How to Reinvent Yourself as a Man: A Guide to Personal Transformation

Emotionally / Mentally / Spiritually / Physically

Introduction / Disclaimer

I don’t take writing an article on this topic lightly. It’s a mammoth one, with huge responsibility attached to any advice on helping people change their lives.

So while I can only write this from my personal experience, I want to reassure you as the reader that this comes from pure lived experience, and the shitloads of pain which accompanied it. It also includes advice I received from some of the wise individuals I was lucky enough to encounter along the way.

While personal transformation is obviously not unique to men, I’m writing this now particularly for men who know there are parts of themselves, or their lives, they’ve outgrown. Men who can see a gap between the man they currently are and the man they know they’re capable of becoming.

Internal Shifts Are Significantly Harder Than External Shifts

Before we begin, let us differentiate the types of personal reinvention possible.

External reinventions may be a career transition, and I would even go so far as including physical transformations as external. Not that they do not take significant internal discipline, but the formulas for going about these types are laid out quite clearly, and the results recognized and praised because they are externally visible.

Whereas, if you attempt to do things like break generational cycles, deal with your emotional baggage, or completely shatter your old beliefs and worldviews, very few people will see the process, let alone praise it.

I think this distinction is particularly important for men. We’re often taught to measure progress through things that can be seen and quantified: money, career, status, strength, possessions, achievements. But some of the most consequential work a man will ever do produces very little external evidence while he’s doing it.

You will need to rely on internal recognition significantly more as a motivating force. The good news is that internal shifts can have much longer-lasting impacts on your life than external ones, seeing as they affect how you show up in almost every area of your life, including for the generations that come after you.

One of the reasons I became so passionately focused on personal transformation work is that this kind of mental, emotional and spiritual work tends to spill over into almost every other area of life, as I will elaborate on later.

“Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong.” — Mandy Hale

My Process for Personal Change

Note: This process overlaps with some of the work I use in coaching, so I will leave parts of it relatively high level.

Most people underestimate the time it takes, and the consistent effort required, to reinvent a single part of themselves, never mind a full-scale reinvention like the one I somewhat naively underwent.

This is where most people drop off. The fewer results they see, the less effort they commit. But like most worthwhile things in life, the most rewarding changes often take the longest to achieve, sometimes without any obvious results for quite a while.

The good news is that our reinvention can take a lot less time than the amount of time it took to mould us into the person we were prior to our transformation.

Meaning, if you begin at 35, for example, and it takes two years to significantly transform yourself, that is less than 6% of the time it took to make you who you are.

Not a bad investment when you think about it from that perspective.

There is endless content on habit formation and changing your bad habits, whether it be in 21 days, 7 days, or 3 easy steps.

Let me just say: that shit doesn’t really apply here.

While reinventing oneself will include changing habits, it is incomparable to the task of deeper personal transformation. Like all roads in life, there are many shortcuts advertised to get there, and the subsequent “results” are often cut short by choosing to go down short roads.

“The truth will set you free, but it may piss you off in the process.” — Unknown

Step 0: The Ability to Get Uncomfortably Honest With Yourself

This step is not to be underestimated, and it’s one that many people have the hardest time getting through because it requires an internal shattering of one’s ego, which is not exactly a lovely experience.

The extent to which you can get honest with yourself largely determines the extent to which you can grow.

For a man, I think this level of honesty is foundational to integrity. You cannot become a man of integrity while protecting yourself from truths about your own behaviour, motives, fears and contradictions. At some point, you have to be willing to see yourself as you actually are, not just as you would like to believe you are.

This is where a good therapist, coach, mentor, or even someone close to you who is willing to tell you the truth can be incredibly useful. An objective third party can often see what we can’t, or what we’ve become extremely good at avoiding.

You can and should also use trusted friends and family at this stage to uncover some of the things you may not want to hear about yourself.

Then brace for impact.

(See: The Difference Between Coaching and Therapy)

Step 1: Determine the Man You Want to Become

Although this may seem as clear as day, you’d be surprised how tricky this part of the process can be.

