happening are these microtares.
You know, things are ripping, spaces being made. It's painful,
but then those holes get filled with new mass and
we grow. It's a strange analogy, I know, but it's
how I think about risk. You know, it's small tears
that are sometimes sore, that are sometimes uncomfortable. I don't
(28:49):
really know what you're doing, you know, you don't really
know what you're doing, but it needs to happen in
order to bring about strength and psychologically, risk is scary
naturally right, because anything that's unfamiliar will cause our brain
to have quite a natural hesitancy, because it is hesitant
towards the unknown. But just because your mind says something
(29:12):
is scary doesn't necessarily mean it should be avoided. Actually,
it might mean the opposite. If you're going to do
one thing to reinvent yourself during this decade, it's to
take a risk that you've always wanted to but never
imagine that you could. And I'm going to give you
like a rapid fire list as to why I believe
(29:34):
this truly and deeply, and I want you to seriously
try and rebut my reasons with the reasons why you shouldn't.
Number one, you will never have as few responsibilities as
you do now. Number two, you are the youngest that
you will ever be, probably with the least to lose.
You will never have more time than you have right now.
(29:55):
I also think that risks are an investment. They are
not a cost. They will benefit your life and your
foundations way more than the risks that you don't take,
and way more than playing it safe. And finally, in
a very similar vein, you are more likely to live
with regret over the risks you didn't take over the
(30:18):
ones that you did. And if you want some anecdotal
primary evidence of this, ask your parents or your grandparents
next time you see them what their biggest regrets are,
and I would say eighty percent of the time, your
parents are going to say, oh, you know, the time
I didn't travel, the time I was too scared to
do that thing that I should have, the time that
(30:40):
I didn't tell that person I loved them, the time
that I said no to an opportunity that I really
actually should have taken. Because of imposter syndrome, regret often
feeds off in action rather than action. Here's the thing,
reinventing yourself through risk doesn't have to be dramatic. Some
of us get really paralyzed by this idea that to
(31:01):
move forward we have to do something we are deeply
uncertain of. And normally this is the case if if
you're quite risk averse, right so, in psychology and economics
even there are these different profiles of the types of
people in their perspective on risk. There are risk positive people,
people who will put it all on the line very
frequently without really considering the costs. There are risk neutral people,
(31:24):
people who are very practical, almost mathematical, about the costs
and benefits of a risk. And then there are risk
averse individuals, those of us whose minds just naturally exaggerate
the consequences and the costs of the risk over the
benefits to the point where the risk actually seems entirely ridiculous.
You know, we are convinced that we should always play
(31:45):
it safe. And if that is you, if the idea
of moving to a new country knowing no one, quitting
your job without anything lined up, if that is really
really scary. What I want you to adopt is this
idea of micro risks, things that you can slowly incorporate
to almost increase your tolerance for the uncertainty that comes
(32:08):
along with these decisions. You can go on solo dates,
You can go on microadventures on the weekend solo. You
don't have to travel across the world. You can book
an airbnb for the weekend in the mountains near national
parks and we're like an hour or two away and
just enjoy a new part of the world alone. My
(32:28):
cousin Stella, actually she was just messaging me about her
solo camping trip that she's been on for the last
two to three days. Literally she's only like an hour
or two from her home, but she's just having the
most amazing time, and she's doing something that she may
not normally do, and it's just completely expanded her perspective
on her life, like in the span of two days,
(32:49):
just getting out of an old environment and into a
new one. These are small but mighty choices. Some more examples.
You know, share your passion, your art, your hobbies, your
lifestyle online to a private audience. Ask new people to
go for coffee, be spontaneous, do something different this weekend
that's not your usual Sunday reset, Start putting twenty dollars
(33:13):
a week aside purely for a dream fund. Just take
those first steps without worrying about them being perfect. And
that might not sound like a risky thing to do
for some people, but I think anything that goes against
the habits, the systems, the routines that you have in
place to keep you secure and safe that you are
(33:33):
using as a crutch. Anything that's like that, that is
a risk. That is a risk that you are taking
to go against what your natural, deeply ingrained intuition is
telling you to do. What I want you to remember
is that you are in charge here of creating a
reality you love, creating a version of yourself that you
(33:53):
love even more. Sometimes that's going to take courage. The
path to reinvention, I think involves risk, and it involves
a little bit of fear. So my fifth and my
final tip for you today is to stop asking yourself
what if and instead replace that with what else? Or
(34:14):
my favorite, so what Each of us again, has an
idea of our truer selves, the person that we would
be if no one else was watching, If this magical
switch was turned, that suddenly meant that you were free
from others opinions, if the only person we were focused
on was ourselves. We all had this idea of who
we would be in that situation. They're almost a fantasy.
(34:37):
They are a character, you know, that we've created that
we one day aspire to be, but we're not really
not really focused on that right now now. The things
that are really maintaining that gap between who we are
now and who we would really love to be is
normally our fear of judgment, our fear of upsetting others
and their expectations, our fear of embarrassment of being perceived,
(35:00):
that's a huge one, and our fear of change. These
fears are all maintained by these what if disaster scenarios.
If I start putting myself out there, if I start
being loud about my hobbies, about my desires, if I
start wearing what I want, if I start staying no
to people, if I let myself be perceived as my truest,
(35:23):
authentic self. What if no one likes this version of me?
What if I'm ostracized. What if I tell someone about
my dreams and I fail? What if people don't like
this reinvented version of me, I lose all my friends
and I end up alone? You know? What if? What if?
What if? Not only are most of these very social fears,
(35:46):
meaning that we are being guided more so by the
potential opinions of others rather than the reality that we
are the only one who has to experience and enjoy
our lives, but they are also just anxious thought. They
are not predictions. They most likely not come true. If
you've listened to our most recent episode on anxiety, you'll
(36:11):
know that the easiest way to distinguish between an anxious
thought and a thought that you should pay attention to
is if those thoughts begin with a what if, here's
how we counteract that. We counteract it with what else?
Or so what statements. So let's take this statement, what
(36:31):
if I tell everyone about my dreams and I fail?
You know, I'll be so embarrassed. I better play it safe.
That's one way of thinking, and it is a naturally
limited way of thinking. But consider now ending that statement
with so what. Okay, maybe I'll be embarrassed, so what?
What is the worst case scenario? I'm embarrassed, it's uncomfortable,
(36:52):
so what? So people might not like me? So what?
And then again, keep going, keep going with the so
what's until you get to the final conclusion of your
fear and you realize that actually there is not much
harm that embarrassment can really do. This method is about
taking an anxious, fear based thought and actually interrogating it,
(37:15):
because so often we're too scared to even think about
our anxious thoughts that we just let them get away
with lying to us. But when we say so what,
our anxiety kind of is like, oh, well, you've never
questioned me before, so I don't really know. I don't
really know what's going to happen. And that's when I
think we see things more clearly. We see things for
(37:37):
what they really are, which is not as big in
reality as they are in our minds. The other option
is to say, well, what else? What if people don't
like this new version of me? Okay, that's one unlikely option,
but what else? Let's expand that disaster scenario and go
in search of some other alternatives. You know, what if
(37:58):
I actually attract people who are really aligned with who
I truly am. What if I suddenly meet the greatest
friends I'll ever have? What if I suddenly attract a
love that I deserve? What if I completely level up
every aspect of my life and I never look back.
What if I am the happiest I've ever been? What else? Remember?
(38:22):
The first thought that you have is probably not the
most accurate, and you can grab onto that thought. You
can let it control you, you can let it dominate
your choices. But you also have this extreme power and
ability to be whoever you want to be if you
just zoom out and question your fear, replacing that what
(38:45):
if with what else? Or so what during this brief
time that we have on earth? You deserve at the
bare minimum to actually be yourself. Sometimes we do find
ourselves in a loop of not knowing who we are,
not liking who we are either not liking our lives
because of boredom, stagnation, you know, isolation. The longer you
(39:07):
spend as this version of you, you will become quite
used to the discomfort, and you will no longer feel
like you have to outgrow that shell. You'll just keep
squeezing yourself back in, hiding away, and it becomes a
lot easier to tolerate. I don't want that for you,
to be honest, I don't want that for anyone. I
(39:29):
don't want anyone to be eighty and think, what if
I've just done it a little bit bigger? What if
I just had one six month period of reinvention? Because
you have no idea what that could do for your life.
You have no idea you know how much growth and
new experiences you could have in six months. How many
(39:50):
weeks is that? Oh my god, I've got to do
quick maths, like twenty four weeks. I could be completely wrong,
Please correct me. Twenty four weeks, right, yeah, you could
just be completely new person. That's twenty four weeks of
time for you to reinvent, transform, invest in yourself. This
is an investment. I really want you to take your
(40:10):
dream seriously. Take responsibility for your happiness, take responsibility for
evolving into the most authentic version of yourself, even if
that requires a bit of a painful metamorphosis. So I
really hope that you got something from this episode. I
hope that you can take on board this advice. You know,
(40:30):
you can cherry pick it as you wish, if some
things you already do, some things you don't, whatever you need,
take what you need. That's what we always say at
the end of these episodes, and feel free to send
it to someone else who you think my benefit, who
you think might enjoy what we've been talking about. As always,
five star reviews are also appreciated, as is a follow
(40:52):
either on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or on Instagram at
that Psychology podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, or you
have a few trure episode that you would like to suggest,
anything to do with psychology, self help, wellness in our twenties,
mental health in our twenties, I would love to hear
from you. A final tidbit, we do have an event,
(41:13):
a friendship event in Melbourne coming up on the tenth
of October. I thought I would sneak that in here.
So if you are Melbourne based listener and you want
to make some like minded friends, you want to meet me.
I think we have a few tickets left on event bright.
You can go to our Instagram and there will be
a link in our buyer. I'm really excited to meet
you guys, so let me know if I'm going to
(41:35):
see you there. If you'll be there, We'll be doing
heaps of other events in Sydney, Brisbane, in the Perth
I believe, and then also in the UK and later
next year in the US. So cannot wait to meet
you all. Until next time, Stay safe, stay kind, Please
be gentle with yourselves. You deserve a gentle life and
(41:55):
gentle thoughts. And we will talk very very soon.
