Moving the Ball Forward After Watching the Ball Drop: Why Role Models are Better Than Resolutions in the New Year

January is National Mentoring Month, and that could not signal a more exciting start to a new year for me. Why? Because throughout my career, as both a lawyer and a founder, I have always felt that role models are better than resolutions.

What if instead of writing out resolutions for each new year, often tinged with negativity or focused on past failure, you simply made a list of role models? People you wanted to meet, whose work you wanted to read, whose ideas you wanted to dive into and whose paths you wanted to follow?

What if your list for 2023 was not about resolving to change, but finding role models to cultivate?

As we sweep aside the confetti and step over strewn holiday decor (leave it; tinsel is happy and wrapping paper can wait), here are five fast tips to help you make and maintain a list of role models for the coming year:  

1. Write Them Down. Exactly as you would when listing resolutions, jot down a wide-ranging list of role models you’d like to approach. Psychology professor Dr. Gail Matthews notes in an oft-cited study on goal-setting, that we are 42% more likely to achieve our goals if we write them down, and most of us know this from experience to be true. Think hard about who – if you could ask anyone a question or two – you’d want to query, and then write the names down.

2. Commit to Reaching Out. Studies have shown that of the 41% of Americans who make New Year’s resolutions, only 9% successfully keep them. What does that 9% have in common? Dedication. Once you have a list of names – some ambitious and some realistic – make a plan to reach out and set accountability markers like calendar dates to keep you on schedule.

3. Pick the Right Approach. There is no one way to meet a mentor or reach out to a role model, so tailor your approach to each person. Is this leader most active on LinkedIn? Connect with her here. Does she give her best advice on Instagram or TikTok? DM her there. Recent research by Être reveals that 71% of girls would send a mentor a DM on social media, and, indeed, 64% of today's girls are already finding expertise, advice and inspiration on social. If an old-school email or older-still handwritten note is the best bet, grab a keyboard or pen. The idea is to meet each role model where she chooses to spend her time and expend her energy. Then, it’s all about the ask.

4. Keep the Ask Light…but Specific. It’s a new year and it’s easy for everyone to already feel underwater. Blanketing your network with vague requests to be my mentor will get you nowhere, fast. Asking if you might email a single question related to someone’s recent TED talk or newsletter is a better way to go. "[H]ave your sixty-second elevator pitch prepared," advises Tiana Davis Kara in The Epic Mentor Guide," about who you are and what you’ve done to build your skills to date. Then share what key areas you’re looking to grow and how you believe their unique background can get you there."

5. Pay it Forward. Then, in the spirit of new year generosity and helping the next girl, say yes when you are – as you will be – asked for mentorship or advice. Agree to the call, make time for the meeting or set a few minutes for that pop-up mentor moment. Remind yourself, when the time comes, what it felt like to draft that first intimidating list of role models, and let empathy and epic mentorship take over.

Role models matter more than resolutions – in the long run because networks last longer than individual checklists - and in the short run because reaching out to people we admire is…well, inspiring.

Invigorating.

Empowering in a way that can energize a whole new year.

Should you tack on an occasional personal resolution as well? Why not. But remind yourself, and the younger sisters, friends' daughters, nieces, or neighborhood girls reading over your shoulders, that our most productive paths usually lie in front of us.

They don't look back on what we wish we'd changed from last year.

They lead us forward towards our goals, moving the ball ahead long after we’ve watched the one in Times Square drop.

Here’s to a new year filled with health, happiness and the wise words of role models and mentors we all have yet to meet.

 Looking forward,

Illana

 ÊXTRAS: Three role models on my list, lost to us last year but whose words I want to remember in 2023: Barbara Walters, hired as the first female co-host of the Today Show in 1974 and winner of 12 Emmy Awards, who said, "The hardest thing you will ever do is trust yourself;" Dorothy Pitman Hughes, child welfare advocate and co-founder of Ms. Magazine, who stated, "You have to get to a point where you do what you enjoy. And also, it helps you to understand that you have talents that you came here with and you can build on all of them;" and Madeline Albright, the first woman to hold the office of U.S. Secretary of State and the highest-ranking woman in the government in U.S. history at that time, who - in addition to her famous quip about hell and other women - told the world, "It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent."