How to Reinvent Yourself At ANY Age

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I am your host Rob Dial. If you're the type of person who is into neurology, psychology, early childhood development, cognitive behavioral therapy, and all of those things coming together to learn more about yourself so you can develop yourself and create the life that you want to, hit that subscribe button. That's what I talk about. That's what I put out four times a week to help you learn and improve yourself. So hopefully you can get better, you can create a better life, and you can create a better world around us as well. Today, we're going to be talking about how to reinvent yourself at any age.

0:39And I'm going to talk about this. I was running a live earlier today, and it was for Mindset Mentor Plus, which is a community that you've heard me talk about, I'm sure. If you want to learn more about it, you can go to mindsetmentor.com. But basically, I was on the monthly Q &A session. And one of the questions that was asked, I thought would be really important for me to cover here. And I got permission from everybody to turn it into a podcast episode. So here we are. There's a question that was asked me from a lady and she was basically saying like, I'm 54 years old. I don't know what to do with my life.

1:12I'm lost. I'm stuck. I'm numb. Nothing seems to excite me. Where do I even start to like start to figure out what I want in my life? You know, and she was talking about how she went down this road that she didn't really necessarily want to be on. And I think this is a really important question because of the fact that sometimes, a lot of times when I talk to people, they feel like they are too far down the road to reinvent themselves in some sort of way. You know, I've talked to people that are older and they don't have any money and they want to reinvent themselves. I've talked to people that are younger, that are extremely successful, some extremely successful athletes that don't want to be athletes anymore, extremely successful CEOs that don't want to run their business anymore.

1:58no matter where you are if you feel like the path that you're on is not the path that you want to continue on if you fast forward 10 years and you're like i don't want to be the ceo of this major corporation anymore or i don't want to be broke anymore or i don't want to be doing this anymore you can reinvent yourself at any point in time and i don't know what happens after this life nobody on earth actually does i don't know if there's a heaven and hell i don't know if we get reincarnated. I don't know if you become worm food. I don't know. But I do know one thing that I'm sure of, and it is that I am here and I'm in this life and I'm going to get every single thing that I possibly can from this life.

2:37You know, it's not uncommon if you're out there to feel like you're stuck. It's not uncommon to feel like you're lost, to feel like you're numb in some way, especially if you just are listening to this podcast. You're listening because there's probably a part of you that's woken up in some sort of way. You've woken up and maybe it's, you've woken up to parts of your life where you want your life to be different in many different ways. You've woken up to parts of yourself where you wish that yourself were a little bit different in many different ways. Because what happens is in order for us to go on this journey of self-development, of spiritual development, we have to go down the wrong road for a little while.

3:17You cannot find yourself unless you've lost yourself. And so essentially what the question is saying to me is, Rob, I have lost myself based off of everything that's happened to me so far in the past 54 years. How do I find myself? And that's really what it comes down to is, yeah, you've lost yourself. You probably have conditioning and patterns and things in your life that you picked up from millions and millions of little tiny experiences, things you picked up from your parents, things you've picked up from society. And now you've woken up and you've said, I don't want many of these things anymore.

3:51There's some of these things that I want, but there's so many things that I don't want. That's fine. You know, it's okay to change your life completely, to uproot everything and change it. Now, I'm not saying if you have children, just like walk out the door and never see them again. That's not what I'm saying. Take care of your responsibilities, pay your bills, take care of your children, all of that. But there's no reason why you can't make a complete 180 shift no matter what your age is. I don't know what excites you. I don't know what's important to you. But you have to actively search for it as much as you possibly can.

4:22If you don't know what you love to do, or if you don't know what your purpose or what your passions are, find it. You are in control of your search. That is one thing that you are absolutely in control of is your search. There's a lot of things in this world you're not in control of. But you searching for the thing that you want to do in this life is something that you're in control of. If you don't know your purpose right now, it's okay. But it's not okay to wake up every day and not search for it if you are now aware that you don't know what your purpose is. Don't become a victim of your circumstances or your age.

4:57I don't care your circumstances. I don't care your age. I don't care how old you are. I don't care if you're 60 years old, you graduated at 22, and you've been doing the same thing for the past 28 years. And now you think, well, I've been doing it for 28 years. I might as well just continue doing it until I die. You know, you've been doing it for 28 years. Let's say that you're 60 and you want, let's say you live to 90. That would be amazing, right? That's another 30 years. So you're telling me you're going to spend the next 30 years of your life doing what you don't enjoy, doing what is not your passion because you've been doing something for 28 years?

