Following a path or blazing a trail

A discussion the other day got me thinking this week. I was chatting to somebody who had been reading a lot of books on people that had succeeded in business to try and get some pointers for what he should do to be successful. This got me thinking, to achieve success should we be looking to copy others or should we be going out blazing a trail of our own.

I think it is wise to learn from the successes and failures of others but to succeed we need to be ourselves and we need to be unique. Sometimes it is very easy to lose yourself and to become somebody else when you spend your day emerged in research on successful people. People see success and they are attracted towards but just because something worked for someone it doesn’t mean it will work for you.

Even when you do find some info on someone who has been successful and how they have done this still not be the best path to follow as there may be an even better route than that person took which could lead you on to even greater success. An idea might have worked for somebody as they were the right person at the right time to use it but if you tried to recreate it now it may not have the same success. People always want something different or something new not just an old idea reinvented.

People need to be sure in themselves and not always be looking for advice and guidance, to be successful you can’t always refer to a book or somebody else for advice. I heard a great quote the other day which was “Chase the dream not the competition.” Which I think is bang on as it is so easy to be come consumed with your competition and to just follow them when if you had just been concentrating on your dream then you would have spent more time trying to achieve that dream.

I think it is wise to be knowledgeable on the dream you are chasing and to learn where others have failed and succeeded but it is important not to get bogged down with it all and use the information not to follow in others footsteps but to blaze your own trail with. Don’t lose yourself and be the one that people are writing about in years to come as someone who shook things up, somebody that innovated and somebody who blazed a trail as not many people are going to write about you if they have already written the same story about somebody else.

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com