Hello, everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
the world, it is so great to have you here
back for another episode. Today's episode, though you may have
already noticed, is a rerun, So over the next two weeks,
I am putting out some of my best episodes from
(00:21):
the last four years of almost NonStop podcasting as I
just take some time away to launch my debut book,
Person in Progress, A Roadmap to the Psychology of Your Twenties.
Do not fret. I will be back on the twenty
ninth of April, but I just wanted to give my
book a little bit of extra love these next two
weeks because it's a big deal and I'm not going
to talk about it too much. I'm sure you're just
(00:43):
here to listen to the podcast and probably sick of
me talking about it, but I just want to say
thank you. I want to say a huge thank you
for allowing me to write this book and put it
out in the world. This is only possible because of
you all. Because of you, guys, the listeners. Literally, that's it.
That's the only reason I'm able to do this. And
(01:03):
I've wanted to be an author since I was five.
Twenty years later, you guys made that happen for me,
So just thank you, Thank you so much. I would
obviously love it if you could pre order it, buy it,
gift it to a friend, but you've already done so much,
and I just feel honored to have had this opportunity.
(01:24):
Most of all, I'm just really pumped for you guys
to read it. I hope that you learn something. I'm
sure if you love the podcast, you will love Person
in Progress as well. But it's a really exciting time
and the main feeling I have right now is one
of gratitude. So thank you so much. Without further ado,
I hope you enjoy this rerun of one of my
(01:45):
favorite all time episodes. Hello everybody, and welcome back to
the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk
through some of the big life changes and transitions of
our twenties and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody,
(02:13):
welcome back to the show. We'll welcome back to the
podcast new listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in the world,
it is so great to have you here. Back for
another episode. As we of course break down the psychology
of our twenties. If nothing else, our twenties are this
(02:33):
kind of beautiful time of transformation and reinvention. That is
a universal truth, a universal statement for me that each
of us, no matter what we're going through, what we're
struggling with, what we do or don't achieve, we will
have to rediscover time and time again who we are,
and we also have to rediscover how far off that
(02:55):
is from who we want to be. Probably hundreds of
times during this pero period of emerging adulthood, we spend
so much of childhood and also our teenage years being
the person that others want us to be, or rebelling
against this version entirely to carve out what we think
is our own space. And I think our twenties is
(03:17):
when we start to find balance and we really get
the chance to do that all over again and independently,
and we approach self discovery with a new maturity and
a new sense of truth, things about us become a
lot more clear, and what we're likely to experience is
(03:37):
a bit of a metamorphosis and a shedding of the
old into the new. This is definitely a right of passage,
and sometimes it's deeply uncomfortable. But when you get to
the point of not really enjoying your life, not liking
who you are, not knowing what you stand for, what
your dreams are, who you even want to be, you're really,
(04:01):
I think, called to a place of reinvention. And that
is what I want to talk about today. How can
we reinvent and rediscover ourselves in our twenties when things
start to feel stagnant or off, or we start to
feel a sense of disconnection between who we are right
now and who we really want to be, how do
we kind of shake things up? How do we find
(04:22):
our path? How do we have that refresh where we
fall back in love with our lives through our old actions. Well,
we are going to talk through five tips that you
can work through either step by step or you can
kind of choose one or the other for reinvention during
this decade. This includes some methods for visualizing your next
(04:44):
chapter and how to use psychology to really motivate yourself
to get there, How to use psychology to motivate a
sense of confidence. Also, how we can use that discomfort,
use the bortom, the isolation, the stagnation, the un certainty
in our favor rather than fighting against it. How can
(05:04):
we actually take all of those things that are making
us cravery invention and help us get there rather than
kind of, I don't know, burden us. We are also
going to discuss the power of risk and this construct
called the timeline for change and how to shift from
(05:27):
very anxious what if thinking to a what else or
so what mentality, which is honestly one of my favorite
ways to think about this. One of my favorite ideas
in this space is that switch, that mental and cognitive
switch from seeing things in a disaster scenario lens, or
from a disaster scenario lens to an abundant lens from
(05:50):
an abundant position of excess and authenticity and growth. I've
got to say this is one of my favorite episodes
I've done as of recent because it just combines all
my favorite like nuggets of advice and theories into one package,
and truly it really represents so much of my philosophy
(06:12):
towards this period in our lives. You know, our twenties
are for exploration, They are for reinvention, rebuilding, transformation more
so than any other time. So I really want us
to be able to unlock that for ourselves, even if
it's through small steps, even if it's not as drastic
as you're picturing. Also, I guess whenever I get the
(06:33):
opportunity to talk about risk and our approach to uncertainty,
that is like a favorite topic of mine because it's
something that I deeply, deeply think is important that we
stop seeing risk is scary and we start seeing risk
as investment. It really falls into this overall concept and
topic of reinvention. So I am very excited to talk
(06:58):
about this. I'm enthused, I'm invigorated. So I think, without
further ado, let us get into the five ways that
we can reinvent ourselves in our twenties. Reinventing yourself changing
your life, I think it really has to begin with
(07:19):
identifying what it is about your current circumstances, your day
to day, your habits that are dissatisfying to you. What
is the main feeling that you have towards your life
at the moment that is giving you this itch to
change things up, that is making you restless. There are
a few big ones that I think are specifically noteworthy
(07:42):
in our twenties. The first one is boredom. Boredom feeling
like not much is happening in your life. Nothing exciting
is happening, nothing is changing, You're not changing the things
that really elevate our day to day experiences, like adventure,
like excitement, like spontaneity. It's just not there. It's this
(08:03):
sense of just like plainness, boredom is the first one.
