Deep down, you want to succeed at something. Be it your business, your workplace, in your life (in general) or in your relationship with someone – you want to achieve something.

Anything can be achieved only by having a plan and executing it strategically. Hoping for something to happen or dreaming of a successful outcome won’t get it done.

You have to have a strategy in place – a strategy need not be a “big” plan – anything that directs you to achieve something is a strategy.

Here’s where many back off. It is easy to dream of something. It is easy to desire something. But to work for it? Now comes the hard part, isn’t it?

You cannot simply fold your sleeves and work to achieve success. You need to clearly know “what” you need to do. Without a strategy, even though you have a goal, and even though you are willing to do the work, you cannot succeed.

Devising a strategy to achieve something is so overrated. It is not so hard, but many think it is hard and they try to find a shortcut. And here’s where the most common mistakes happen!

When you see someone in your field succeed, you will be tempted to copy their strategy for two reasons –

1. Because someone has “succeeded”. So this is their “winning formula”. You think there is no doubt about whether this strategy would work or not because someone has put it to use and has succeeded. You have proof that it works!
2. There is no need for you to reinvent the wheel. You can simply apply their strategy to your case and succeed without wasting time on creating a strategy for yourself, or making mistakes and learning from them.

As shiny as it sounds, this happens to be one of the most common mistakes people make! If you have also thought like this, hold on and read on.

I have two major things to tell you regarding this!

#1 A strategy works for someone because of their parameters

If a strategy works for someone it is not the strategy alone! But what the others will see is, sadly, the strategy alone.

Any strategy comes with a set of parameters. When someone starts to work on a goal what he/she has or doesn’t have is one major parameter.

What kind of skills does the person possess to execute that strategy? What are the resources available for the person? What kind of physical, moral and financial support does the person have?

These are some common questions you need to ask yourself if you plan to adopt someone’s strategy.

In most cases, there are a lot of parameters that would differ between the one who succeeded and the one who wants to adopt that success strategy.

#2 Where you start matters!

Your first step is not equal to someone’s 50th or 100th step.

If someone is able to succeed with a strategy, it might be because they are on their 50th or 100th try. They would have tried the same strategy or a different one 49 times before!

Before you think of adopting someone’s strategy, you must understand the experience of the other person.

Over a few trials or by going through a trial and error procedure, the person who succeeded would have gained a lot of experience and would have learned a lot of things.

These factors add up and lead to success. And when you try to implement that strategy on your first try, without the necessary knowledge and experience, you could actually fail!

What’s the solution?

Well, it is actually good to see someone in your field succeed because it acts as a great motivating factor to push you. And if you observe the strategies of those who succeeded, you can learn a lot from them. You can get inspired by those success strategies.

But NEVER, EVER copy a strategy from someone who has succeeded hoping that you can succeed too. You might be wasting your time on something that won’t work for you.

Rather, invent your own strategy. Over a period of time, you will surely be able to find out what works for you. You know your strengths and weaknesses, you know your parameters – now tweak the success strategy or create your own from scratch.

This way, you will not only find out a strategy that works for YOU, but you will also be able to learn a lot of things along the way!

I believe that – more than achieving a goal, the real happiness lies in enjoying the process and collecting experiences you can treasure!