Reinvention is the New Black

Everybody is re-inventing. Why Aren't You?

This past October, a friend of mine shared how her family was going to celebrate her mother’s 80th birthday which was on Halloween. Since she is in a facility where no visitors were allowed, they met virtually but included an entire slate of activities to make it memorable.

Her family enlisted the help of a staff member who assisted her mom in a virtual pumpkin carving activity. Then a network of her local grandchildren dressed up and paraded around her window in the facility. Finally, a cake was dropped off for her to blow out the countless candles and everyone inside and outside enjoyed it along with a toast her family shared.

Additional family from across the country zoomed in to sing, enjoy the activities, and shared an online camping experience complete with spooky stories, roasting marshmallows (a nurse aide in the facility prepared a S’more in the microwave for my friend’s mother to have), and a Campfire game of Charades!

Yes, it was a bit different however it was very memorable despite the restrictions due to the Pandemic. My friend said her mother described it as one of the best birthdays she ever had!

Everyone from newlyweds to those in their twilight years is finding ways to navigate these strange times. From weddings online to virtual graduations and everything in between, if we have learned one thing throughout this Pandemic, it is that we are more resilient than we ever knew and also more creative than we might have guessed!

Call it pivoting, redirection, or a new normal, I call it reinvention at its best!

Last Spring, a large garden center in Florida had so many plants when the pandemic shut everything down they were afraid they would not only lose their inventory but also go bankrupt in the process.

They chose a novel route and instead used their tractor to create a path through their nursery where people could stay in their cars and drive through to see the acres of flowers and produce.

All they had to do was mark down the number and color of plants they wanted and when they got to the check out it was delivered to their car, just as if they were picking up groceries!

They decided to keep this option open for this Spring when they re-open because it was such a hit and actually helps with the flow of people in the store at any given time.

In August, a small shoe store owner in the Southwest knew his store would be closing for good if he could not salvage his business. He placed pieces of foam board outside of his shop with markers and asked people to draw their foot on the foam board and drop it into a container along with the color, size, and style of shoe they were looking for.

After getting the information, he and his sons would find shoes that fit the description and send them in a container back out to the car to be tried on.

Whatever did not work for them, was brought back into the shop, sanitized, and returned to the shelf!

A bit awkward yes, but people still bought shoes and he never had to close his business.

We are well into accepting that nearly everything can be purchased, learned, shared, and experienced online.

We may not like it but we have learned it can be done.

While I am not ready for life online, I think we all know that we are not going to be able to return to “ordinary” life the way it was before the pandemic turned it around.

Survival frequently depends on adaptability and nothing says “I’m adapting” more than reinvention.

Last May, Forbes shared info about how big business was adapting to surviving during the Pandemic.

But Big Business is just one factor that has had to pivot. Parents have had to pivot, students have had to pivot, the elderly have had to pivot. Everything from dog parks to Churches has had to figure out how to survive and perhaps even thrive.

Reinvention was key in turning a negative into a positive.

But, we shouldn’t wait for a Pandemic or any crisis to force us to be more inventive.

If there was no Pandemic would you still be prepared financially to survive if your job was suddenly terminated?

If you had a long-term health crisis and couldn’t return to your current position, do you have an alternative way to earn income?

And, what about if you find yourself constantly stressed on your current job or your values constantly compromised, would you be able to just walk away and know you could still pay the bills.

Re-invention needs to be on everyone’s radar because at some point in the future, Pandemic or not, you will have to be prepared for another new normal.

Everything seems to change in the blink of an eye now and staying rooted in a familiar routine, while noble can also be catastrophic.

Suggestions abound on types of businesses to start during the Pandemic

Many people are reinventing how they earn their income. Some are re-inventing the location of where they work but many more are actually re-inventing what they do.

I’ve recently worked with a healthcare worker who was simply burned out from all the hours she had put in since the COVID crisis began.

She shared that many of her co-workers barely had time to stop and eat, so after she resigned, she started to bring bags of sandwiches and snacks to her fellow workers.

This September, she and a family member decided to buy a food truck and have turned it into a van that delivers healthy snacks to health care workers.

She already has a contract to deliver her goods to three area hospitals and is planning on adding other venues soon. She feels like she is contributing to help people even though she is no longer on the front lines.

Seeing a need and filling it can also fill up the empty a lot of people are feeling now that the world is different than when 2020 started.

Two retired teachers I know have banned together to offer a “grandmas online” service. They provide hands-on activities, learning experiences, stories, and puppet shows” for little ones throughout the week so parents who are just trying to get dinner on the table or have time for a shower can get a short break.

They are only working with local families they know right now, but they realize this can turn into something far bigger.

One of my favorite reinvention stories comes from a budding actress whose career was cut short because of COVID.

When my friend’s daughter, a theater major, was forced to learn online because the school closed, the production also stopped in a small theater group she was in.

Bored and feeling like she was making no progress in her career, she decided to offer some drama classes online to middle and high school students.

By late summer, she had more students than she could handle online!

She felt fulfilled, purposeful, and thriving because she embraced what she had and continued to move on.

Now, back at school and taking classes, she continues to offer her online classes as a great way to earn additional income!

Yes, re-invention requires adaptation, change, and resilience, but why would anyone choose to not have a few more options than stagnation and rigidity?

The hardest part about change is the unknown.

It’s scary, unpredictable and at times confusing.

But remaining stuck is boring, uneventful, and still can be confusing.

