Why Someone Else's Success Strategy May Not Work For You

And, why the answer isn’t always to try harder. Sometimes, it’s to stop abandoning yourself inside someone else’s plan.

Updated May 2026.

You’ve decided it’s time to make a change.

Maybe it’s the promotion you’ve been circling for longer than you care to admit. Maybe it’s the business you’re ready to grow, the healthier relationship with work you know you need, or the next chapter you can feel tugging at you.

Whatever it is, something in you knows you’re ready to move.

And, because you’re intelligent person, you do what intelligent people tend to do. You seek help. You read the book. You listen to the podcast. You download the guide. You follow the person who seems to have cracked the code. You hire the teacher, the mentor, the consultant, the expert.

And, they give you The Plan. Their strategy. Their framework. Their five steps. Their content system. Their leadership approach. Their exact formula for how they got from where they were to where they are now.

At first, it can feel like such a relief. There’s something comforting about being handed a map, especially when you’re standing at the edge of something new and you don’t quite know how to move. It’s lovely to believe that if you just follow the instructions closely enough, the thing you want will finally begin to happen.

You implement. But nothing moves. Something doesn't feel quite right. So You try harder. You adjust. You wonder if you’re being resistant, lazy, inconsistent or difficult. You override that quiet internal nudge that something feels off because, well, they know what they’re talking about, don’t they? It worked for them. It’s worked for other people. There are testimonials. There are results.

And yet, something isn't quite landing for you.

The plan doesn’t seem to fit your life. The strategy doesn’t quite fit your voice. The strategy makes sense intellectually, but something in you contracts every time you try to follow it. You can see why it worked for them, but the harder you try to make it work for you, the more you start to feel like you’re failing.

This is when so many capable people do something that breaks my heart a little. They turn on themselves.

They assume the problem must be their discipline, their confidence, their courage, their commitment or their desire. They start wondering whether the promotion, the business growth, the visibility, the next chapter, or the more powerful version of themselves simply isn’t for them.

But what if that’s not true?

What if you didn’t fail the strategy?

What if the strategy was never properly built for you in the first place?

We tend to think that if a strategy is successful, it should be successful for everyone. But very often, a strategy works because it’s sitting on top of a particular person’s history, values, confidence, timing, resources, relationships, risk tolerance, body, personality and life circumstances.

Take all of that away, hand the same strategy to someone else, and we’re no longer dealing with the same equation.

We’re dealing with a real person, with a real history, a real body, a real life and a whole inner world the strategy may know nothing about.

Why I fired my marketing coach

When I first launched Sky High Coaching, there was no AI to help build a website, write copy or map out a content strategy. I didn’t have a sales background. I hadn’t come from marketing. I was learning on the fly, and I knew enough to know I needed help.

So I hired a marketing coach. She gave me her strategy, and I implemented it. It didn’t work.

But more than that, parts of it felt wrong to me. Not just uncomfortable in the “growth stretches you” kind of way. I’m very familiar with that sort of discomfort, and I have a lot of respect for it. This was different. There were moments where the strategy felt pushy, icky and, at times, borderline unethical.

I’d raise this in our calls and ask whether we could try a different approach. The answer was always no. This was the plan she’d used. This was the plan that had worked for her. Therefore, this was the plan I was expected to follow.

The more I questioned it, the more combative the calls became. I started to dread them. Instead of feeling supported to build my business, I felt as though I was being squeezed into someone else’s idea of success.

Eventually, I fired her. And, Looking back, I’m so grateful I did.

Not because she was a terrible person. Not because she knew nothing. Not because her strategy had no value. I’m sure there were people for whom her approach worked beautifully.

But it wasn’t my way.

It didn’t account for my values, my voice, my instinct, my relationship with people, or the kind of trust I wanted to build with my clients. I didn’t want to manipulate people into working with me. I wanted to speak clearly, honestly and powerfully to the right people, and let the relationship begin from there.

At the time, I didn’t have the language for all of this. I just knew my body was saying no, my integrity was saying no, and the business I wanted to build wouldn’t survive if I had to abandon myself in order to grow it.

That’s become one of the great lessons of my work. The right strategy shouldn’t require you to leave yourself behind.

The strategy may be sound, but incomplete

I’ve seen this same pattern with clients many times. Rose* was frustrated. She was brilliant, capable, experienced and deeply committed. She was the woman people relied on. The safe pair of hands. The one who could be trusted to deliver. The second-in-command who quietly held everything together while other people took up more visible space.

But, the top job kept eluding her. On paper, she ticked every box. She had the intelligence. She had the work ethic. She had the experience. She had the respect of people around her. She also had a mentor, and she’d been following his advice for years. Still, no real movement.

In one coaching conversation, we uncovered something his strategy had never touched.

When Rose was a teenager, someone she trusted told her she’d make a great 2IC one day, but never the boss.

There it was. One sentence. One throwaway comment, perhaps. One opinion from someone who may not even remember saying it. But Rose remembered. Or at least some part of her did. That old sentence had become an instruction. Not consciously. Not dramatically. Not in a way she would’ve written on a piece of paper and stuck to the fridge. But quietly, underneath the surface, it had shaped what she allowed herself to want, claim and become.

Her mentor’s advice may have been excellent. It may have helped many people. It may have even contained exactly the kind of strategic guidance she needed at one level. But it was never going to fully work while some part of her still believed she wasn’t allowed to be the one at the front of the room.

