Chart Your Own Course and Just Be You

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken – Oscar Wilde

I can only imagine how hard it would be to base your entire self or business on what someone else is doing. I’m not saying to operate in a silo and not learn from others or watch what your competitors are doing but ultimately you have to be passionate about what you want to do or what your product offers, otherwise your ideas risk falling flat. As easy as it may seem to follow rather than lead, only you know where you want to go, what your goals are or where you want your business to go.

Chart your own course

Whether it is your business or your brand, there is no sense in trying to copy someone else. You can’t possibly know what is going on inside someone else’s head, let alone mimic them successfully. You don’t know what their road map is and as a result you will always be playing catch up and that’s no fun (and I can imagine, exhausting!) You will eventually run out of steam and feel frustrated because you don’t know what to anticipate next. Everyone is fueled differently and what drives and motivates them, may not work for you. What we see as an end result (the product, the person), is the accumulation of their passion, drive and ideas (or blood, sweat and tears) and that’s not something that can easily be reproduced by following steps a, b, c.

Know where you want to go

That being said, it is easier than ever to watch others and over-analyze and let the whole analysis paralysis happen. Especially nowadays with everyone Tweeting and Facebooking their latest accomplishments or what they will be doing; it may leave you thinking-“Am I doing the right thing?”, “Should I be doing that?”, or “Am I doing enough?”.

List your goals and realistic milestones. Don’t just say, “I want to quit my job and have a passive income stream like Timothy Ferris” without putting down the steps and actions that will take you there. And always ask yourself, is that realistic for you? What works for someone else may not be right for you. It is great to feel inspired but often times it is followed by let-down when ‘nothing happens’.

Create your own road map, and expect that there may be changes along the way, but use it as a way to guide you to where you want to go and be, along with the necessary steps to get there.