That’s how I overcame this predicament. It’s what worked for me. It’s how I got to the point where I can say “Oh, you done me wrong? Ok, doesn’t matter. I have something that I am after right now – my dreams – and that’s all that matters.”
This Role Model Thing Started With My Friend
Do you have a friend from grade school that you still chat with on a frequent basis? Yes? No? I didn’t for the longest time actually. As you might’ve already experienced or are experiencing, people drift apart as our lives take hold of us. Work, volunteer, families, mortgages, etc.
For the longest time, I did not keep in touch with my friends from my childhood – grade school and high school. I was never close to them. Even the ones that went to university with me, only one really stuck around – kinda, he ended up in Germany.
This whole idea got started with an old friend of mine, Aaron (I do name names when I only have good things to say about people, when I have nothing good to say about people, or they don’t want to be mentioned, I use a moniker – I suggest you do the same if you’re writing *smiley*). He’s a grade school buddy and the only one I still keep in touch with. He’s living in Canada and I’m down here in the USA trying to get my green card (I’m Canadian too), but it looks like everything is on hold until we get over this coronavirus pandemic.
The Role Model Definition
Before we get anywhere let’s define “Role Model”. Here’s Oxford dictionary’s definition:
Role Model: a person looked to by others as an example to be imitated. You already knew that. But really, imitated is NOT a great description to the amount of power and positive influence a role model can have over your life.
Have you ever reconnected with someone in your past…?
Aaron and I actually did not keep in touch for the longest time. It was actually after I finished university that we reconnected.
Have you reconnected with someone from the past recently? How did it go? Let me know in the comments below.
And it was most recently that we really connected because of relationships and our inexperience with navigating them. I’m going to leave it there because it’s not my story to tell and it isn’t the point of this post.
To make it as vague as possible, we both discussed how we’ve both saw girls that completely wrecked us (and that is such a godsend by the way – there is no better fuel for growth than PAIN). If you’ve been completely sideswiped by someone you held dear and saw highly, drop a “YES!” in the comments.
Normally, people hold grudges and talk back about the people that “wrecked” them. I’m telling you now, don’t hang around those people. It’s not good for your health and it’s not good for your soul.
Have you ever watched the movie “The Grudge”? I still get the freaks when I think of it. There’s going to be a remake, I’ll go watch that one. I never watched the original one because even the trailer freaked me out.
Yeah, you don’t want to be like those people.
Aaron asked me, in one-way or another, if I still felt like that and I told him that “I don’t”.
After all the self-help and personal development that I had to do with myself, I’m at this point where I find it really easy to not hold things personal against people, regardless of what they’ve done.
Ultimately, I want that for you too because you’re reading this.
Forgive Them For Nothing!
I’m at this point where I find it really easy to not hold things personal against people, regardless of what they’ve done. I’m at a point where I can forgive her for nothing.
Hold on, that doesn’t make sense? Forgive her for nothing?
Here’s how it happened, if you would please step into the rollercoaster, I will take you on a ride inside my mind, full of twists and turns, but “oh so enjoyable” that you’ll come out finding yourself renewed! Excited yet? Let’s go…
My thoughts…
She did nothing wrong. All these feelings are my feelings. She told me that she wasn’t interested in anything romantic, but being as naïve as I am, held onto hope whilst ignoring the red flags. If this is anyone’s fault, it’s my own. I have to take responsibility for my actions and take her words and actions at face value. Neither of us did anything wrong. In fact, this whole situation was so beneficial because of all the lessons I got out of it!
As Shakespeare once said “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. – Hamlet Act 2 Scene 2.” The only way to see something good or bad is based on your perspective and how you think about it. Simply put, we weren’t at the same point, we didn’t see eye to eye. She was at a different place. I was at a different place. We had separate ways of thinking. It was a complete mismatch. What happened was bound to happen.
What people don’t realize is that the thinking of “you did this to me! And it hurt ME!” that’s a very selfish and immature way of thinking.
Why?
Because it’s ALL ABOUT YOU.
The grudge revolves around YOU and how YOU WERE THE VICTIM.
Do you ever notice that the same horrible things that happen to people just keep happening to them?
It’s because they never took the time to reflect and think about why things are happening to them. It’s such an aggressive and destructive cycle.
It’s because of you. It’s because of them.
It’s bad to think like that. It’s sad to see responsibility not taken because it’ll hurt you more in the long run than just accepting things as what they are and practice forgiveness, even though there’s nothing to forgive.
A Role Model Will Forgive Themselves.
It’s bad to think like that. It’s sad to see responsibility not taken because it’ll hurt you more in the long run than just accepting things as what they are and practice forgiveness, even though there’s nothing to forgive.
That’s a lie. The most important person you have to forgive is yourself. You have to forgive yourself for your choices, your decisions, and your mistakes. You’re only human and you’re imperfect.
