Think of it as Yoga for the brain, we are going to stretch a bit.
The Annual Reinvention – Who are You, and Who is your Customer?
A customer never buys the product. They buy the person who finally listens. --YNOT!
Funny thing about the new year: folks treat it like a magic doorway, as if walking through it automatically turns their old life into a pumpkin and hands them a brand-new carriage. But the truth is simpler and a little less flattering — the world just keeps outrunning us, year after year, like a dog dragging a man who thought the leash worked both ways.
You used to be able to reinvent yourself once a decade. Maybe once a generation if you were especially stubborn. But now? Reinvention has become an annual chore, right up there with changing your smoke-detector batteries and pretending you still know half the people in your contacts list. Whatever you did last year is already sitting on the clearance rack, and the universe is tapping its foot waiting to see if you’re going to notice.
So you have to ask yourself the question grown adults avoid like taxes and treadmills:
Who exactly are you now?
And who are you trying to serve?
Not the version of you from five jobs ago. Not the version who once had a brilliant idea and milked it until the carton was bone-dry. I mean today you, the one blinking at a world that upgraded itself overnight — again.
And once you know who you are, you’ve got to sketch the silhouette of the person on the other side of the counter: your customer’s avatar.
What keeps them awake? What steals their peace? What problem are they trying to solve quietly so their friends don’t know they’re struggling? Because every service business, no matter how fancy the logo, is just one human trying to unstick another.
Then comes the uncomfortable but liberating question:
What’s your edge?
Your unfair advantage.
Your weird trick.
Your “special sauce,” as the marketing folks like to say — the thing other people roll their eyes at right up until they realize it’s why you’re eating their lunch.
And once you know it, you have to do the grown-up thing: use it.
Leverage it not only to serve the customers you already have, but to draw in the ones who don’t even know you exist yet. Serve deeply. Solve loudly. Make people whisper about you in all the right ways.
We’re talking service businesses here — coaches, consultants, craftsmen, tech helpers, healers — the people who make life run smoother for everybody else. But the truth applies to any business with a beating heart behind it:
If you’re not evolving, you’re evaporating.
If you’re not clarifying who you help, you’re confusing everyone.
And if you’re not doubling down on what makes you different,
you’re drifting toward being average — and average is just invisible with a uniform.
A new year doesn’t give you a new identity.
But it does offer you a clean page.
And sometimes that’s all a person needs — a moment to stop, breathe, and say:
“Well… who am I going to be this year?”
And more importantly:
“Who needs me now?”
Because once you answer that, the rest of the map starts drawing itself.
Here’s a clear, direct, quietly-insightful questionnaire written like a friend helping you face your own reflection without flinching. You can use this for yourself, clients, or as a worksheet in a reinvention program.
Who Are You? — The Annual Reinvention Questionnaire
1. Identity — The Person You Are Today
What parts of you feel alive when you use them?
Which habits or beliefs feel borrowed from an older version of you?
What have you outgrown but are still dragging around out of habit?
What would the “you” from five years ago be surprised you now believe or do?
When do you feel most like yourself — no performance, no mask?
2. Your Skills — The Things You Do Without Trying
What do people constantly ask you for help with?
What feels easy to you but strangely hard for others?
What do you do so naturally you forget it’s a skill?
Which skills did last year sharpen?
Which skills became obsolete—or should be retired?
3. Your Purpose — The Work That Pulls You Forward
What problem in the world irritates you enough to fix it?
Who are the people you quietly feel responsible for helping?
What work gives you energy rather than stealing it?
What kind of results make you proud long after the paycheck is spent?
4. Your Values — The Lines You Don’t Cross
What are you unwilling to do, even for good money?
What do you defend instinctively, even when it’s inconvenient?
Where do you draw your line between honesty and diplomacy?
What do you need in your work to feel that you’re not betraying yourself?
5. Your Story — The Experiences That Built You
What’s the hardest thing you overcame in the last five years?
What lesson did life teach you the painful way?
What success did you earn that nobody can take away?
Which mistake shaped you more than you’d like to admit?
6. Your Edge — The Unfair Advantage
What is your “special sauce,” even if you can’t describe it perfectly?