Then we have stagnation, and this is very similar to boredom,
but it's more so centered on a sense that you've
kind of become complacent in some domain of your life,
even if you're still doing fun things. This is particularly
to do with our careers or to do with some
larger goal finding that you know you're really not working
(08:26):
towards something the way that you anticipated that you would
be or the way that you have in the past,
feeling very stuck. Then we have isolation, lacking connection, lacking community,
feeling lonely, and maybe with that, you know some fomo
that you're missing out on the experiences that others seem
to be having during this time. And then the final
(08:48):
feeling that I think also makes us quite itchy for
change is just a general discomfort, a feeling that's probably
very similar to anxiety that something about your life just
isn't quite right. You don't seem to fit in your
current circumstances anymore. You know, you have these habits, these friends,
these situations that your body is very instinctually telling you
(09:11):
this is not what we want. We're not comfortable here,
we're not happy here. And often it does that through
heightened sensitivity, being very nervous, repetitive thoughts, that again and
again bringing you back to some issue that you're having
a sense of detachment between who you know you can
be and who you are now. So these feelings boredom, stagnation, isolation,
(09:36):
and discomfort, they tell us something very useful, even though
it's unpleasant. And what they're telling us is that we
need to change, we need to shift, we need to
be doing something different, and hopefully sooner rather than later.
The reason that I say sooner rather than later is
because if you don't do something, not instantly, but pretty soon,
(10:00):
the alternative is that we begin to get quite comfortable
with the discomfort. We get comfortable with being bored, with
being lonely, with being stuck, and we think that that's normal.
In psychology, this process is actually called habituation, and it
refers to our tendency to get more and more used
(10:21):
to something that used to frustrate us or bother us
as time goes on. You know, I think about so I,
for example, I actually live under like a plane line
what's it called, like a flight path? Right, And when
I first moved into this house, like the sound of
planes going overhead was so would just bother me so much,
(10:43):
it was all I could think about. But the longer
that I've lived here, I don't even notice it anymore.
Like I'm sure that about five planes had probably flown
over the skies above my house in the time that
I've been recording this. But I've become habituated. And that
is the same thing that happens when we get comfortable
with something that we should not be comfortable with. You
(11:05):
should not be comfortable with being born in your life,
or being isolated, or being you know, stagnant. And we
have a really small window to stop that habituation from happening,
and to act otherwise. It does get harder and harder.
It's like breaking a bad habit. What we want to
explore is what life would look like if we flipped
(11:27):
those emotional states to be the complete opposite. So when
we felt bored. We made a commitment to pursue excitement
when we felt stagnant. We made a commitment to pursue growth,
to pursue connection over isolation, to pursue peace and boundaries
over discomfort. So what I want from you is to
(11:49):
begin with notice what is driving you to want to
reinvent or refresh your life, and then make a plan
for the next thirty days to do all the things
feel the exact opposite to that initial feeling. We're going
to really shake up your life whilst you're still feeling
motivated by the discomfort. For example, if you are just
(12:13):
feeling so bored with your life right now, I want
you to make a list in your notes up or
on a sheet of paper to put on your fridge
of a series of activities that you've always wanted to
do in your city or your town that you haven't
and I want you to be committed to doing one
every two days, every three days. Or if there is
a class a hobby you've always wanted to pursue, sign
(12:34):
up for a six week course that you have to
go to week after a week, get a new gym membership,
just do something different. Novel experiences quite literally give the
impression of creating more time in our lives. And there's
a twenty sixteen study around this that has become quite
well known that found that the older we get, time
(12:57):
does seem to actually pass quicker, not because it's actually
going any faster, but because we are learning less, we
are exposed to fewer new things, we become more accustomed
to what we already know. But what actually creates the
mental experience of more time is novelty and newness, and
(13:18):
that is what we need to reintroduce to kind of
pull us out of the path towards indifference and monotony.
So put the excitement back in your life, because that
is a choice for you. You know, that is something
that you can change on your own to reinvent how
you feel about your circumstances. The same goes for if
you're feeling stagnant, you know, identify what area that's in
(13:40):
and make yourself a list of a series of things
that you know would help you break out of that.
If it's work related, which I find it often is,
or career related, I want you to change your routine.
I want you to spend thirty minutes a day applying
for new jobs. Instead of scrolling, I want you to
be networking. I want you to be, you know, re
out to people that you admire online, shooting off those
(14:03):
emails so that when you go to bed, you have
a sense that you've done something. You know, sign up
for the networking event, contemplate what you could do next.
I think reinvention is all about movement and picking the
direction you want to go in and actually pursuing it.
