3 ways I failed at reinventing myself
If you’ve ever taken this Myer Briggs personality tests that comes in 16 types, you’ll definitely find this interesting and funny because I really think that I’ve lived through all of them in the 20 plus years of my existence so far.
I rediscovered the Myer Briggs test during the lockdown. It was a Thursday afternoon, I was bored and by closest friend who sometimes doubles as my bestfriend hit me up with a “yo, I need you to take this test so I can finally figure out the mystery behind our explosive friendship” and I did just that. After 10 minutes of answering some close ended questions, I ended up being an INFJ(introverted, feeling and judging) which is basically psychology talk for (someone who likes to overthink and overexaggerate her problems, thinks too much of herself, loves misery, gets incapacitated by anxiety, is fluent in ghosting people and will come up with the lamest excuse to avoid love).
After this test, I went on to watch some of this guys YouTube videos where I further cemented my problems with procrastinating and following through. Now, I understand that most of my failures were just excuses. Regardless, I do think you should also take the test, but maybe skip the YouTube videos, they only encourage your silliness.
Here’s 3 different ways I failed at reinventing myself:
- As someone I didn’t know : This is a bit confusing, but it’s a phase I just completed a few months ago. After I failed to reinvent myself as a writer, I quit social media, deleted my socials and tried to live solo and changed my name. When I met people in that phase, I gave them my other name. That was my first step at reinvention. Changing the name people referred to me as. If I met anyone who didn’t know me from somewhere else, I’d tell them my name was Funmi, it was nice at first. Funmi was different, she took risks, she was brazen, she smiled a lot, even when it wasn’t necessary and she was open to meeting people too. And it worked for a while. Changing my name felt like I had run off to an island and left my problems, it felt like a new beginning, until my past self with all it’s problems and issues resurfaced and I realized that nothing had really changed. I wasn’t different and I couldn’t just change my name, act different and expect to be better. I had to deal with the problems I was avoiding. Now I’m back to being myself and figuring out how to fix up and do better for myself. Reinvention is indeed tricky.
“Ultimately, I made my range wider because I wanted to suit each publication that I worked for. Talk about reinvention — I’m like the Madonna of photography”. Mario Testino
2. As a writer: I’ve touched a bit on this in the first part of this series here. It’s easy to say you’re a writer, what is even more difficult, is the writing itself. Writing is one of the most brain draining and ego deflating task ever, but what is even more burdensome, is having an untold story inside of you waiting to be told. All those years, while I tried to learn the art of writing compact sentences, I failed to put myself out there or acknowledge that I was a writer. The worst thing you can do to yourself, especially in your moments of reinvention is to be afraid of owning it and sticking it to everyone. There are so many people out there who’re not even half as smart, talented or experienced as you are dominating your field. It took me a while, but I’ve now learnt that life doesn’t reward the talented but the audacious. (I really hate how motivational I’m becoming)
“Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators.” — Olin Miller, aphorist.
3. As an entrepreneur: I can’t even begin to list the number of businesses I started and quit when it got a bit hard. If I saw a thing and liked it well enough, I just jumped right ahead at it. Off the top of my head, I used to have a tote bag shop I ran offline and quit after the first production and sale. Then I switched to drawstring bags. At some point, I think I opened an online secondhand bookshop. It packed up when I couldn’t find better wholesalers.
“You have to see failure as the beginning and the middle, but never entertain it as an end.” -Jessica Herrin
The truth is I really didn’t know what I was getting into those years. I didn’t understand or know a whole lot. Still, I kept doing and undoing stuffs blindly, hoping to figure it out along the way. It was cute. But it wasn’t sustainable. I doubt that I’d ever start or invest my time in anything, a business, a blog, a substack, or even a relationship if I don’t intend to stick to it even when it becomes tough. So if you’re going to take anything from this piece, it’s that nothing you want will ever be easy to get, so even when it gets tough, stick to it.
Quitting is too ghetto, even for you.
Now that I’m done with this piece, I realize that in the first part of this series, I said I was going to make a list of 5 failures, not 3.
Huh! Maybe I do overexaggerate my failed reinventions.
See you next week, or month. I’ve a juicy piece titled “Startup jargon, understanding the world of startups as an outsider”.