Our thinking may be blurred at this stage, and there is likely a lot of fear present which creates false limitations around what is possible ahead. At this point, it is important to paint a picture of your future self that is at least believable and attainable to your current imagination. The goalposts can always be moved further down the line.

For me personally, it was very difficult to imagine certain parts of my future life because, a) they were so foreign from how I saw myself and, b) I didn’t want to let go of those parts of myself and my lifestyle that I was deeply attached to and that gave me comfort.

What I did, and found incredibly helpful, was the following exercise.

I took a piece of paper and drew two figures. One represented the “old me” and one represented the “new me.” I wrote as many representative adjectives as I could think of next to each, and then stuck it on my wall for the next 12 months as a guide.

I knew exactly what behaviours, thoughts, patterns and, most importantly, actions this future version of me would adopt. It also served as a guide to show me when I was falling back into old patterns and behaviours.

The question underneath the exercise was ultimately very simple:

What kind of man do I actually want to become?

Not what kind of man would impress other people. Not what kind of man I had been conditioned to become. Not what kind of man my past suggested I was destined to remain.

What kind of man did I choose to become?

It’s also important to understand that the qualities we imagine in this future version of ourselves are rarely completely foreign to us. Often, we are trying to strengthen or uncover capacities that already exist within us but have been neglected, suppressed, or underdeveloped.

This is increasingly how I think about becoming an integrated man. It is less about manufacturing an entirely new identity and more about bringing your values, beliefs, emotions and behaviour into greater alignment.

We must also understand that we will often fall back into old patterns, and we ought to have compassion for ourselves each time. This is to be expected.

Step 2: What Needs to Happen for You to Become That Man?

Every goal needs a plan, and reinventing oneself is no different from any other large goal you may set.

The steps here are both practical and abstract. Practical steps involve easily described actions. Abstract steps are more difficult to describe and may include emotional realizations, changes in perspective, difficult conversations, moments of letting go, or other milestones that cannot necessarily be scheduled in advance.

Do not underestimate the significance of these unplanned milestones.

For some reinventions, you may not need professional support at all. For others, having a therapist, coach, mentor, spiritual teacher, or the right community around you can make an enormous difference.

There are many contributing parts to an individual: mental, emotional, physical and spiritual. When it comes to significant personal change, they tend to affect one another.

I’ve increasingly come to think of this as integration.

We separate ourselves into mental, emotional, physical and spiritual categories because it’s useful for understanding them, but ultimately they are all parts of the same man. A change in one area tends to affect the others.

Finding the right guides and people who understand more than one dimension of who you are can therefore be incredibly valuable. I’ve undergone major periods of change both with and without support, and in my own experience the difference can be significant.

Step 3: The Process

So we’ve identified the first two steps.

First, understand very clearly and very deeply who it is you want to become and what that entails.

Second, understand very clearly and very deeply what you need to do in order to become that man, including what might get in the way.

And now step three.

Once you have the goal, the picture and the plan, it’s time for consistent action. More specifically, intrinsically motivated action.

What Do I Mean by Intrinsically Motivated?

The fact that you take the action becomes part of the reward, not only the eventual outcome, even if you may initially be taking the action to get that outcome.

I find that many people delay getting started with the excuse that they need to learn, read or explore more first. Although I’m a huge advocate for books, and they have taught me an immense amount, I’ve also learned that nothing replaces action.

If the choice is to read or do, pick “do.”

A word on timing: it doesn’t entirely belong to you. That is all. Leave some room for God, the Universe, Source, life, or whatever language makes sense to you. See “The Million-Dollar Question” below.

Self-compassion: this can sometimes be a lonely process because no one but you can do the work, experience what you’re experiencing, and make the choices required to change. Be kind to yourself and become your greatest ally. You will need him.

But don't mistake doing your own work for having to do it alone. I think men, in particular, can sometimes confuse independence with strength. There are periods of transformation where community, brotherhood, friendship, mentorship, or professional support can make an enormous difference.