Once you've kind of tested sliding the dial to your boredom,
(14:25):
your stagnation, whatever it is, in the opposite direction, it's
time to really begin to visualize your next error and
who this new version of you will be, but also
how this new version of you will act. You know,
in your wildest fantasies, your greatest, largest dreams, who is
your authentic self? Who is the character staring back at you?
(14:49):
If you still are unsure about who that is, how
to even visualize this version of yourself? I have some
questions to really help you bring elements of this person forward.
So what are some of the dreams that you've had
for as long as you can remember that you've always
put off? What truly excites you? What could you talk
about for hours in five years time, what would your
(15:12):
ideal but average day in your life look like? And
how is that different from now? What chapter of your
life are you ready to close? And what is holding
you back from closing that chapter or what is holding
you back from putting everything behind the truest version of yourself.
Your answers to these questions should really begin to direct
(15:35):
you to what this next era of your life is
going to bring. You know, if you were to look
back I think, and if we were to look back
at past version, you know, past parts of our life story,
you start to really see in hindsight these strange lines
or periods that are carved into your memories. You begin
to notice that life isn't one long sequence of events
(15:58):
and I guess it, but actually it's a series of
seasons and a series of periods within which you've had
different goals, maybe different friends, different ambitions, different sense of style.
You maybe've even lived in a different place, your routine
was different. We each have these different errors or chapters
(16:18):
of our lives that represent who we were and what
we were going through at that time. And this next
era for you is going to be one of authenticity.
It's going to be one where you're going to channel
all of those deeply rooted dreams and values and goals
and actually just spend the next six months to a
(16:41):
year prioritizing them. That is how you're going to bring
yourself into this next chapter and reinvent yourself. We can
be in the business of deciding when a new season
begins for us, regardless of what is happening externally, and
that really starts with being able to see, feel, touch, here,
(17:01):
experience what this new era represents for you before it
even emerges. And you've already done that in a way
by focusing on those questions that we were talking about before.
You do already have an idea, but then you have
to get it out of your mind into some physical form,
either through action or through something like visualization. So some
ways that people do this is through like vision boards,
(17:23):
you know, spending an afternoon really putting to page or
to poster what this next chapter looks like for you,
you know, with pictures of destinations that you'll visit and
accomplishments and the nature that you'll see, the mornings that
you'll have, the hobbies that will relax you. You need
to have an idea of what you're actually aiming for here,
and visualization is extremely psychologically powerful. There was a recent
(17:47):
study that said about a quarter of successful entrepreneurs use
vision boards or a similar process to map out change
for themselves. And there was a twenty nineteen study that
also suggests that vision boards, as much as we sometimes
think that they're silly, actually no, they almost double an
individual's level of confidence in their ability to effectively execute
(18:10):
actions necessary to achieve a desired outcome. And it really
promotes people to seek out supportive resources, and it keeps
this vision of who they want to be, who they're
working towards, very squarely in the front of their mind.
Because life is full of distractions. There are lots of
(18:31):
things pulling us this way that way. You know, you're busy,
you know, there's people's expectations, there's money to worry about,
there's you know, relationships to worry about. But this method
really squarely says, very deeply, says no, this is what
we're working towards right now, This is who we want
to be. Another way to do this if visualization and
(18:54):
you know, mood boards, vision boards sorry, aren't really your
favorite method. It's too idea identify a theme for your
new Error that you really want to embody and that
you will use to charge, motivate, direct everything that you're
doing in this new season. As in, you know, when
(19:14):
it's time to make a decision or you have a
hard choice ahead of you, I want you to have
that one theme, that one word that decisively chooses for you.
Let me explain this a little bit more so with
this new Error. Your theme could be discipline, It could
be reinvention, rebirth, passion, creativity, authenticity, exploration, intuition, focus, courage.
(19:43):
I want you to choose one of those, or one
of your own, a theme that is going to sit
at the core of everything you aim to do for
the next six months. Let me use the theme of
reinvention here to explain why this works. You know it's
very appropriate for this episode, but to embody reinvention, that
really means doing things differently right, making space for what's new,
(20:05):
making space for things that you haven't tried before. Maybe
because you're scared, you're embarrassed, you're held back by the
judgments of others, but you're going to do it anyways.
You are stepping into this new era, You're reinventing yourself.
So if someone invites you to a party that you'd
normally not go to and you're kind of arming and
erring about whether you want to go, you have an
easy solution here, what decision would best align with that theme? Reinvention.
(20:31):
The decision that best aligns is to go to the party.
That is your directive. If you're back and forthing over
leaving the house and I don't know, an outfit that
you probably never wear and you're like, maybe I should
take this off. I don't really know. Well, you have
to be guided by reinvention above all else. Everything is
coming back to this theme for the next six months.
(20:53):
It is a very simple, you know, compass for you,
a decision making tool that's like, Okay, if I'm face
with two choices, the one that best aligns with my
theme is the one that I have to do, is
the one that I need to pursue. This is just
such a powerful, I think, mental trick, because sometimes we
(21:14):
set out to reinvent our lives and like I said,
you know, you kind of try and do a whole overhaul,
and you want to change everything right now at once,
and eventually, like this version of you that you're actually
aiming for gets a little bit lost in all the chaos.
