Role Models – Good or Bad?
I got a lot of remarks on my last post about role models. Most of them were surprised on my choice of role models.
What I realized is that people tend to think, again, in terms of good or bad. The question that kept coming up was “Is it good to have role models or bad?�
Well, in my opinion, it isn’t about good or bad; it’s about whether it is conscious choice or is it just automatic and trying to imitate someone.
When you just try imitating someone else you’ll never be successful in it. The only person you can be is yourself. There is no need to rehearse in order to be yourself. You don’t need to practice in order to be authentic, and then come into your own power.
When you start imitating other people you’ll end up maybe good in what you’re doing…but fake and losing your own potential and power.
However, when you make a conscious choice to learn from someone that can be your role model, you know exactly what you want to learn from them and you start DEVELOPING, not imitating those qualities within you. You start developing qualities that maybe you don’t even think that you posses but you find out that you are capable of having them.
This way role model is actually a coach that allows us to become bigger than what we think we can and thus fulfill our full potential.
My own role models – some of them I chose consciously and some were just an automatic reaction to something that I’ve read and I thought: “Wow, that will be cool to be�. Those role models I used in conscious choice allowed me to become better in what I was doing.
For example – I chose Ann Shirley (Anne of Green Gables) as my role model for excelling in school. I could connect to her being the “new kid on the block�, as we kept changing places every 3-5 years when I was growing up. Being a red headed also made me feel connected to her and most of all being called “carrot head�. All in all I could connect to her and from her I learned to cherish education and being good at it and giving everything in order to become first in school.
However, my other choices were less consciously made and the result was that I started adopting all their behaviors without thinking if it fits me or even if it’s true for me. Thus my hard times in relationships without realizing that it had nothing to do with whom I was, but more the persona I was imitating so well.
Therefore, role models can be good when you chose them consciously and can be less supportive to you when you just adopt them blindly, thinking it’s “cool� to be that way.
Just have a look where your role models were supportive to you and were they less supportive to your development?
Have a great Day!
