The concept of re-inventing oneself seems consummately American to me. As the grandchild and great-grandchild of immigrants, this idea, that I am not now all that I can be, was not merely passed down through generations of storytellers but branded on my heart and mind. My past does not define my future. This is not merely a pithy slogan on a coffee mug to me. I believe I can always become a better version of myself. I am the child of a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”, “it builds character”, and “the truth will set you free” American father. And he didn’t just say those words. He was walking proof. He would tell you the last part is the key: The truth will set you free. Becoming the best version of yourself cannot happen if you deny the truth of your past.
Re-invention requires a brutally honest excavation of the truth whether your goal is to improve your economic status, develop and maintain healthy relationships, or seek professional opportunities. Uncovering the truth about yourself—positive and negative—is the foundation. It’s tempting to focus on your assets and gloss over your deficits. Identifying your gifts and talents is an uplifting exercise. Who wouldn’t want to stop at that point? Doing more of the things you are good at won’t make you great, though. This is where the brutal part comes in—identifying and addressing what keeps you from being great. What have I done that holds me back? What do I believe that prevents me from changing? What habits and characteristics keep me from becoming my best self?
Let me be clear. Facing the painful facts isn’t about self-flagellation. After all, shame and punishment rarely make people change. My experience has been that people double down on their choices and beliefs when they are shamed or threatened, even when those choices and beliefs harm themselves.
However, if you do not face those painful facts and keep them in your heart and mind, the actions you take will not result in long-term, positive changes. At best, you will backslide into who you were and what you have always done. At worst, you will be a fraud.
Why does the truth matter?
The truth guides you to solve the right problem. Let’s imagine that you want to climb the ladder to a leadership role in your organization. The logical step might be earning an advanced degree. If the truth is that you do not communicate in respectful ways or maintain collaborative relationships, getting an advanced degree in your field might get you an interview for a better job but you won’t keep the job long. A significant change in interpersonal skills will. Confronting the truth about your communication skills and the effect they have on you and those around you will lead you to that change.
The truth motivates you to change and to commit the effort required to maintain that change. Most importantly, it prevents you from reverting to old patterns of behavior when you are challenged. Change is hard and it’s messy. It is easier to convince ourselves we are right than to own the things we have done wrong and stop doing them. Virtually no effort is required to backslide into old habits and bad behaviors. Let’s return to our would-be CEO. Perhaps they have been given feedback about their damaging interactions. Unwilling to engage in self-examination, they Google team building and staff-appreciation, give out a few awards publicly, and send a weekly inspirational email. Nothing substantive changes though. Any small improvement in team performance and satisfaction quickly dips.
The truth moves you toward that better self, in part to avoid reliving the past. You cannot change the past. But internalizing the truth of the past can prevent you from reliving it. If you’re not honest from the beginning, it’s easy to convince yourself there is nothing wrong with what you did in the past. You might argue that no one was harmed by your actions. You might even be able to claim it never happened. Our would-be CEO, fresh from a leadership conference, publicly asserts their vision for a new and better company but fails to honestly assess their own leadership beliefs and behaviors which have driven the organization to the current state. Perhaps one of those failings is retaliating against people who disagree with them. A week or two of impassioned speeches, robotically applied leadership moves, and unmet promises fail to increase the loyalty of their staff or improve company results. Soon, our CEO sees the change as a waste of time. Before long, they report that everything is perfect just as it is now and always has been. The mistreated staff are painted as the problem rather than evidence that there is one. The leader is “re-invented” not by changing their own ineffective behavior but by proclaiming everything was great before and the real problem is the naysayers painting the past in a negative light. The truth is wiped out as if it never existed—publicly. But the truth is never truly erased. Even if you fail to address your truth, someone knows. That transforms the re-invention into a fraud.
It’s tempting to bury those negative truths. You don’t have to live in the past. But if you do not acknowledge it and take responsibility for your part in it, you will not change. Paradoxically as it may seem, embracing the truth of the past—good and bad—is the only way to be free of it and re-invent oneself. You can’t achieve the Golden Age of You without facing the truth. Your past does not define your future—unless you deny it—or worse, erase it.
Well written, Cat! I like what you are saying. It is even more cogent for me, when I add the concept of evolution to the mix. As I get older, I have come to realize, more clearly every year, that who or what I am as a person, a leader, a friend, a loved one, today is a product of evolution from what I was yesterday. So, to me, “embracing the truths of the past” is part of the evolution formula that I perceive is helping me grow into the person that I will become. Unlike a strict interpretation of biological evolution, in my evolution as a person I have opportunities to choose some of the elements upon which and from which I am evolving. Make sense? I think something like this has made me the person I am today and into whom I will evolve tomorrow………that and good coffee, mustn’t forget the role good coffee has. LOL! Keep up the good thinking, my friend!
I love this idea of evolution. Of course as a bio major, I think of the natural selection of advantageous characteristics and the how diversity makes us stronger. Though mutation seems bit harsh or perhaps negative, really that’s all change is. When we get out of our comfort zone and try something new, we’re experiencing a sort of intentional mutation that makes us stronger. You always give me something to think about!