I decided to become my own role model in 2019, that was about 5 years ago.
Reason was simple, I looked around and could not find anyone that was ˜20 years older and was in posession of what I looked for in a role model, i.e. someone that was truly happy with her life, happy in relationships that mattered to her, intellectual, financially independent, attractive with a healthy workout regime, glowy and clear skin, with a smiley disposition, living happily working on things that she loves.
It was then, that I realised that it makes total sense for no such person to exist given the specific aspects of what I considered to be important and aspirational were unique to myself.
That was when I decided to be my own role model. I did the following.
- Took out my notepad on my iphone,
- listed out 9 aspects (mind, beauty, health, parents, marriage, kids, friends, space, passive income) that I cared about
- put a 1 liner action item against each of the 9 aspects (e.g. Mind – reading 1 book/month, Health – exercise 2/week, Kids – daily conversations, outdoor weekend activities, 1-1 time etc), baseically what I needed to do NOW in order to be what I wanted to be in 20 years.
- rated myself on where I was currently (e.g. Mind – 20%, Kids – 40% etc)
The 4 steps took me about 3 minutes. I guess I was pretty sure of the future self I wanted to be and self aware of how I was tracking against each key aspect of my life.
To be fair, in 2019 itself, I didn’t improve much…but it was the first stage of me being aware of my goals.
In 2020, I did a similar exercise from scratch and realised that my goals stayed consistent. In terms of actions I’d started taking, there were some but not in all aspects. I still wasn’t reading 1 book/month but had started daily youtube exercises as Covid hit and had the motivation to do exercises indoors. I’d also improved on styling up my space. That was about it.
In 2021 and 2022, I honestly do not remember too much. I do know that I took a first step on trying out my passion in interior styling (which I was hoping would become my business in the future), I volunteered at an interior styling firm at Dempsey Road for about 8 months. I was more of a shopkeeper (not what I thought I’d signed up for) but nonetheless, I was please that I’d taken some action. I still remember how excited I was when the owner called me to start volunteering, I was totaly ecstatic!
2023…this was the year I really took some seriuos actions. I started 20 good habits including reading 1.25books/month! This was really something for me personally as this goal of reading 1 book/month has been there since I started working and I never managed to do it till 2023. I’ll get into the details of the 20 habits in the next post. The point is, I just started executing. Why was I able to take so many actions, big or small? It was because 2023 was probably one of the most difficult years of my life…so it’s true. Humans grow when they’re hit with a huge stress or challenge or shock. We seem to need big triggers for us to do something. One of the first books I read in 2023 that got me hooked to reading was a book called Be Your Future Self by Benjamin Harding.
So, that is the process I want to share on my site. Not the outcome. I want to share my thought process, specific steps taken (and continue to take) as I go on my journey to becoming THE version of myself that I want to be. Why? Because I am sure there are many others like me, in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s who are as motivated and inspired to age well and be successful (in their own definition of success), i.e. be their own role model. That to me, is what happiness means. It’s not a goal, it’s a process of reflecting on my own little/big accomplishments and the desire to continue to be inspired to grow in the aspects I care about.
I have clearly a long way to go since this is my first blog with 0 reads/followers. A friend told me to take a screen capture of this entry that shows 0 reads/followers and I think that’s a great idea!
“Success is a process, not an event”- Gary Halbert
Leave a Reply