5:32When you put it in that perspective, it sounds really stupid, doesn't it? It does. So change. Do something different. Move. You're not a tree. You can do something different. And the important part of this is right now you've woken up and you've realized that there's parts of your life that need to change. And inside of that part that you need to change, all of that encompassing is your comfort zone. And so getting out of your comfort zone is the most important part of all of this. Repeating the same routine without trying new things is going to make you stagnant. usually when I talk to people and they say they feel stuck I usually ask them when's the last time you did something new and it's almost always a long time ago it's almost always like years ago when was the last time you did something that was completely out of your comfort zone went to a place that you've never been to before talked with people and went to a concert of a that you don't you don't know of or you don't enjoy and then you went to a different place like when's the last time you played a new sport when's the last time you went to a class to learn how to play a musical instrument, play guitar, play piano.

6:36When's the last time that you decided to go to a pottery class? Stop doing the same thing over and over again. If you haven't found your passion, it's because you haven't been searching for it. You know, you stop searching for your passion like back in 1984. I'll give an example and I know my mom's going to be okay with it, but I'll give you an example for my mom. My mom, like five years ago, was telling me that she feels lonely and she just wants someone to get into a relationship with and she wanted a partner. And, um, and I, and my mom, you know, she would, she has her house that's in Florida and she has work.

7:10She's a realtor. And then my sister has a small farm and they took the barn in the backyard and they converted into a one bedroom that my mom also stays at as well. And we were having this conversation in the one bedroom in the backyard. And I was like, yeah, well, the reason why you haven't met anybody is because you're not putting yourself out there. You know, you're doing the same thing. You're going home, you're going and working and then you're coming up and going to Sarah's house and you're hanging out with the children, which is all great and fine. But I promise you this, the man of your dreams is not going to come into your daughter's front yard, walk into the backyard to where the little farmhouse is, knock on the door and be like, excuse me, I'm looking for the love of my life.

7:49Right? So he's not going to be here. You have to put yourself in places that are different for you in order to find that person. And so what's awesome about my mom, she decided to put herself out of her comfort zone. She started to ask herself, like, what is it that I love to do? And my mom loves dancing. And I don't even know if she's ever taken dance lessons her entire life, but she's like, you know what? I'm going to try to start doing some dance. And so she went to a place that's literally like a three minute drive from her house. She started doing dance lessons. She started to, you know, meet new people.

8:20She started to put herself out there and she got out of her routine, routine which is the important thing she got out of her routine my parents had divorced uh like 23 years prior to this conversation and so she had been in some relationships and dating and stuff like that but never found like her dream guy and i was like you got to put yourself out there so she started putting herself out there she started doing stuff and she started asking herself like what do i love well i love to dance you know what i'm gonna do i'm gonna take some dance classes i'm just gonna meet some new people and then she started taking dance classes she got some new friends and then she started going on dance dates with her friends and going out and dancing and meeting new people and all of this.

8:54She started meeting new people and started getting more comfortable being out there and getting out of her normal, typical work and eat and sleep routine, and then go to my sister's house routine and all that stuff. Started meeting new people. A couple of years ago, she goes to a friend's party. She ends up meeting a guy there. And my mom gets married at 71 years old to a guy that she's just completely in love with, which is amazing. That's all I've ever wanted for her is to find somebody. But the key to this story is that she put herself out there. She did something different. She asked herself, what is it that I love?

9:29I'm going to try some new things. I want you guys to understand it's never too late to change. It's not too late to change your life, regardless of your age, regardless of your past experiences, regardless of your education, regardless of anything else that happened to you in your past, regardless of your parents, all of that. You have to take care of your responsibilities, of course, but also make time to explore new interests and to find new things for you.

10:01As I work with a lot of people who are afraid to get out there and start changing their lives, most people want change. They want their life to be different. They want to be happier. They want to be healthier. But people often, when I talk to them, it's really hard for them to get out of their comfort zone despite their comfort zone being absolutely miserable to them. The feeling of being miserable has been going on for so long that it's comfortable. And it's weird to think about, but miserable feels comfortable because you've been there for some time. Happiness can be what you want. Joy can be what you want, but you can be scared of it because it's so far out of your comfort zone.

10:46It is the unknown. Who will I become if I'm happy? I only know the miserable version of me. I only know this version. I only know the accountant version of me that's been this way for 28 years. Stepping out of your comfort zone, although it is very uncomfortable, can lead to the biggest changes in your life. And so if you're looking at where you currently are and you're like, I don't want to be here. I don't want to do this anymore. Well, then you can't wake up tomorrow and do the same shit you've been doing every single day for the past 14 years or three years or two months or whatever it is for you.

