Whose Your Positive Role Model?

A positive role model is someone you respect. But it’s more than just having someone to look up to. It’s about finding someone you feel is worthy of modeling.

It can be more than one person. You can have positive role models for your personal and professional life or your intimate relationship.

They influence how you see life and motivate and inspire you to do and be better.

Why It’s Important to Have a Role Model

Positive role models influence our choices and decisions. They inspire us to hang in there and overcome obstacles; their life story comforts and encourages us. Because they do better, we do better.

A good role model is someone with a set of strong and healthy core values. They’re humble and take responsibility for their decisions, good or bad, and learn and grow from them. They don’t make excuses, blame, or whine.

As we model their example appropriately, we begin doing things we never thought we could do.

What Not To Do

No one is perfect. You know this. There’s a big difference between “worshipping” someone and “modeling” them.

A positive role model is someone who gets back up after they fail and keeps going. They understand that failure and mistakes are just a part of the learning process – in fact, they’re essential to success.

How someone deals with failure and loss reveals volumes about their character and whether you should even consider them as a role model.

Positive role models consider mistakes as a learning experience. They make mistakes and failures work to their advantage, transforming them into stepping stones on their way to success.

They might not be happy about “failing,” but they take it in stride. Find a role model who views failure as nothing more than an “experiment” on the way to success.

Everyone fails. But not everyone picks themselves up and keeps going with an optimistic mindset and a positive expectation that things will get better and are wiser for it.

Become a Better You

If you’ve been comparing yourself to others, please stop.

Focus on your strengths, gifts, and things that you’re good at. Invest your energy into things that matter most to your growth so you can unlock your best life.

Make a list of your set of core values.

Write down your short-term and long-term goals.

Be proud of your achievements! Celebrate. And keep growing. Don’t get comfortable.

The only person you ever need to prove anything to is YOU.

Trust yourself. Be confident in who and what you are as you work to create the life you want to live.

These are some of the most important things we can learn from positive role models.

Don’t Give Up

Persevere. Some days will go according to plan. Other days will feel like a total train wreck. Gain inspiration from your positive role model during these times by seeing how they battled back from frustration and disappointment. Keep working hard towards achieving your goals.

A good role model teaches you the importance of consistency, never giving up, and dealing with setbacks. How? By their sense of purpose, and going for what they want.

Did you know that Thomas Edison’s teachers said he’d never amount to anything? He was fired a couple of times when he grew up because his bosses said he wasn’t a productive employee. But he never gave up; he was never discouraged by failure. He persevered.

Live Inspired

Be inspired by your positive role model. Model their confidence, optimism, and tenacity – but don’t copy them; live your life, not theirs.

Imagine the kind of life you want to live and the person you want to become. Have a vision for your life. Use your role models’ successes and failures to come up with new and better ways to do something.

Conclusion

Finding a positive role model isn’t easy. Remember that you don’t have to know them personally to admire them or be inspired by their courage, honesty, and discipline.

Be encouraged and inspired by their experiences when facing life’s ups and downs. Channel their self-confidence and determination.  But then blaze your own path as you unlock your best life.

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash