Role Models

Role Models works on a simple mechanism. For each area you want to improve, find someone who already does it well, and borrow from them specifically. Name the area, name the person, name the exact habit or trait, not a general impression of them. Then name how you will apply it this week. Being specific is the whole exercise. Being more like someone does nothing. For example, 'Sarah writes her three priorities on a card every Monday morning before she opens her email.' That's something you can copy on Monday. It is built on Albert Bandura's social learning theory, developed from the 1960s. Bandura showed that we learn a great deal by watching other people and modelling what we see, with no direct reward and no instruction. His Bobo doll experiments had children reproducing behaviour they had only observed. Adults do the same thing, just less consciously. This tool makes it deliberate. Your role models don't have to be famous, and they don't have to be admirable in every way. Borrowing one habit from someone whose life you would not want is perfectly sensible. You are taking the behaviour, not signing up to the person. Three areas at most, one habit from each. Review in a month, and keep the ones that stuck.