The first habit that you should learn to improve is that of blindly copying others. Each individual is unique and what works for others may not work for you. On the contrary, it may cause problems for you.
Hence don’t copy anyone blindly and if you must copy someone, learn first why that habit works for him. If you are holding the same ground, it may work for you also. Taking an example, if you add blue to a colourless solution, the solution may turn blue. However, if you add blue to a yellow solution, it may turn green. Similarly you may get a variety of different colours if you add blue to solutions of different colours. Though you add the same colour to different solutions, the resultant colour is different in all cases, depending on the original colour of solution.
Blue here signifies a habit that makes a person successful. Since you want to be blue, you add that colour or that habit to yourself by copying that habit, not being aware about your original colour which means personality type. Hence you may witness benefit or you may come across problems; depending on your overall personality.
Considering another example, suppose an actor spends 2 hours at gym every day and he quotes that his muscular body is the key to his success. If you try to copy this habit without looking at your personality type and circumstances; you may end up paying more than you get. It means your financial status, dietary habits, work routines and/or your personality type may not support spending this much money or time on building muscle. Hence you may not benefit much from this practice and instead; you may face problems.
Taking another example, suppose a person with very fair skin is tanning in the sun so that he may achieve tanned look. Is it wise for a person with dark or very dark skin to copy him and start tanning? The fair person is trying to tan in order to achieve a better look by adding darker touch to his complexion. The other person is already having a lot of dark colour added to his skin. Hence he may only end up looking even darker, which may spoil his look.
The key point here is balance. The fair person is trying to achieve balance by making his skin somewhat darker so that he may fall in the middle range. If you must copy him; you need to copy his intention and not his outward expression. It means you may also try to balance the colour of your skin. However in order to do that; you need to find ways to make it fairer and not those which make it darker. If you do that; you may be doing the opposite of what he’s doing in terms of outward expression. However, you’re doing the same in deeper sense, since you’re both trying to reach the middle range for your skin colour.
Considering another example, suppose someone is on a restricted diet as he wishes to loose extra fat. You on the other hand may not have even healthy amount of fat in your body, which means you may be skinny. Hence it is not wise to follow this person and cut your calories, even if he’s your favourite celebrity. If you wish to copy him; copy in essence. He’s trying to bring his body fat levels within normal ranges. Since his fat levels are in the higher range, he’s trying to reduce them. You on the other hand are in the lower range. Hence you should try to add some pounds so that you may also fall in normal range.
It is like if four people are running towards a common destination from four different directions; they are trying to achieve the same thing but their outward expressions may look different. One way of looking at it is that all of them are running in different directions which may even be opposite ones like one of them is running east and another one is running west. However in the deepest sense; they are running for the same objective. It means each one of them can achieve such objective by running in different direction and not in the same direction.
Hence don’t start running east by copying someone. You may already be far east from your objective. Hence you need to run west in order to achieve the same objective. Running east may take you further away from the objective. Likewise, you may need to run north if you are far south from the objective.
Assess your situation first and then decide what should be done from there; instead of copying people who may be in altogether different situations.
Himanshu Shangari