Humans are really good at looking to others for inspiration.
Nobody starts at the same place when they are born. But where you start doesn’t determine where you finish.
My mom was a first grade teacher for decades. She would talk about kids that would come from great home situations, those that came from incredibly difficult home situations and everything in between.
Yes, there were the usual instances of kids that struggled after being in challenging situations. But she always said that kids could succeed from any situation. Often, the successful kids, no matter the background, would find someone or multiple people to inspire them.
Finding someone, even if you don’t know them, to provide an example of a path you can take is an amazing thing in life. It could be anybody. A family member. A friend of the family. Someone you read about. Someone you see on TV. You don’t even have to know them or have met them.
Just knowing that someone has done something can make you believe that you can do the same thing. And the nature of human life is that you’re likely to do it and each generation will likely make more strides than the one before.
But there is one possible hangup when it comes to modeling yourself after those that have come before you…
It’s good to look at someone that has achieved a lot and that is in the later stages of their life. But if you’re early in your life, let’s say before age 50, then it might seem daunting to follow the same steps as that person.
You have a couple of options in this scenario…
First, you can try to trace the steps the person took and look a couple steps ahead of where you are now. Then work and work and follow their path while making your own tweaks and choices along the way.
Second, understand the path the person took. Then find someone else that seems to be on the same path, but that is just a couple steps ahead of you. Look to this person for guidance. Again, you don’t necessarily need to talk to them or question them or any of that. Just watch their actions. See what they’re doing. See their successes and failures.
People don’t reach their goals in life for many reasons. One of the biggest could be that goals are often big things. We look too far ahead in the future and it seems impossible.
But if you work back to where you are and then find someone that’s on the same or similar path, you can follow their steps and be more likely to see the progress you’re making along the way.