Positive masculinity is not about asking men to be less masculine. It’s the exact opposite. It’s a philosophy built around three ideas: know yourself, be yourself, love yourself. And any man who genuinely lives by those three things will have a positive impact on himself, the people around him, and the world.
What Positive Masculinity Is Not
I read something last week that made my blood boil.
Someone online claiming that positive masculinity is basically femininity. That it’s asking men to suppress who they are, to become something softer, something less.
I want to address that directly. Because it’s not just wrong. It’s the opposite of what positive masculinity actually is.
This kind of thinking is the problem with the modern world in a nutshell. Binary thinking. This or that. Either you’re fully masculine in the most aggressive, chest-beating sense, or you’re feminine. No middle ground. No nuance. No room for the reality that every single one of us is made up of both masculine and feminine energy.
As Danny Dyer once put it rather brilliantly: own who the fuck you are.
That’s positive masculinity.
What Does Evolution Actually Tell Us About Men?
Here’s something that gets lost in the modern debate about masculinity.
No one on this earth is more intelligent than evolution.
There is a reason men are bold, courageous, risk-taking, protective, driven to build and fix and solve. These are not flaws. These are behavioral adaptations that have served humanity for millions of years. They are deliberate, by design, because they work.
We need to celebrate the men who go down our drains and dig the shit out so everything keeps working. We need to celebrate the men in caring professions. We need to celebrate the men who are creative, the men who are bold, the men who are gentle, the men who lead, the men who support.
Every single type of man on this planet has a unique set of gifts and talents. A unique piece of the puzzle. And when we try to squash all of that into tiny, deliberately designed boxes and labels, we don’t just fail those men. We fail everyone who needs what they have to offer.
Positive masculinity isn’t about making men smaller. It’s about helping every man understand exactly what he brings to the table, and then bringing it. Fully. Unapologetically.
So What Is Positive Masculinity?
It’s a philosophy built on three pillars.
Know Yourself
Who are you? Not the story you tell yourself about yourself. Not who the world told you to be. Not what everybody else wants you to be.
Who are you actually?
Know Yourself is about having total clarity on your core values, the emotional values, the ways of feeling that matter most to you. It’s about having a vision for the life you want to build, for yourself, your family, and the world around you. That vision combined with your values becomes your GPS. Your Satnav. It gives you your direction of travel and your way of being in the world.
Time is our most precious resource. We spend it by what we pay attention to. Know Yourself gives you clarity on where your attention belongs.
Be Yourself
Once you know who you are, you get to be that.
Be Yourself is about the rules you live by. Your perspective. Your mindset. Your operating system. It’s about understanding that you cannot control what happens to you. You cannot control events, circumstances, or other people.
What you can control is yourself.
So Be Yourself means deciding and declaring in every moment who you are in relation to what’s happening around you. Not reacting. Not being blown about by every demand and distraction the modern world throws at you. Choosing, deliberately and intentionally, how you show up.
Love Yourself
This is the one that makes some men wince. So let me be clear about what it actually means.
Love Yourself is radical acceptance. Extreme ownership. It’s understanding that you are a flawed human being, and so is every single man on this planet, without exception.
It means looking back over the whole of your life and accepting everything you’ve said and done and thought. Even the bits you’re not proud of. Even the times you didn’t come up to the standard you hold for yourself. Not leaving any part of it hidden, buried, justified or rationalised.
Accepting it all. Loving it unapologetically.
We are not our minds. We are not our thoughts and feelings. We are the observer of them. And when we identify as the observer, we stop being dictated to by what our minds like and don’t like, want and don’t want. We stop attaching our worth and our value to our output, to our ability to fix and solve and achieve.
Because here’s the truth.
You have value just for being here. Just for existing.
Why This Matters Right Now
We are living through a period of rapid change. There is more confusion about what it means to be a man than at any point in living memory. Men are being told from every direction who they should be, what the world needs from them, what masculinity is allowed to look like.
And in the middle of all that noise, positive masculinity says something simple.
The world needs you to be yourself.
Not a performance. Not a mask. Not a carefully constructed version of yourself designed to impress, prove, or protect.
You. Actually you. With all of it.
Because reality isn’t something out there. It’s something that happens in here. And you have more control over that than you’ve ever been told.
Still Think This Isn’t For You?
Then I want to say something directly.
You’re wrong.
And without positive masculinity in your life, no matter how much material success you acquire, there will always be something missing. You’ll always be trying to prove something. Always wanting more. Always burning yourself out and wondering why it still doesn’t feel like enough.
I see this constantly with men who’ve ticked every box on paper and still feel empty. I wrote about exactly that here: Why Am I Not Happy When I Have Everything?
You’ve got two options.
Carry on with the I’ll be alright when fallacy. When things calm down. When the kids leave home. When you sign the next deal. Waiting for a feeling that never arrives.
Or get deliberate and intentional about how you operate as a man in this world. Total clarity on your purpose, your strengths, your weaknesses. Unshakeable self belief. A radical acceptance of who you are and what you bring to the table. An operating system that lets you achieve what matters to you without the stress, the pressure, the hustle and the grind.
That’s your choice.
Ready To Start?
The Positive Masculinity community is a free WhatsApp group of men doing exactly this work. Getting to know themselves. Being themselves. Learning to love themselves. Real, raw, honest conversations between men who are done performing and ready to start living.
Click here to join.
FAQ
What is positive masculinity?
Positive masculinity is a philosophy built around three ideas: know yourself, be yourself, love yourself. It’s about understanding who you genuinely are, what you uniquely bring to the world, and operating from that place deliberately and intentionally. It has nothing to do with suppressing masculinity and everything to do with celebrating and owning it.
Is positive masculinity the same as femininity?
No. Positive masculinity acknowledges that every man contains both masculine and feminine energy, as every human being does. But it doesn’t ask men to suppress their masculine qualities. It asks them to understand, celebrate and channel all of who they are. Evolution built men the way men are built for a reason. Positive masculinity works with that, not against it.
What are the three pillars of positive masculinity?
Know Yourself: get clear on your core values, your vision, and who you actually are beneath the story you’ve been told. Be Yourself: design your operating system so you can show up as that person deliberately in every situation. Love Yourself: radically accept every part of who you are, including the parts you’re not proud of, and own it all unapologetically.
Why do men struggle with masculinity today?
Rapid cultural change has created enormous confusion about what it means to be a man. Men are being pulled in multiple directions by conflicting messages about who they should be. Positive masculinity cuts through that noise by returning to something simple: the world needs you to be yourself. Not a performance. Not a mask. You.
How do I start living by positive masculinity principles?
Start with Know Yourself. Get clear on your core values, what genuinely matters to you and why, and what kind of life you want to build. Everything else flows from that clarity. The free Positive Masculinity WhatsApp community is a great place to begin that work alongside other men doing the same.
