Musings at Altitude

How often do you reinvent yourself?

I’ve been reading recently about others that reinvent themselves, some seemingly every year, some every decade or two, and some never.

If reinvention means learning from the past, envisioning being somewhat or lots better in the future, and then doing it, then I think I reinvent myself quite often.

If reinvention means being dramatically different, dramatically changing the way I am, dramatically changing my line of work or the things I’m doing, then I may not reinvent myself very often…at least not more than every few years.

2011 will be a year of reinvention in several ways:

• I’ll be working hard to be better as a leader, better as a team member, better as a follower
• I’ll be seeking every possible opportunity to give — in some way to as many of those who are in need as possible
• I’ll be prioritizing my time differently, focusing more on family and friends, taking the needed time to revive and refresh, and then working even harder in the time I focus on my job
• I’ll be changing the way I track my activities (for the 20th time or more), seeking to make sure the things that are most important to get done stay at the top of the list and don’t get diluted and then invisible amongst the myriad of things that end up on that list
• I’ll be looking much more often to help others, to ask questions rather than jump to conclusions (often times very wrong conclusions), to ask for help (rather than think I can do everything on my own), and to seek the counsel and wisdom of mentors and those (almost everyone) so much smarter than me

I’m not sure all of these individually or in total add up to reinvention, but who knows.  When all is done, 2011 is behind us, I might be a very different person than I am today.

I hope I’ll like who that is!

I bet I will!