Reinvention is here to stay.

Restaurants and other businesses have reinvented themselves.

Organizations have reinvented themselves.

People have reinvented themselves.

It’s the wave of today and if you miss it, you may have a long swim back to a shoreline that is pretty much non-existent anymore.

Deciding you will not reinvent aspects of your life is like deciding you don’t need to learn what is happening in the world. You can tell yourself you will wait until everything goes back to normal but you might be waiting forever to make your next move.

Living in a box is restricting in more ways than size.

Familiarity can often be disguised as stability when it really might be just a stroke of luck before everything collapses.

Maybe you have lost your job, lost your ambition, even lost your savings.

Perhaps you are feeling out of sync, out of touch, and dislike all the restrictions you are now facing.

Could you possibly be resisting change so much that YOU are what is keeping you from your best life now?

The Huffington Post published an article a few years ago about People Who Reinvented Themselves After 50. (age).

But, reinvention shouldn’t be something that happens after an age, a catastrophe, a failure, or a roadblock.

Reinvention should be thought of as a right, an attitude, a lifestyle, and a gift. We need to remember that every reinvention is not necessarily a pivot, do-over, or re-creation.

The Wright Brothers did not scrap their original idea for something totally different, rather they just kept perfecting what they had until it worked for them.

Maybe we are thinking about reinvention all wrong.

Reinvention does not have to be about gender transformation or totally going in a different direction with our work.

While you absolutely can go to extremes and totally change directions, perhaps reinvention can also be about rethinking our priorities, re-calculating our blessings, revisiting our former goals, and revamping our current state of affairs.

If you have ever watched babies learn to crawl, you will recognize how quickly they adapt and use a method of navigation that works for them. Some crawl with their legs splayed to the side for balance, others combat crawl using their arms more than their legs for movement, and others seem to have that “perfect” crawl mastered easily.

All of them get to a destination using what they have to get where they want to go.

That’s what life is about, isn’t it? Not remaining stagnant and stuck but moving in a direction that is progress.

Yesterday I was talking to a friend who shared that she was re-inventing her yard this year. I was thinking maybe she was considering planting some new trees or perhaps a different landscape style but no, she has always hated cleaning up her leaves so she decided to mark off an area of her yard where she can move her leaves to begin a compost pile.

It’s her way of taking something that is not working for her and turning it into something that will work.

Maybe you have always needed to reinvent a circumstance in your life. Maybe it has been a relationship or your finances, perhaps your employment or your residence.

Could you be stuck in a normal that hasn’t worked for you for so long you are comfortable but not necessarily complete?

Are you missing out on better because you have permitted “just okay” to represent your situation?

Here’s another thought on settling for mediocrity.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Long before COVID, many of us needed to reinvent some aspect of our lives. Now we are just in great company!

Whether you are gearing up for a massive reinvention or taking mini-steps towards change, remember reinvention is the new black, or maybe it always was but we are finally recognizing it.

Here are 7 ways to Reinvent Some Aspects of Your Life

1.) Relational

Call or send a letter or email to someone you have lost contact with for whatever reason. Begin this year with one newly minted relationship even if it was one from the past.

2.) Financial

Double what you save every day for a month…penny, dime, dollar, doesn’t matter. Just for a month! It’s just an exercise in a discipline that can help you reinvent your saving style.

Or, do what one of my nieces does. She challenges herself to save a particular amount each month. If she reaches her savings goal early in the month, any additional money is hers to do whatever she wants.

Call it behavior modification savings, but at least she is saving!

3.) Educational

Read a genre that you totally think is out of your comfort zone or watch a movie or television show that is something you wouldn’t ordinarily select.

Give yourself permission to try before you choose to dislike something you really haven’t experienced.

4.) Mindset

Schedule an online or socially distant lunch with someone who thinks about things far differently than you do. Make it even more interesting by selecting someone you know little about or maybe have never truly met (someone you can do virtual lunch with over social media!).

A colleague of mine meets someone for a virtual (Zoom) coffee regularly who has responded to something she posts or writes with an opinion quite different from hers. She invites them to join her for a 20-minute online coffee and while she admits some times the connection has been heated, generally both come away enlightened!

5.) Work

Evaluate what hobby or interest could actually be turned into a side income. Make a list of every hobby, passion, interest, skill, or even dream you might enjoy!

6.) Spiritual

Attend a service (online if need be) of a different faith from your own or if you have no particular religious preference, randomly select an area of spirituality to participate in at least once.

7.) Emotional

Give yourself permission to be a slacker if you have never slacked. (It can be life-changing!) And if you have been a slacker, try to overachieve one goal for one week (emptying the dishwasher within 24 hrs, getting dishes into the dishwasher, or just finding your dishes under all that debris!) or whatever other area seems to always escape your attention.

But seriously, we should be reinventing all the time.

Failure to reinvent is a lot like watching reruns of our favorite shows over and over. We all do it, but let’s face it, we know the outcome and it loses something each time.

Maybe reinvent nap time to be called a “refresher” course.

Even if 60 is really not the new 45, perspective can be enlightening.

This is a perfect time to reinvent aspects of your life because if you totally miss the mark, in a sea of reinventors you will be unobvious.

Think of everything you always told yourself you wanted to do.

It’s time. It’s time to reinvent your life to whatever you imagined but never went far enough to accomplish.

The “New Black” might look stunning on you!

What are you reinventing today?

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