When you simplify it, when you bring it back to
one theme and one theme only, you are just better
(21:35):
able to truly focus and not get caught up in
the clutter and not get caught up in the chaos
that transformation often brings. Moving beyond this method, let's now
turn to some longer term activities for refreshing recharging your
life in your twenties, specifically to do with goal setting. Now,
(21:55):
I'm going to say something that might be controversial, that
might be unexpected, but goal setting to me is one
of the most boring things to talk about in the world.
And that might surprise you, but I really struggle to,
you know, be around people who have a million goals
for every single thing in their life because it just
feels so intense and disciplined to me. And my natural
(22:17):
inclination is and was, to really feel my way through
things and to like go with my gut rather than
having like a two year, five year plan. You know,
I could work very hard at things for a long
period of time, but you know, I wasn't really into
resetting goals every six months and planning out where I
wanted to be and doing distinct things to make that happen.
(22:41):
I have slowly begun to retire that philosophy that you know,
I think I was misguided. I thought that goal setting
had to be really intensive, when actually, no, it doesn't
have to be that way. It doesn't have to make
you an ultra disciplined person. Actually it's really about change,
(23:02):
right And you know, as we always say, nothing changes
if you don't and in a similar vein, nothing changes
if you can't imagine them changing. And that is really
what goal setting is all about, saying to yourself, this
could be different. This part of my life, my routine,
my lifestyle, my job could be different, and I could
(23:22):
be happier. And I'm going to trust myself and I'm
going to believe that I am capable of doing that,
of bringing about that change. I think, instead of having
one big goal that is miles away. I was recently
introduced to this concept called the timeline for change. And
the timeline for change is another way of conceptualizing your
(23:44):
goals or setting up benchmarks that is a bit less
intensive and more daily and broken down into these small pieces.
You have a one year goal, a six month goal,
a monthly goal and a day or what we would
you know typically call a micro habit, the thing that
you do each day that hopefully builds to the big
(24:07):
win at the end. You can really then apply this
like timeline for change to whatever area you desire, whatever
area needs reinvention, needs a refresh. It could be Korea, friendship.
Health finance is a creative passion. Think about, you know,
transforming your health. For example, you know, perhaps your timeline
(24:28):
for change would be to every day walk for thirty minutes,
and then your one month goal would be to go
to the gym twice a week. Your six month goal
is to run a five k and by one year
to have a gym routine and be able to run
ten k. I think fitness related goals slot very easily
into the timeline for change, but you can kind of
see how this method really allows you to combine both
(24:51):
momentum and sustainable habit building with that long term planning.
You know, because your your goals are sitting along a
gym nie, they're sitting along a timeline rather than just
consisting of a start line, an ambitious big dream, and
a finish line. You know a sense of what is
going to be like when you get there and you
(25:13):
know nothing in between. And I think that is exactly
why most New Year's resolutions often fail. You know, there
was a poll done by the University of Ohio that
showed twenty three percent of people will quit their New
Year's resolutions by the end of January seventh, and almost
fifty percent by the second week because we underestimate how
much progress we're going to make, so we think too big,
(25:34):
and we lack the positive reinforcement along the way because
we're only thinking about the beginning and the end and
b to enact those significant and immediate changes you know,
psychologically and physically speaking, is it's very very difficult. It's
very difficult to just come in all guns blazing and
change everything about your life. You need to build that
(25:56):
foundation through consistency, not through new peaks with and you know,
dashes of effort. So, to summarize our third tip, give
yourself the necessary space for reinvention by making things actionable,
by making things realistic, and really implementing a sustainable timeline
(26:16):
for change that you are both excited about but is
also very very doable. Okay, my lovely listeners, we are
going to take a short break. But when we're back,
I want to discuss so more of you know, more
of our spontaneous, rebellious maybe refreshing paths for change, a
more energetic, you know, perspective on reinvention. We have a
(26:40):
lot more to talk about, so please stay with us.
At some stage you are going to have to do
something that really scares you or that you didn't think
was possible. If you want to grow into your next
phase long term goal setting, having a planning phase, visualizing,
(27:02):
articulating what you want, labeling this new error for yourself
is so wonderful. You know, by that stage you really
you can't go wrong. But one of the easiest ways
to almost guarantee transformation and to speed up your reinvention
your realignment is to take risks, big or small. Risk
(27:23):
in my mind, is like the fast forward button. There's
less accuracy about where you're going to end up right,
like you're skipping through a movie. You want to get
to the action quicker, but it means that you really
propel yourself even faster into this new era. There is
not a single person that you admire, that you respect,
you idolize, whether that is professionally or personally that has
(27:46):
gotten to where they are without being a little bit
daunted and unsure of whether they made the right decision.
You know, actually, for me, if you're questioning whether you've
made the right decision, you are exactly in the place
you need to be, because those are the decisions that
really contribute to growth. Easy decisions feel great because they
(28:07):
don't require you to really question anything fundamental about yourself.
But hard decisions risks. That is where you really have
to look in the mirror and question what do I
actually want from my life? A lot of people don't
do that. Another way I think about it is, you
know how when we build muscle at the gym or
(28:28):
when we're working out, what is actually happening are these microtares.
