Written by Taylor Eaton
As a money mindset coach and Human Design expert, I’ve worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs to help them achieve success in many different arenas such as creating financial freedom, scaling to six-figure years, buying their dream home, and more.
In my work I’ve found that while nearly everyone craves success in some form, most people struggle to achieve it because they’re making one simple, but huge, mistake: they’re trying to copy what others’ have done instead of forging their own unique path to success.
It’s natural to look at other people’s success and try to mimic how they got there. It’s what we’re good at as humans; identifying and replicating patterns to try to reach the same end result that someone else achieved.
But this doesn’t always work out the way we want it to.
I see this most commonly with entrepreneurs trying to mimic someone else’s business strategy.
Just because that other entrepreneur made $100,000 in three months by posting on social media five times a day doesn’t mean that you will. Even if you have the same audience size, are selling a similar product, and follow the same exact strategy, you might not come anywhere near to making as much as that other entrepreneur did.
And we see the same thing outside of the entrepreneurial world. People think that if they work in a certain position at a company, they’ll be promoted within a few years or given a decent raise because that’s what others experienced. Yet they’re still passed over for promotions and are left feeling frustrated or wondering what they did wrong.
So why do some people fail while others succeed?
The people who succeed are the ones who listened to themselves instead of trying to mimic others.
Those successful entrepreneurs? They followed their gut.
Those people you see who are effortlessly skating through life and hitting all the goals that you feel are so hard to reach? They’re listening to their own inner-guidance.
Call it whatever you like: intuition, your inner-voice, or divine inspiration. We all have it. And we all need to be listening to it instead of trying to force ourselves to follow someone else.
What most people struggle with when it comes to being successful isn’t necessarily drive or follow-through.
They struggle with trusting themselves.
But why is trusting yourself the big make-or-break factor when it comes to being successful?
It’s because we’re all wired differently. A big teaching of Human Design (a spiritual tool), is that we all have different strengths that come easily to us. And those unique strengths are what we need to be leaning on to reach the success we desire.
So, for example, if you are a naturally gifted writer but not so skilled at public speaking, copying the tactics of someone who has become successful based on their ability to speak to large crowds isn’t likely to yield the same results for you.
Even if you share a strength with someone that you’re trying to emulate, chances are you have a whole host of other strengths that they don’t.
The idea of there being a one-size-fits all formula for success starts to break down when you realize that mimicking others and just putting in the same amount of hard work they did completely ignores your own unique strengths and skills.
This is why learning to listen to your own internal guidance and playing to your unique strengths is what will put you on the fast-track to success. No one knows your own innate skills like you do. Because of that, you’re the only person who can create the path to your success.
But after a lifetime of believing that you need to be following in others’ footsteps, it can be hard to start trusting yourself and filtering out everything else. Chances are you’ve squashed down that intuitive voice that keeps trying to nudge you in the right direction. Or maybe you’ve never even gotten to know your own unique strengths.
So here are my tips for learning to trust yourself so you can forge your own unique path to success:
1. Start taking time to listen to yourself.
Spend a few minutes each day asking yourself what feels good to you to do or what you think the next right step for you to take is (even if it doesn’t seem like the most logical step). Start with acting on your inner-guidance around smaller decisions in life and build up your trust in yourself over time.
2. Explore your unique strengths.
Think about what comes easily to you (no matter how big or small those things are). Start to realize that what comes easily to you doesn’t come easily to everyone else.
3. Dive into your Human Design
This one is entirely optional, but I believe that Human Design is a fantastic and detailed system for getting to know yourself better (including your natural gifts and how you best make decisions). There are plenty of free resources on the topic and many different people you can book readings with to go in-depth on your path to self-discovery – myself included.
At the end of the day, success is available to you but your path to it will look completely different. Embrace your uniqueness and trust yourself.