Why do people choose you instead of someone cheaper or closer?
What combination of skills, personality, and experience is rare in your field?
What have others praised that you dismissed as “no big deal”?
7. Your Customer — The Person You’re Built to Help
Who gets the best version of you?
What problem do you solve for them that they hate solving themselves?
What keeps them awake at 3 a.m. that you can actually fix?
How do they talk about their problem—in their own words?
Why would they trust you over anyone else?
8. Your Future Self — The Version You’re Becoming
Who do you want to become by the end of this year?
Which parts of you must grow?
Which parts must die?
What habits will future-you thank present-you for?
What is the one move that would make next year undeniably better?
9. Your Offer — How You Serve the World
What transformation do you actually deliver?
In one sentence: what do people become after working with you?
Which service produces the biggest results with the least friction?
Which service should you stop offering—even if it pays?
10. Your Strategy — Turning You Into a Business
What’s the single thing you should double down on?
What do you need to automate, outsource, or delete?
What new customers do you want—and what systems attract them?
If you raised your standards, what would change immediately?
Final Reflection
If you had to introduce yourself to the world—
not the old world, but this fast-moving, reinvent-yourself-each-year world—
what would you say you do,
and for whom,
and why it matters?
The answer to that is your new beginning.
Here’s a clean, sharp, highly-practical questionnaire to help anyone build a customer avatar without getting lost in marketing jargon. Use it for service businesses, coaching, consulting, or any business built around understanding people.
Customer Avatar Questionnaire — Who Are You Really Serving?
1. The Basics — The Person Behind the Wallet
How old are they, honestly?
(And how old do they feel inside?)
What stage of life are they in — building, maintaining, restarting, or escaping?
Where do they live, and how does that shape their worries?
What do they do for work — and is it something they chose or something they settled for?
2. The Daily Frustrations — The Sand in Their Shoes
What annoys them every single day?
What task do they put off because they hate dealing with it?
What problem makes them mutter, “There’s got to be a better way”?
What feels overwhelming, complicated, or unfair in their life or business?
3. The Deep Problems — The Ones They Don’t Say Out Loud
What keeps them awake at 3 a.m.?
What are they embarrassed to ask for help with?
What failure are they afraid of repeating?
What do they believe is “their fault,” even though it isn’t?
4. Their Desires — What They’re Secretly Chasing
What outcome would change their life this year?
What do they want to brag about — quietly — to friends or family?
What would make them feel safer, smarter, stronger, or more in control?
If they could wave a magic wand, what would they fix?
5. Their Buying Behavior — What Makes Them Say Yes
What would make them trust you immediately?
What proof do they need to believe you can help them?
What are they already spending money on to fix this problem?
What previous solutions burned them or wasted their time?
6. Their Personality — How They Move Through the World
Are they fast decision makers or slow, cautious thinkers?
Do they like step-by-step guidance or “just give me the result”?
Do they prefer high-touch help or minimal contact?
Are they motivated by status, security, speed, or simplicity?
7. Their Obstacles — What Gets in Their Way
What excuses do they make? (Even good ones count.)
What resources are they missing — time, money, know-how, confidence?
Who or what keeps holding them back?
What false beliefs do they carry about themselves?
8. Their Transformation — Who They Want to Become
After working with you, who do they want to be?
(Competent? Calm? Wealthy? Confident? Organized? Healthy?)
What identity shift are they hungry for?
What version of themselves are they trying to grow into?
9. Their Language — How They Describe Their Own Problem
What exact words do they use when they complain?
What phrases do they repeat?
(“I’m overwhelmed,” “I don’t know where to start,” “I just need someone I can trust.”)
How do they describe success in their own plain language?
10. Your Perfect Customer Filter — The One That Matters Most
Who gets the absolute best results from you?
What shared traits do your happiest customers have?
Who drains you, distracts you, or simply isn’t a match?
If you could only serve one type of customer for the next year, who would it be?
Final Avatar Snapshot
When you answer all of this, you should be able to finish these sentences:
My customer is…
They are struggling with…
They deeply want…
They trust me because…
After working with me, they become…
That’s your avatar.
Your north star.
Your marketing compass.
Your business filter.
