How to Reinvent Yourself and Become the Best Version of Yourself This Year
By: Anthony Moore
Tags: Anthony Moore, Personal Development, Personal Growth, Self, Self Improvement

There are so many people in the world that are so much more talented than you.

They’re sexier. Smarter. Richer. More creative. More likable, more charming, better-connected, and better-looking.

But there is one, singular thing you can do better than them:

You can outwork them.

As Paul Arden wrote in “It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be, “Nearly all rich and powerful and successful people are not notably talented, educated, charming, or good-looking.” For every Kim Kardashian or LeBron James or Bill Gates, there are a thousand unremarkable people who still achieved extraordinary things through consistency and commitment to their craft.

Prolific actor Will Smith was once asked how he got to be so successful in his career:

“The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is I’m not afraid to die on a treadmill. I will not be out-worked, period. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me, you might be all of those things. But if we get on the treadmill together, there’s two things: You’re getting off first, or I’m going to die.”

Anybody can cultivate this discipline.

Anybody.

It’s the single most effective strategy to outperform the toughest competitors you’ll ever face.

Many amateurs claim they want to be the “best in the world.”

Best in the world?

That’s hard. Actually, it’s virtually impossible.

You just need to be consistent.

During a speech he gave for the 100th anniversary of the NAACP, President Barack Obama began speaking directly about the youth in the audience. “They might think they’ve got a pretty good jump shot or a pretty good flow, but our kids can’t all aspire to be the next LeBron or Lil Wayne.”

He recognized that even though the youth in the audience almost certainly wouldn’t take the #1 rapper/basketball player in the world spot, they could still do incredible things.

You don’t need to be the “best in the world” to reinvent yourself and become the best version of yourself.

You just need to be willing to do the work.

Ordinary People Focus on the Outcome. Extraordinary People Focus On the Process.

In his autobiography, Bryan Cranston (Walter White of the renowned Breaking Bad) described the lesson he learned that helped him go from an average actor to an extraordinary one. Here’s what he wrote:

“Early in my career, I was always hustling. Doing commercials, guest-starring, auditioning like crazy. I was making a decent living…but I felt I was stuck in junior varsity. I wondered if I had plateaued. Then, Breck Costin [his mentor] suggested I focus on process rather than outcome. I wasn’t going to the audition to get anything: a job or money or validation. I wasn’t going to compete. I was going to give something. I wasn’t there to get a job. I was there to do a job. I was there to give a performance. If I attached to the outcome, I was setting myself up to expect, and thus to fail. My job was to be compelling. Take some chances. Enjoy the process.”

Cranston went on to say after he made this mindset shift, he felt much more relaxed and free. There was no longer any pressure because the outcome was irrelevant. “Once I made the switch, I had power in any room I walked into,” he wrote. “Which meant I could relax. I was free.”

Soon after this shift, Cranston was offered a role in the wildly popular Malcolm in the Middle, for which he was nominated for 3 Emmy awards. He is now one of the most respected and well-known actors in the world.

What would it do for you if you could walk into any room and feel relaxed and free?

How would it feel to have power in any situation you walked into?

What would happen if you could live your life with no pressure, free to achieve any goal you wanted?

Ordinary people focus on the outcome. But extraordinary people focus on the process. This is how they achieve such enormous goals.

Your Outer Life Is Shaped By Your Inner Resolve

Talent is important, but it won’t take you as far as ambition does.

In his book On Writing, Stephen King said that talent is cheaper than table salt; what separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

Your outer life is heavily shaped by your inner resolve.

A person’s mindset — their belief in what’s possible, and the quality of their thoughts — determines their actions. Actions create results. Therefore, if you want better results, you must upgrade the source: your mindset.

Most people are not the best version of themselves right now. Not even close.

They are dragged down by mindsets defined primarily by limits — how smart they are, how far they can go, how hard they can work, how successful they can be? Most of these limits are pretty low.

“It’s lonely at the top,” wrote entrepreneur Tim Ferriss. “99% of people are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for ‘realistic’ goals, paradoxically making them the most competitive.”

Most people are living far below their potential, fighting for scraps with the other 99%. They’re more concerned with politics and “beating the other guy” than actually achieving personal success.

The power of these limiting mindsets comes from how long they’ve been in use. Most people had limits impressed upon them from an early age, which they mistakenly began to believe was the true deciding factor for what they could and could not do.

If you want to reach new heights, break new records, and become the best version of yourself, you must unlearn these negative mindsets.

Don’t Fear Being Different; Fear Fitting In With Mediocrity

Reinventing yourself is going to cost you.

But there’s good news — every path you choose in life will cost you. You don’t get to choose whether you sacrifice or not, but you do get to choose what you sacrifice.

When attempting to change behavior, most people don’t address their environment. They think their mental declaration made in a surge of inspiration is enough to combat years of routine behavior.

If your environment remains the same, you can’t expect any meaningful behavioral change.

A reader of mine emailed me the other day, and asked, “I know the people I hang around have negative mindsets, and that’s pulling me down. But what should I do? Should I just leave them?

I couldn’t answer the question for her, but I did tell her what best-selling author Darren Hardy once wrote:

“You can’t hang around negative people and expect a positive result.”

You may find it very difficult to change some parts of your environment. There may be parts that seem impossible to change.

That’s OK. Sometimes, progress comes hard. Do what you can.

But if you constantly operate in negative environments, make no mistake — you can’t expect to see enormously positive results.

Developing world-class behaviors and evolving into better versions of yourself starts with your environment. The outside of you usually reflects the inside of you.

If you keep having problems with behavioral change, it’s probably because your environment made it difficult.

Choose to not tolerate mediocrity and subpar, “good-enough” mindsets.

You must control your environment, or it will end up controlling you.

“Remember: we all get what we tolerate. So stop tolerating excuses within yourself, limiting beliefs of the past, or half-assed or fearful states.” -Tony Robbins

Personal Evolution = Making Slightly Better Choices Daily

“Greatness is nothing more than the long-term investment of time.” -Nicolas Cole

Most people think creating significant life change happens quickly.

But that’s not how it works. It took a long time for you to build up those negative behaviors and mindset; it’ll take some time to develop a new one.

The problem most people face is their impatience with waiting for results, even if small progress is being made. In their eyes, small progress isn’t big enough.

This black-and-white thinking is responsible for many people’s failed attempts to change. Since they can’t see any big results soon, they impatiently give up and revert back to who they were.

In the words of Niklas Göke:

“Tiny steps will take you much farther than infrequent home runs.”

The science of evolving into something better isn’t complicated. In the words of Jim Rohn, “Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying basic fundamentals.”

Darren Hardy echoed this sentiment: “Small, seemingly inconsistent steps completed consistently over time will create a radical difference.”

Personal evolution happens slowly. Often, it seems like nothing is happening at all.

But success is sneaky. It often comes all at once, and you suddenly realize you’re 10x the person you were just a few months ago.

“When money begins to come, it comes in such abundance that you wonder where it has been hiding all those lean years.” -Napoleon Hill

In Conclusion

You can have whatever you want, if you’re willing to pay the price.

There was an old joke I heard a lot in college:

Good grade, sleep, or a social life. You can only pick two.

We all must sacrifice something. But you get to choose what to sacrifice.

If you choose correctly, you can start reinventing yourself rapidly and permanently. Cut out negative influences, upgrade your mindset, take more focused actions on the things that matter most.