Reinvent yourself week six

Move on - bring about specific changes in your life

'Think wrongly, if you please, but in all cases think for yourself.' Doris Lessing

Over the past few weeks you've done a lot of thinking about yourself, who you are, who you want to be and what you need to do to bring out the best in yourself. That's absolutely terrific. You may be thinking about specific changes that you'd like to bring about in your life.

Remember: the essence of reinvention is change. Sometimes the changes we bring about are so dramatic we move way beyond the place we were born in, the lifestyle of our parents and childhood pals. That's not to say we are ashamed of our origins. It's simply that we needed to move beyond them. When I was ten I decided I would leave Northern Ireland as soon as I was grown up. I instinctively knew I had to leave to grow up. A small village may be where you start out, but it's where you going that counts.

A fresh start
It's vital to feel that you're living in the right place - for you. If you've made changes to how you see yourself and you want to live differently, you might need to consider moving on. Nearly 20 years ago, I lived a very counter-culture life in a large house with other like-minded people. Our house was more like a drop-in centre than a home, which I loved. Smoking' herbal cigarettes' into the early hours was a great way to live - until I decided it wasn't anymore. As soon as I decided to be different, give up the cigarettes etc, I had to move on. Living in that house, but being a different person just couldn't have worked. I left an entire lifestyle and social world behind. I knew I couldn't take people from the old world. They wouldn't fit.

Making a fresh start was my most dramatic reinvention. You might not need to do anything so extreme. Or you might.