You’re a role model.
You may not know it.
You may not like it.
You may try to reject it, saying you never asked to be one. It doesn’t matter. You are someone’s role model.
Kids, for one, either your own or their friends, maybe a niece or nephew or neighbor, they’re looking at you. Although children are the most prevalent observers and arguably the most influenced, your role modeling doesn’t stop with them. It’s available to anyone you interact with regularly. To all of them, you’re saying the behavior that you exhibit is acceptable. Whether it is or isn’t acceptable to others isn’t the point. What you do symbolizes to the world what you believe is acceptable.
Those that admire you, or want to learn from you, are paying attention and processing what you do, and then they mimic you. Can you handle that?
This might be a good time to take a gut check and admit that you could step it up a bit in some area of your life. We’re a little less than 10% into the year. What personal behavior are you going to take responsibility for improving before it becomes a compounding bad habit?