Mind the haters: those who believe in you and genuinely want the best for you will not intentionally stand in the way of you becoming a better version of yourself. But be prepared for some ridicule as you start changing, especially from people who were comfortable with the version of you they already knew.

A word on pain: expect some of it. Significant change often means confronting things you would rather avoid, letting go of identities you have become attached to, and making choices that initially feel uncomfortable. My experience has taught me that continually postponing difficult things rarely makes them disappear.

As Robert Frost aptly said:

“The best way out is always through.”

Personal Transformation Is Ultimately Integration

The good news is that if you decide to take the longer, more sustainable road to personal transformation, the results usually compound.

A successful attempt in one area of your life often spills into others.

For example, when you start prioritizing your mental or emotional wellbeing, you may naturally start prioritizing your physical health. Someone who initially begins with physical transformation may eventually find himself asking deeper questions about purpose, relationships or spiritual life.

Perhaps the reason for this is that the common denominator remains the same: proving to yourself that you have the capacity for change.

And once you stick it out and start seeing the results, your sense of what is possible in every area of your life begins to expand.

The more I've gone through this process myself, the less I see personal transformation as endlessly “fixing” separate parts of ourselves.

The goal is integration.

Becoming more internally aligned. Becoming a man whose actions increasingly reflect his values, whose inner and outer lives resemble one another, and who isn't constantly being pulled in opposing directions by different parts of himself.

The Long-Term Benefits of Personal Transformation

I’m a big believer that no suffering is meaningless, provided of course that you make meaning from the suffering.

Generational impact: the work you do on yourself does not end with you. If you become a father, your children will experience a different man as their father than they would have before you did this work. They may then raise their own children differently as a result. The power of compound interest never ceases to amaze me, and I don't think it applies only to money.

Every person you touch: whether it is an emotional, mental or spiritual transformation you embark on, every individual you interact with going forward has the potential to experience a better version of you. You never know the impact one seemingly insignificant positive interaction can have on another person.

Building discipline: discipline is an essential part of the process. It is one of the most valuable internal resources we can develop in attaining what we want from life, and the process of transformation tends to strengthen it.

Your capacity for discomfort increases: along with discipline, your ability to experience discomfort without immediately escaping it will affect what you're capable of doing with your life.

The Million-Dollar Question

How long does it actually take to reinvent yourself?

To this, I would say a few things, aside from what it is specifically about yourself you are attempting to reinvent.

First, it depends on your starting point and your history, including the stories you’ve been telling yourself all your life.

Some patterns have been reinforced for decades. Others may be relatively new. Some parts of ourselves are surprisingly easy to change once we see them clearly, while others seem determined to come along for the entire journey.

There is no universal timeline.

Second, it depends on how much time and capacity you have to focus on this.

There is a limit to this. You can’t simply dedicate four hours a day instead of two and expect to halve the time it takes. There is something I think of as “internal capacity,” which is difficult to evaluate on paper. Sometimes the only way to discover your capacity for change is to test it.

You may know when your limit has been reached through physical or emotional exhaustion, or by arriving at a block that can be felt much more easily than it can be logically explained.

And finally, I've come to believe that some parts of transformation happen in their own time.

I’m aware that this answer is abstract and potentially annoying, but I learned it the hard way by trying to fast-track the process myself.

You cannot force another person to change before they're ready, and I've found something similar within ourselves. Sometimes you can understand intellectually exactly what needs to change and still not be ready to fully embody it.

That doesn't mean sitting around waiting for the universe to transform you. You still have to show up. You still have to take responsibility. You still have to do the work.

But you also have to accept that transformation is not a perfectly linear project that can be managed according to a spreadsheet.

Perhaps that's part of the process too.

You decide the man you want to become. You begin moving toward him. You take responsibility for what is yours to change, have patience with what takes longer than you hoped, and keep going.

I wish you strength, peace and a beautifully difficult journey ahead, my friend. 💙