I want to reinvent myself but don't know where to start

When we think about starting a new chapter or reinventing ourselves, we tend to think about big changes: retraining, moving location, changing careers, or even changing partners.

But perhaps reinvention isn't about sitting down and working out exactly who you are going to become. Perhaps it's about choosing something that interests you, giving yourself a deadline and seeing who you become along the way.

It is not often a film inspires a life coaching article, but this weekend I watched Julie & Julia, the 2009 film about the lives of Julia Child and Julie Powell.

The film moves between two time periods and tells the true stories of two women who, at very different stages of their lives, find something that gives them a sense of purpose.

Julia Child is living in Paris with her husband Paul in the 1950s. She doesn't initially have a clear career or purpose and experiments with different things before discovering cooking. She enrols at Le Cordon Bleu, develops an extraordinary passion for French cooking and eventually turns that passion into something she can share with others – ultimately producing her hugely influential cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Julie Powell, meanwhile, is living in New York in 2002. She's frustrated with her job, feels that she's not really getting anywhere and is approaching 30 with a sense that her life isn't quite what she imagined. She decides to cook every recipe in Julia Child's cookbook and blog about the experience. She simply gives herself a challenge, a deadline and a commitment.

Through doing it, she develops a new identity. She becomes the woman who is doing this thing, and eventually the project becomes her story, her work and her platform.

What can we learn about reinventing ourselves?

Reinvention doesn't always begin with a grand plan

Julia doesn't sit down and decide, “I'm going to reinvent myself and become Julia Child.” She tries different things and discovers that cooking gives her pleasure and makes her days more interesting. Rather than knowing exactly where it will lead, she follows something she enjoys and gradually discovers where it takes her.

This is important because we often put enormous pressure on ourselves to know what we want our next chapter to look like before we take the first step. We think we need a plan, a new career or a clear idea of our purpose.

But what if we don't?

The question might not be “What do I want to do with the rest of my life?” It might simply be: “What am I curious enough to try?”

You can create a new identity by doing, not just thinking

We can spend an enormous amount of time thinking about change. What should I do? What am I good at? What is my purpose? Who am I now? These are useful questions, but they can keep us stuck because we wait for the answer before we act.

Julie doesn't begin with any of them. She begins with: “I'm going to cook 524 recipes in 365 days.” Her husband thinks she's lost her mind, but she starts cooking and, as the project develops, something begins to change.

At first, her mother is her only reader, but gradually the blog attracts attention, and Julie begins to see herself differently. She's no longer simply the dissatisfied office worker. She's a cook, a writer and someone with a project. She is also becoming someone who can commit to something and see it through. The identity follows the action. 

This is something I see often in coaching. We can wait until we feel confident, motivated or certain before we act, when actually the confidence can come because we act. Sometimes we don't find a new version of ourselves. We create one.

Give yourself a deadline for change

Many people describe themselves as starters rather than finishers. They have lots of ideas, but somehow never quite get around to doing them. Julie gives herself a very specific container: 524 recipes, 365 days, one year.

Without the deadline, “I'm going to cook my way through Julia Child's cookbook” could easily have remained an interesting idea. The deadline creates commitment, momentum and accountability.

How often do we say: “One day I'll…” I'll write that book. I'll get fit. I'll volunteer. I'll travel more. I'll finally learn to paint. But one day is an extraordinarily effective way of making sure something never actually happens. Julie turns an intention into a project. 

If there is something you've been saying you'll do “one day”, what would happen if you gave yourself a deadline? It doesn't have to be a year. It could be 30 days or six weeks. The point is to turn “I'd like to…” into something you have actually committed to doing.

Finding purpose through meaningful action

Julie isn't initially pursuing some enormous life goal. She's looking for something that will make her days feel more meaningful. The project gives her structure, challenge and curiosity. It gives her something to get better at, something to talk about and something to share. Most importantly, it gives her a reason to get up and do something that matters to her.

This is particularly relevant when we think about life after work.

One of the biggest adjustments when we retire isn't necessarily having nothing to do. It is losing the structure, identity, routine and sense of purpose that work provided.

For years, work may have told us where we needed to be, what we needed to do and, to some extent, who we were. Take that away, and suddenly there is a lot of freedom, which sounds wonderful – and it can be – but freedom without any structure can also feel surprisingly unsettling.

Perhaps the answer isn't to immediately find one enormous new purpose. Perhaps it is to find things that make your days interesting: people to see, something to learn, something to contribute to or simply something to get better at.

Purpose doesn't always arrive as a lightning bolt. Sometimes it grows out of having something meaningful to do.

Give yourself permission to be a beginner

Julia Child isn't naturally brilliant at everything she does, and the scenes at Le Cordon Bleu show this beautifully. She struggles, practises and gets things wrong, but she persists and keeps learning.

As we get older, we can become very attached to being competent. We know what we're doing, we're experienced, we're good at our jobs, and other people rely on us.

Then suddenly we find ourselves in a situation where we don't know what we're doing anymore. It can feel uncomfortable, particularly when we are used to being the person who knows the answers. But being a beginner also gives us something we don't often allow ourselves as adults: permission to be curious, to experiment and to get things wrong.

We don't have to be good at something for it to be worth doing.

Julia Child didn't start out knowing that she would become Julia Child. She started by learning how to cook and followed her interest from there.

You don't know where the experiment will lead

Perhaps this is the biggest lesson of all.

Julie starts the blog without knowing that it will transform her career. Julia starts cooking without knowing that it will eventually become her life's work. Neither of them has the complete roadmap. They follow the next interesting thing and allow the next step to reveal itself.

We often imagine that change happens like this: Decision → plan → action → successful new life.

But perhaps it is more like this: Curiosity → experiment → action → discovery → next step.

You don't have to know exactly where you're going. You just need to be willing to find out and be curious.

 Where to start when you want to reinvent yourself

If you're feeling that something needs to change in your life, perhaps don't start by asking yourself what you should do for the rest of your life. Start with small steps and ask yourself:

• What am I curious about?
• What have I always wanted to try?
• What would I do if I didn't have to be good at it?
• What would make my days more interesting?

And then give yourself a deadline. If you know you want something to change but aren't sure what that looks like yet, working with a coach can give you space to explore your priorities, identify practical next steps and create some accountability.

Don't wait until you feel completely ready or until you've worked out exactly where it is going to lead. Choose something that interests you, decide when you are going to start and give yourself enough time to see what happens.

You might discover that the thing you start isn't actually the thing you end up doing, and that's OK. The point isn't necessarily to find the perfect new chapter. The point is to start writing it. And perhaps, like Julie and Julia, you might be surprised by who you become along the way.