I’d be willing to guess that you probably want more out of your career.  After all, it’s human nature to want more than what we have.  It’s what has made us the dominant species on this planet.  We’re never satisfied.  However, for the majority of the readers out there, this feeling is probably justified.  You probably have a ton of ideas, and aspirations for how to make a living, but you just don’t know how you can make it happen.  You may have a vague idea of what you want to do with your career but you don’t have any idea of how to get there.

One way to break through the fog of mystery is a concept known as modeling.  No, I’m not talking about Heidi Klum style modeling.  What I’m referring to the art of studying the actions of successful people and “modeling” yourself after them.  This is a widely used concept in the world of self improvement.

When you model yourself after someone else, you are in essence, emulating their success.  That is, if you choose to model yourself after a successful person.  Likewise, if you choose to model yourself after an unsuccessful person, you are therefore emulating their failure.  Logically speaking, whose advice for success seems more credible, the middle aged dude who is still working fast food, or his ambitious friend who is making a six figure salary?

While you might have never referred to is as such, you have probably modeled yourself after someone else in the past.  If you have an older brother or sister, you probably emulated a lot of their behavior when you were young.  Most likely, as a teenager, you had a celebrity that you adopted behavior from, probably much to the annoyance of your parents.  Your parents probably tried to get it across that you shouldn’t listen to the advice of a celebrity, but unless you were a very fortunate child, that celebrity was probably making a lot more money than your parents.  Maybe their advice wasn’t very far fetched after all?

In your maturity, you’ve probably convinced yourself that the best way to go through life is to be yourself, and that if you fail or succeed at something, it needs to be based on your own merits.  But why not learn from those who have traveled the same path before you and can offer you valuable advice?  And anyway, you have been modeling yourself after others all of your life, whether you are aware of it or not.  Your perceptions of how to achieve success have to have come from somewhere in your upbringing.  Most likely they were instilled by a combination of your parents, school teachers, and pop culture.

The common model for success is the hard working, punctual, and modest person who gets a college degree.  The problem with this model is that it is too vague.  It is better to know the history of a specific person who has achieved success, so that you may try to emulate his or her achievements.

The idea here is to identify what you want to accomplish, and seek out someone who has had success in that field.  Let’s say that you’re a musician, hoping for a record deal.  You might want to model yourself after another musician who already has one, instead of modeling yourself, consciously or not, after other struggling artists.  Now, if you don’t personally know any artists with a record deal, there’s still countless sources where you can find interviews.  Or you can travel to autograph signings to ask for advice on getting signed.

Maybe you’re an aspiring film maker.  Your passion is for horror films.  You might consider reading up on the careers of filmmakers such as Wes Craven, Lloyd Kaufman, and John Carpenter.  How did they achieve their success? What did they do differently than what you are doing?

Please note I’m not advocating ripping anyone off.  We don’t need more copycats in the industry with a lack of imagination.  When I say model yourself after someone else, I’m mostly referring to their outlook on life and their approach to their work.  I’m not telling you to make a movie based on Nightmare on Elm Street, or to make an album that reeks of fanboyism.  I’m telling you to observe what other successful people did when they were at the point in their career paths that you are at right now.  You can learn a lot from the experience of other people.

So don’t be afraid of walking a similar path of others.  Be receptive to the lessons learned from other people, because there’s something we can learn from everyone.  Learn from their mistakes, and benefit from their knowledge.  And if it pays off for you, be sure to thank them down the road if you ever get the chance.