Welcome to the third week of Month 6 in our “Success in 12 Months” blog series! The topic for this month is the idea of “acting as if.”

You’ve probably watched a movie or read a book where you thought the character was fantastic. Deep inside, you wanted to be more like that individual. For me, some of those individuals have come from my love of superheroes.

You know, actors are always “acting as if” they are a character. But you don’t have to be a professional to “act as if.”

This month I asked you to look within yourself and at others you admire to examine the traits you would most like to assume.

Your Exercise for the Week: Why That Person?

What I wanted to do this month was to give you a list of action steps that you can start taking week after week that would help you implement this idea of “acting as if,” pretending or being an actor in your role in life–but it’s more than just pretending.

The first week was all about identifying some weaknesses you have. I asked you to truly look within yourself and find negative personality traits and/or weaknesses that you think you have. Some examples could’ve been: lazy, not confident, fearful, not a good speaker, not punctual etc…

You were to try and come up with 5.

Last week, for each weakness you came up with, you were to think of someone you know that doesn’t have that weakness. You could think about people in your life, celebrities, business people, or anyone else.

For each weakness on your list, you were to list someone who embodies the opposite. So, if you had a list of 5 weaknesses, you would have 5 names of people who embody the opposite.

This week, you are going to write down why the people you listed last week don’t share your weaknesses.

• How do they act differently?
• What do they do that makes them overcome or avoid those weaknesses?
• What traits do they have that you are missing?
• What is their pure motivation?

Document your thoughts in your success journal.

That’s it this week. We’ll wrap up this exercise–and the topic of “acting as if”–next week.

If you are finding that you need some support at this point in your path toward success, consider getting a FREE “Clarity, Strategy, Action” session with me, which you can apply for here.

Until next week…

James