Life
The Path to Success I Can’t Show You …
… and how you can still find it.
Everyone is different. There are no two people in the world that are exactly like each other. Still, millions of people just like you think there are one-size-fits-all solutions to the problems they encounter. Let me tell you the truth: there are no such things. When becoming successful, everyone needs to go his own way. If you remember anything from this article, then (please!) let it be this. There are no techniques formulas or habits that will work for everyone. But there is so much more on this topic, no, on this whole mindset of going your way, than just this one statement. This is the reason why I have decided to write a whole article about it for you.
The Mindset of going your way.
Life can be hard. I get it. That’s why we often seek out mentors, to help us get through our struggles. If you know what I am talking about, then you can be sure that you are by far not the only one. After all, by the time of me writing this the whole self-help industry has been expanding at a seemingly lightning pace for a few years already.
That shows us that the demand for guidance through life has never been higher.
However, there is a big problem with all of this.
That’s that a lot of people apply their new knowledge, obtained with the help of the self-help industry, the wrong way. They copy and paste the things they learn into their lives. That’s not what you should do, because you shouldn’t be trying to copy anyone or his solutions. Instead, you should critically think about it and only then apply the piece of what you learned that you think can help you in your life. Of course, sometimes, this whole copy and paste approach can also work (think about workout plans for example) but most of the time you are going to be better at adapting what you learned to your own life.
Because isn’t that what everyone wants? Living his own life, happy and successful. Not living someone else’s life.
I think so!
Why copying others will NEVER work.
The thing which people who just copy other people’s actions don’t understand is that every person lives in his kind of niche. It’s that niche that makes every one of us is unique.
My niche for example is the one of a jogging writer, who likes to drink quality hot chocolate. Yours might be the one of an athletic teenage girl, who loves the color purple, or you might be the local soccer mom that works hard for her children’s success and loves to do yoga.
No matter what your niche is, it is the thing that is making you special. It can change over time, but if you change it to just become a copy of another person, you are going to lose this individuality of yours.
When interacting with other people, they are going to realize this quickly if it happens to you. Just think back to your time in school. Weren’t there always this one guy/girl that would just completely copy its friend’s behavior? Such people seemingly try to become another person, and that isn’t appealing to the people around them.
This is the reason why, just plainly and without thinking, implementing things that have helped another person in her own life isn’t good for your personal development. By that, I mean the development of the most important part of you, your personality.
But this doesn’t just apply to the self-help industry. It is the same in business too. Just read the following quote from Peter Thiel on individuality amongst big innovators.
“Every moment in business happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them” ~ Peter Thiel
Why guidance and experience from others can still (sometimes) help you.
Before I end this article, I would however like to make something really clear. It’s that I do not think that taking advice from other people is a waste of time. In reality, quite the opposite is true for me. Learning from others is very important, but I want to encourage you to actively think for yourself about what you are thinking. Don’t just follow some of those things blindly. It’s going to get you nowhere.
This is because sometimes you will come across real BS on the internet or even in books. If you would just blindly implement this stuff, it wouldn’t only make your life worse, so always think through the new stuff you learn before implementing it.
This article is by no means meant to discourage you from learning. Its goal is to make you aware of the fact that you need to use your brain when encountering new stuff, and never just blindly follow a stranger’s advice.
Absorb, think, act!
