How Many Idols Should You Have

Mix and match the qualities of your inspirations

You have a mental image of what you want to become in 5 years. You know how to get there, the process is long and requires tenacity.

Whatever problem you are facing right now, someone has already been through it. Even solved it and documented the journey.

That is why our idols are so different from us. We can learn about their entire life history and see how they made it to the centre stage they are right now.

But here is the problem with struggles. Not everyone’s wants to hear them. I experienced it myself. I published a blog titled “The Beauty in Telling Stories of Struggle”. It hasn’t received the views as I expected compared to all the other articles on similar life lessons.

But when I become famous one day, that article will gain views. Why? Because people want to hear struggle stories of eminent personalities. What struggle do you think a newbie has? If you think of it as small, why would you even bother to read it?

Why do we have idols?

You are following a path with a steep learning curve. You look up to a person and think, “This guy is killing it.” Our idols have become masters in their field after years of hard work. We want to become like them too.

We love their way of life, the way they solve problems in creative ways. In different aspects of life, you will have different inspiration.

For fitness, you will follow someone. For nutrition, you will follow someone else. For entrepreneurship also, you will have a lot of personalities who ideas resonate with, but you will support only a few because that is what we can do. We can stick to one plan at a time.

We like to replicate our idols many times because their method of success is practical and proven to work if you give enough time to it.

How many idols should we have?

It depends on one factor: how many aspects of your life do you want to change. Sure, you cannot think of a number right now because the answer might be this, “I want to improve my life as a whole. I mean everything.”

The areas would be somewhat like this: health, career, entrepreneurship, productivity, freelancing, relationships.

Create an ideal combination of all the idols.

Having so many idols is a problem in one way. You will find the advice of one person conflicting with other ones. So here is what I do. I have a lot of people whose lifestyle I admire. I am specific when listening to their experiences.

I have an imaginary idol who has all the good qualities that I admire selectively from different personalities. The image is also dynamic and changing with time as I become closer to the image in real life.

The dynamic is the best part of it. You can find the quality of any person you like and just mix in your imaginary version of the perfect person you are striving to become. You know you won’t become the ideal version that you want to, but the efforts will change you for good. They will make you better at what you want to become. And if you are content enough, you will appreciate that.

Final words

Having idols is like having a light bearer in every walk of life.

Whenever you are stuck, you will remember the quotes from your inspirational personalities.

You know how powerful words are. They can change your mood. Even light you up anytime. I did not understand the importance of saying “Good Morning” before I started talking to my father every day after waking up.

I also have a quote I follow whenever I get stuck:

“If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.” — Jim Rohn

This one quote converts my every thought into action. Hope you also have some quotes that excite you stand up for your goals every day!

This blog belongs to a series of posts I am publishing in this 100-days streak. Navigate to the end of article 22, for the references from day 23 onwards. If you would like to read the ones before day 22, here is the first one that documents them in the end.

~Sanjeev