You know, things are ripping, spaces being made. It's painful,
but then those holes get filled with new mass and
we grow. It's a strange analogy, I know, but it's
how I think about risk. You know, it's small tears
that are sometimes sore, that are sometimes uncomfortable. I don't
(28:49):
really know what you're doing, you know, you don't really
know what you're doing, but it needs to happen in
order to bring about strength and psychologically, risk is scary
naturally right, because anything that's unfamiliar will cause our brain
to have quite a natural hesitancy, because it is hesitant
towards the unknown. But just because your mind says something
(29:12):
is scary doesn't necessarily mean it should be avoided. Actually,
it might mean the opposite. If you're going to do
one thing to reinvent yourself during this decade, it's to
take a risk that you've always wanted to but never
imagine that you could. And I'm going to give you
like a rapid fire list as to why I believe
(29:34):
this truly and deeply, and I want you to seriously
try and rebut my reasons with the reasons why you shouldn't.
Number one, you will never have as few responsibilities as
you do now. Number two, you are the youngest that
you will ever be, probably with the least to lose.
You will never have more time than you have right now.
(29:55):
I also think that risks are an investment. They are
not a cost. They will benefit your life and your
foundations way more than the risks that you don't take,
and way more than playing it safe. And finally, in
a very similar vein, you are more likely to live
with regret over the risks you didn't take over the
(30:18):
ones that you did. And if you want some anecdotal
primary evidence of this, ask your parents or your grandparents
next time you see them what their biggest regrets are,
and I would say eighty percent of the time, your
parents are going to say, oh, you know, the time
I didn't travel, the time I was too scared to
do that thing that I should have, the time that
(30:40):
I didn't tell that person I loved them, the time
that I said no to an opportunity that I really
actually should have taken. Because of imposter syndrome, regret often
feeds off in action rather than action. Here's the thing,
reinventing yourself through risk doesn't have to be dramatic. Some
of us get really paralyzed by this idea that to
(31:01):
move forward we have to do something we are deeply
uncertain of. And normally this is the case if if
you're quite risk averse, right so, in psychology and economics
even there are these different profiles of the types of
people in their perspective on risk. There are risk positive people,
people who will put it all on the line very
frequently without really considering the costs. There are risk neutral people,
(31:24):
people who are very practical, almost mathematical, about the costs
and benefits of a risk. And then there are risk
averse individuals, those of us whose minds just naturally exaggerate
the consequences and the costs of the risk over the
benefits to the point where the risk actually seems entirely ridiculous.
You know, we are convinced that we should always play
(31:45):
it safe. And if that is you, if the idea
of moving to a new country knowing no one, quitting
your job without anything lined up, if that is really
really scary. What I want you to adopt is this
idea of micro risks, things that you can slowly incorporate
to almost increase your tolerance for the uncertainty that comes
(32:08):
along with these decisions. You can go on solo dates,
You can go on microadventures on the weekend solo. You
don't have to travel across the world. You can book
an airbnb for the weekend in the mountains near national
parks and we're like an hour or two away and
just enjoy a new part of the world alone. My
(32:28):
cousin Stella, actually she was just messaging me about her
solo camping trip that she's been on for the last
two to three days. Literally she's only like an hour
or two from her home, but she's just having the
most amazing time, and she's doing something that she may
not normally do, and it's just completely expanded her perspective
on her life, like in the span of two days,
(32:49):
just getting out of an old environment and into a
new one. These are small but mighty choices. Some more examples.
You know, share your passion, your art, your hobbies, your
lifestyle online to a private audience. Ask new people to
go for coffee, be spontaneous, do something different this weekend
that's not your usual Sunday reset, Start putting twenty dollars
(33:13):
a week aside purely for a dream fund. Just take
those first steps without worrying about them being perfect. And
that might not sound like a risky thing to do
for some people, but I think anything that goes against
the habits, the systems, the routines that you have in
place to keep you secure and safe that you are
(33:33):
using as a crutch. Anything that's like that, that is
a risk. That is a risk that you are taking
to go against what your natural, deeply ingrained intuition is
telling you to do. What I want you to remember
is that you are in charge here of creating a
reality you love, creating a version of yourself that you
(33:53):
love even more. Sometimes that's going to take courage. The
path to reinvention, I think involves risk, and it involves
a little bit of fear. So my fifth and my
final tip for you today is to stop asking yourself
what if and instead replace that with what else? Or
(34:14):
my favorite, so what Each of us again, has an
idea of our truer selves, the person that we would
be if no one else was watching, If this magical
switch was turned, that suddenly meant that you were free
from others opinions, if the only person we were focused
on was ourselves. We all had this idea of who
we would be in that situation. They're almost a fantasy.
(34:37):
They are a character, you know, that we've created that
we one day aspire to be, but we're not really
not really focused on that right now now. The things
that are really maintaining that gap between who we are
now and who we would really love to be is
normally our fear of judgment, our fear of upsetting others
and their expectations, our fear of embarrassment of being perceived,
(35:00):
that's a huge one, and our fear of change. These
fears are all maintained by these what if disaster scenarios.
