I don't know who first said it, but they were right when they said you can reinvent yourself at any time.
As someone who cares a little too much about what people think, I often worry that those who I perceive not to like 'the old me' won't give the 'new me' a chance. But the advice I would give to anyone else is that it really doesn't matter. As long as you change yourself in a way that benefits you, and you alone, then other people's opinions are not important.
This insecurity has come up recently for me as I've started to do more writing. At work, I spend the majority of my day writing in someone else's voice, and I am totally comfortable with that. but when it comes to writing in my own voice, I get scared!
I find this whenever new people discover this blog, particularly people I know in real life. I do have a massive fear of judgement, which isn't great for a writer (although I'm sure it's common among us!) and because I'm a bit out of practice with personal blogging, I have this massive fear that people read my posts and cringe. And then I worry that they won't read anything else I've written, which I might think I've written a lot better, and then I get a bit stuck in a cycle.
But the thing is, I can change that. I'm battling really hard not to go back and delete all my old posts because, although they might not be perfect, they are practice! I can write more posts and hone my voice as I go along. Also, this fear of judgement is 100% all in my head - people might very well not be judging, they might even like what they read!
I guess the point in this post is to say to anyone else out there who wants to reinvent themselves, or a particular aspect of themselves, to try not to worry about what other people think about your old self, or your new one. It is really hard, but I feel that the one person who needs to approve of you is you, so work on building self-confidence first. Once that's in place, you truly won't care about others opinions of you.
I'm not there yet, but I'd love to speak to anyone else who is, or is at least on the same journey! Send me a message to chat on this further :)
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