11:20You have to get out of your comfort zone. You have to do something new and you have to try activities you've never done before. Try something that you love. Like think about to when you were a kid. What did you love to do? Did you love, you know, art? Did you love music? Did you love dancing? Did you love going to the movies? Did you love cooking? What were some of the things that you loved as a child? And then ask yourself, can I put myself out there? You know what I love to do? I love watching my mom do pottery when I was a kid. I wonder if there's any pottery classes around here. And then you Google pottery classes, Austin, Texas, and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, they all pop up.

11:53Or maybe it's in a neighboring city that's 30 minutes away from you if you live in a small town. And it's funny because it seems scary as you start to push yourself out there. It also seems exciting. But then you go and you do this thing that you haven't done in a long time or you've never done before. And a part of you opens up that was never there before. Or maybe let's say this, It's been there all along, but it opens back up. And so what I want you to do is I want you to understand this. When you're starting to think about this, start small. What's the thing that's the easiest to do, the lowest barrier to entry?

12:24You know, is it nerve-wracking to walk into a place and take dance classes when you've never taken dance classes before and maybe look like a fool? Yeah, it is. Could it be fun? It could be fun. Okay, so try some dance classes. Go to a new city. Take a new way home from work. The important part of this is I think more people listening, myself included, all of us, need to be more curious. Do you remember what it was like when you were a kid? Do you remember watching your children? Do you remember watching your nieces and nephews, just children in general? They're so curious. When was your curiosity killed?

13:04Because it's still there. You just got to reignite it. What's down this road? What would it be like to go to a painting class? I wonder if there's any, you know what? I want to learn more about psychology. I wonder if there's any courses that I can go to. There's a local university or community college. Maybe I can go and actually like learn a little bit more about it. What kind of people are in a dance class? I think what's important, and I have been really bad at this in the past, is my life for a long time became work and that was it. and I would work and I would work and I would work and I kind of lost my time for play.

13:43I think that every one of us needs to make more time for play. Don't just work and work and work. Like you weren't born to just pay the bills and die and to see more digits inside of a bank account. Like try new things, try new hobbies. Like for me, it used to be work, but for me, what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to have as much play as I possibly can. What is it that seems a little bit interesting to you? What is it that puts you out of your comfort zone? Have you thought about going skydiving? Have you thought about maybe taking your car and racing it around a track? Have you thought about maybe trying some new stuff, going to an arcade?

14:17Maybe you like playing video games. Are there other people in the area that like playing video games? Go onto Facebook, start searching your area and see if there's other people that are doing the things that you like to do. There are communities, no matter how weird your thing is that you like, there are definitely communities that are into what you're into. Can you find those communities? Can you find those people? Can you connect to them? There's a part of you that's just looking to be reignited. It's not that it was never there. It's always been there. It's been lying dormant saying, hey, I'm ready for you to come bring me back.

14:48I'm ready to have some fun. I'm ready to find my passion, ready to find my purpose. And your passion and your purpose don't have to be your paycheck. It could just be something that you do outside of work, that you spend your free time doing, but makes you feel like you're alive inside. Because burnout doesn't come from doing too many things. Burnout comes from doing too little of what you actually love. And so what I would recommend to you is to understand no matter what age you are, you can reinvent yourself at any moment. You can bring that childlike feeling back in. You can decide to start that new business and put yourself out there.

15:18You can decide to go to a knitting class, start knitting some things, and then start going to a farmer's market and selling the stuff that you knit. There's a million ways to find what it is that you're passionate about, what your purpose is, what makes you feel like a kid again, what lights you up, what feels like play to you, but could feel like work to other people, you just have to be willing to get out of your comfort zone. If you're not willing to get out of your comfort zone, you're not going to be able to find it. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on Instagram stories, tag me at Rob Dial Jr.

15:48R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And if you love this podcast, you probably heard me talk about Mindset Mentor Plus. It is basically designed to help you integrate every single one of these episodes into your life. And this is basically how it works. For every single episode of this podcast, Mindset Mentor Plus subscribers are going to get multiple page detailed worksheets, little tiny mini masterclass that go more in depth than just the podcast. So you can print them out. You can go through them. You can underline them. You can write on them. You can put your notes in it. They have journaling questions in it.

16:18So you can take the episodes and you can start to integrate them into your life. There's assignments. There's challenges. And so you can integrate every single one of them. So you can improve faster. That's also where we do the monthly Q &A sessions. that's where I got this question from was a monthly Q &A session. So if you want to learn more about it, there's a video if you go to mindsetmentor.com and, you know, check it out. See if it's for you. Once again, it's mindsetmentor.com and with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better.

16:45I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.