If I start putting myself out there, if I start
being loud about my hobbies, about my desires, if I
start wearing what I want, if I start staying no
to people, if I let myself be perceived as my truest,
(35:23):
authentic self. What if no one likes this version of me?
What if I'm ostracized. What if I tell someone about
my dreams and I fail? What if people don't like
this reinvented version of me, I lose all my friends
and I end up alone? You know? What if? What if?
What if? Not only are most of these very social fears,
(35:46):
meaning that we are being guided more so by the
potential opinions of others rather than the reality that we
are the only one who has to experience and enjoy
our lives, but they are also just anxious thought. They
are not predictions. They most likely not come true. If
you've listened to our most recent episode on anxiety, you'll
(36:11):
know that the easiest way to distinguish between an anxious
thought and a thought that you should pay attention to
is if those thoughts begin with a what if, here's
how we counteract that. We counteract it with what else?
Or so what statements. So let's take this statement, what
(36:31):
if I tell everyone about my dreams and I fail?
You know, I'll be so embarrassed. I better play it safe.
That's one way of thinking, and it is a naturally
limited way of thinking. But consider now ending that statement
with so what. Okay, maybe I'll be embarrassed, so what?
What is the worst case scenario? I'm embarrassed, it's uncomfortable,
(36:52):
so what? So people might not like me? So what?
And then again, keep going, keep going with the so
what's until you get to the final conclusion of your
fear and you realize that actually there is not much
harm that embarrassment can really do. This method is about
taking an anxious, fear based thought and actually interrogating it,
(37:15):
because so often we're too scared to even think about
our anxious thoughts that we just let them get away
with lying to us. But when we say so what,
our anxiety kind of is like, oh, well, you've never
questioned me before, so I don't really know. I don't
really know what's going to happen. And that's when I
think we see things more clearly. We see things for
(37:37):
what they really are, which is not as big in
reality as they are in our minds. The other option
is to say, well, what else? What if people don't
like this new version of me? Okay, that's one unlikely option,
but what else? Let's expand that disaster scenario and go
in search of some other alternatives. You know, what if
(37:58):
I actually attract people who are really aligned with who
I truly am. What if I suddenly meet the greatest
friends I'll ever have? What if I suddenly attract a
love that I deserve? What if I completely level up
every aspect of my life and I never look back.
What if I am the happiest I've ever been? What else? Remember?
(38:22):
The first thought that you have is probably not the
most accurate, and you can grab onto that thought. You
can let it control you, you can let it dominate
your choices. But you also have this extreme power and
ability to be whoever you want to be if you
just zoom out and question your fear, replacing that what
(38:45):
if with what else? Or so what during this brief
time that we have on earth? You deserve at the
bare minimum to actually be yourself. Sometimes we do find
ourselves in a loop of not knowing who we are,
not liking who we are either not liking our lives
because of boredom, stagnation, you know, isolation. The longer you
(39:07):
spend as this version of you, you will become quite
used to the discomfort, and you will no longer feel
like you have to outgrow that shell. You'll just keep
squeezing yourself back in, hiding away, and it becomes a
lot easier to tolerate. I don't want that for you,
to be honest, I don't want that for anyone. I
(39:29):
don't want anyone to be eighty and think, what if
I've just done it a little bit bigger? What if
I just had one six month period of reinvention? Because
you have no idea what that could do for your life.
You have no idea you know how much growth and
new experiences you could have in six months. How many
(39:50):
weeks is that? Oh my god, I've got to do
quick maths, like twenty four weeks. I could be completely wrong,
Please correct me. Twenty four weeks, right, yeah, you could
just be completely new person. That's twenty four weeks of
time for you to reinvent, transform, invest in yourself. This
is an investment. I really want you to take your
(40:10):
dream seriously. Take responsibility for your happiness, take responsibility for
evolving into the most authentic version of yourself, even if
that requires a bit of a painful metamorphosis. So I
really hope that you got something from this episode. I
hope that you can take on board this advice. You know,
(40:30):
you can cherry pick it as you wish, if some
things you already do, some things you don't, whatever you need,
take what you need. That's what we always say at
the end of these episodes, and feel free to send
it to someone else who you think my benefit, who
you think might enjoy what we've been talking about. As always,
five star reviews are also appreciated, as is a follow
(40:52):
either on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or on Instagram at
that Psychology podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, or you
have a few trure episode that you would like to suggest,
anything to do with psychology, self help, wellness in our twenties,
mental health in our twenties, I would love to hear
from you. A final tidbit, we do have an event,
(41:13):
a friendship event in Melbourne coming up on the tenth
of October. I thought I would sneak that in here.
So if you are Melbourne based listener and you want
to make some like minded friends, you want to meet me.
I think we have a few tickets left on event bright.
You can go to our Instagram and there will be
a link in our buyer. I'm really excited to meet
you guys, so let me know if I'm going to
(41:35):
see you there. If you'll be there, We'll be doing
heaps of other events in Sydney, Brisbane, in the Perth
I believe, and then also in the UK and later
next year in the US. So cannot wait to meet
you all. Until next time, Stay safe, stay kind, Please
be gentle with yourselves. You deserve a gentle life and
(41:55):
gentle thoughts. And we will talk very very soon.
Host
Jemma Sbeghen
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