The more you try to be perfect. Trying to make the perfect choices and decisions, then the more stressed and vulnerable you are to when things don’t happen your way. And here’s the thing, we don’t have control over a many things, so chances are, things won’t happen your way. They’ll just … happen!
Moving Forward with Forgiveness
Forgiveness really is there to help you, if you let it. It helps you move forward. Really, until you can forgive someone for something that they did BASED on YOUR PERSPECTIVE because, remember Shakespeare “For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”, that is, everything is based on your perspective, then you really HAVEN’T moved on.
Once you forgive, you can move on, then you’ve healed.
It’s just hard as F*CKing H&LL!
I literally told Aaron, if she ever comes around and needed help with something, I would 100% help her out. Until you can say that with every fibre of your being, with 100% genuineness, and truly mean it, until you can say that, then you haven’t truly fully healed yet.
How Do We Heal?
It’s funny to see me teach this to my Coursehack Community because I usually teach applicable skills that can be implemented. But I think today’s lesson is super valuable, as are all life lessons, if you let it.
It’s me influencing you and giving you a different perspective when it comes to life. Hopefully, you will share this with others and influence them and their perspective, so they can live life with the skill of knowing how to heal, which I thing so many of us lack in today’s culture.
Also, I really do believe that the most important skills are the soft skills, what you’re learning right now. Because most people don’t practice empathy and forgiveness and think in a “ME, ME, ME” fashion… what will happen if you practice skills of empathy, forgiveness, and acceptance?
You stand out! And opportunity comes to those that stand out!
Indirectly, you benefit a crap ton from this.
“How did you learn this?”
It really was a lot of studying, self-help, and personal development. A lot of personal investment made on myself as a person. Yes, money spent on yourself is always money well spent. But the real cost is just the insane amount of time you have to invest on yourself. The only person that can read and absorb knowledge is YOU. You can’t pay anyone to do it for you. Most people just aren’t willing to do that much. And there will always be people that do even more than you! But that doesn’t mean you should give up, it means that you should be inspired and aspire to be more like them! But for the last 6 weeks, I’ve been doing a book a week. This past week I’ve done two books. What did I say about investing time?
Role Models Can Help Provide A lot Of Clarity for You.
It’s just those clicks. It sometimes take a certain person to say things a certain way that you’ve heard a thousand times before, but it just needed to be that person and it just needed them to say it in their own way, for everything to fall in place for you.
It’s kind of annoying if you think about it that way, but that goes to say, you should always go and find inspiring people to hang around and learn from.
You will get to a point where after all those clicks and reflections, you will find a purpose. More importantly, a purpose with clarity. At that point, nothing from your past that caused you pain matters.
Who hurt you?
Who’ve done you wrong?
It don’t matter no more, homie!
Because you’ve got something that so many people just can’t find in themselves: Clarity!
At that point, you find forgiveness so easily because you know what you’re going after. You know what you’re living for. You know what’s good to pick up, and what’s bad that’s gotta go!
All the pain from thinking about people that hurt you?
It don’t matta no more, homie!
You’re numb to it!
Did You Know About That Dead Role Model?
What has helped me grow the most was finding role models. Authors – real people, who have been through what I’ve been through, wrote the books I read. They might be long dead, but hey if you’re teaching me how to deal with heartbreak, how to build a business, find my passion and it’s resonating with me… then, you my new best friend, my dude from the crypt.
Those are your role models. It’s going to take a while but you have to keep working on it, keep on finding role models and influencers that influences you and your perspectives.
At some point, you’ll find a group of people that you’ll admire. That will cause you to think of something like “If I was one of these people, I would never think like that. They would act with complete empathy and forgiveness and move on with their lives and continuously chase excellence and what they want in their life.”
That’s my definition of role model: A person that inspires you to aspire to be someone more. One that pushes another by their mere presence, in body or mind, NOT to imitate them (the role model), but to be MORE of themselves (the inspired).
That’s how I overcame this predicament. It’s what worked for me. It’s how I got to the point where I can say “Oh, you done me wrong? Ok, doesn’t matter. I have something that I am after right now – my dreams – and that’s all that matters.”
Author’s critical note to the guys reading this:
Especially for you GUYS, if you’re hanging over a girl and can’t get over her. You’re focusing on the wrong things, less on women and more on your excellence and goals. Same for you gals, focus less on guys and how they’re jerks and more on you and what good you can do the world. There’s a lot of good people out there!
Alas, those are just some lessons I wanted to talk about. Find some role models that you look up to and who you aspire to be like. If you’re in a patch where you’re questioning yourself what to do, ask yourself “Would the role models I look up to act this way?” and you’ll be surprised by how you’ll act yourself.
Continue sharing your way to success,
Donald
The Coursehack Club Founder