Stop imitating the habits of successful people: it’s killing you
We've all read enough blogs about successful people. Whether it is an article about adopting their daily habits or a piece promising to reveal the secrets of success, there are umpteen blogs written on a daily basis because everyone is aspiring to gain fame. What one fails to understand, however, is that prosperity isn't achieved by imitating people. While everybody else is crowdsourcing the world's longest list of the traits of successful people, we have put together a few reasons explaining why we beg to differ.
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Imitation makes people dull and pathetic
Whether it is a living person or someone who has passed away, basing your feeling of self-worth and efficiency on the habits and routines of someone else will make you miserable in the long run. No matter what milestone you achieve, you'll have to keep seeking guidance and validation from the work that your idol is doing or has done in the past. You worry that if you don't graduate from the same college as them or if you don't go through the kind of struggles they've been through, you won't be able to follow the proven path. Here's the thing — you weren't born to mimic someone else's life or to imitate top performers. You were born to be your own unique self and that's what you should focus on.
Success doesn't have a single definition
'Successful people' as a category is mostly relative because success itself is a relative notion. Generally, an individual who has fulfilled his goals can be called successful. So what we need to agree on are the standards and goals that one needs to achieve in order to be labelled successful. Money, fame, and titles cannot be the yardstick by which one measures success. Instead, a person's internal sense of fulfilment can be the measure of his prosperity. But as you are already aware, no one but you will ever know if you have achieved that internal sense of fulfilment. However, when you're finally at peace with yourself and with the work you've done in your life, you can be called successful.
Success doesn't necessarily mean happiness
Happiness is what matters at the end of the day. If you are content with how your life has shaped up so far, you are already successful. But not everybody sees it this way. When most individuals talk about success, they are talking about accomplishing goals that lie below the goal of happiness. Money and fame are good but they are not things that will sustain happiness once their initial high wears off. In order to find out what makes you truly happy, start by discovering yourself. Find out what you hate and what makes you dance with joy. This discovery can only happen when you stop imitating other people's habits and start by looking within yourself.
The worship of successful people needs to stop and more articles need to be written about how one can instead work their way towards a happy and satisfying life. When we dare to cultivate our own unique significance, success becomes a natural by-product.
