If you want to do something that you’ve never done before, the best approach is to find people who have done what you want to do you and learn from them.
If others have put in the work to pave the road, let them show you the way. It’s much easier to travel a path that someone else has paved. They did the hard work of exploring, mapped the route, and paved the way.
On the other hand, the paved road doesn’t always work for your outcomes. Sometimes the paved road doesn’t take you to where you want to go. Other times it doesn’t take you in a way that works for your skills or talents. Maybe the road is suitable for bikes but not cars, or it’s too hilly for you.
Or maybe you just prefer to cut your own path.
If, for whatever reason, you choose to make your own way, you won’t easily find people who can show you the path.
This seems obvious: it’s axiomatic that if you’re blazing a trail that hasn’t been navigated before, nobody else can show you how to do it.
And yet this is the cause of much frustration for trailblazers. It’s easier and more effective when someone else can show us the way, and when we can travel a paved road.
And there’s nothing wrong with taking the easy road that has already been paved.
But if you truly want to be a trailblazer, you must accept that you’ll have to do the work of cutting your own path — and that there’s nobody who can show you the way.
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