This is where so much development work stays too shallow. It addresses the visible behaviour, but not the private instruction underneath it. It tells the woman to speak up, but doesn’t ask what happens inside her when all eyes turn her way. It tells her to back herself, but doesn’t explore when she first learned not to. It tells her to take up space, but doesn’t get curious about the cost she once paid for being seen.

And yes, sometimes technique helps. Of course it does. But sometimes the issue isn’t that she doesn’t know what to do. Sometimes the issue is that an old part of her still believes doing it is unsafe, selfish, arrogant, disloyal, risky or simply not available to someone like her. A strategy that ignores this will always be incomplete.

Sometimes the plan was simply not made for your life

A few years ago, I set out to complete my first long-distance walk. I downloaded the official training plan and followed it religiously. I did exactly what I was told to do, because that’s what we’re taught to do with official plans. We assume they know better than we do. We assume that if something has been designed by experts, it must be right.

But, the plan didn’t build me up to the full distance. It didn’t account for my body, my pace, my niggles, my recovery, my age, my existing fitness, my real life, or the gap between looking prepared on paper and actually being prepared on the day.

More than 10 kilometres from the finish line, my body seized.I still crossed the finish line. Of course I did. I’m still me! But it was painful, and it was avoidable.

That experience stayed with me because it’s such a clean metaphor for what so many people do in work, business, leadership and life. They find the plan. They follow the plan. They trust the plan. Then, when the plan doesn’t hold them, they blame themselves.

But, a plan that doesn’t account for the person following it isn’t a complete plan.

It might be polished. It might be popular. It might be official. It might have worked for thousands of people. It might be the strategy everyone in your industry is suddenly talking about.

That doesn’t mean it’s right for you. And, it certainly doesn’t mean you’re wrong if it doesn’t work.

This isn’t an argument against support

Please don’t hear me saying that every strategy is useless and we should all sit under a tree waiting for our inner wisdom to whisper the next step.

I love good strategy. I love good structure. I love wise counsel. I’ve built my life and business with enormous support from mentors, coaches, teachers, friends, books, conversations and rooms that challenged me to see myself more clearly.

But I’ve also learned that the best support doesn’t ask you to abandon your own knowing. It sharpens it. That’s the difference.

Poor support makes you doubt yourself and become dependent on the person providing it. It makes you question yourself more. It teaches you to override your instincts in order to be a “good” client, student, employee, leader or business owner. It hands you a formula and implies that if the formula doesn’t work, you must be the issue.

Powerful support does something very different.

It helps you listen more honestly. It helps you separate fear from truth. It helps you notice where you’re resisting growth and where you’re betraying yourself. It gives you structure without swallowing your authority. It challenges you, yes, but it doesn’t require you to perform someone else’s version of confidence, leadership, business or success.

That’s the work I’m much more interested in now.

Helping professionals and entrepreneurs build enough self-trust to know what guidance to take in, what to adapt, and what to leave behind.

The person selling you the formula hasn’t lived your life

The person whose strategy you’re trying to copy didn’t grow up in your family. They didn’t sit in your classrooms. They didn’t absorb the same expectations, disappointments, praise, criticism, silence, pressure or fear. They weren’t there when you learned it was safer to be agreeable. They weren’t there when you decided you had to be impressive to be respected, useful to be loved, perfect to be safe or quiet to be accepted.

They weren’t in the meeting where you were the youngest woman in the room.

They weren’t in the business you built from nothing.

They weren’t in the workplace where your good ideas were ignored until someone else repeated them.

They weren’t in the moment you realised you’d become very good at looking composed while quietly carrying far too much.

They don’t have your exact body, your responsibilities, your energy, your desires, your fears, your gifts, your season of life or your private history with power.

They also don’t have your exact brilliance.

They don’t know the way you see things before other people can articulate them.

They don’t know the standards you hold, the care you bring, the rooms you’ve already survived, the instincts you’ve learned to trust, or the parts of yourself that are finally ready to come forward.

So yes, learn from people. Please do. But don’t outsource your authority to them.

Don’t assume that because something worked for them, it should work for you. Don’t assume that because his leadership style is celebrated, yours must become a copy of it. Don’t assume that because someone else built a business, body, career, relationship or life through one particular path, your task is to squeeze yourself into the same shape and call it growth.

You’re allowed to be discerning. Not cynical. Discerning.

Cynicism closes the door before anything useful can enter. Discernment opens the door, lets the advice come in, pours it a cup of tea, then decides whether it’s staying.

The next level may not need more information

There comes a point in many people’s lives where the next level doesn’t come from gathering more information. It comes from telling the truth. Not the dramatic, burn-it-all-down version of truth. Although, let’s be honest, sometimes that has its place.

I mean the quieter truth.

The truth that says:

“I don’t actually want that.”

“I’m tired of pretending this version of success still fits me.”

“I know what I want, but I’m scared of what it’ll ask of me.”

“I keep asking for advice because I’m hoping someone else will give me permission.”

“I’ve been trying to become more confident by copying people who aren’t me.”

“I don’t need another plan. I need to stop abandoning myself inside the plans I already have.”

This is where the work becomes deeper.

Instead of asking, “What did they do?”

You begin asking, “What’s true for me?”

What do I value? What am I no longer willing to betray? What kind of success am I still chasing out of habit? What does my real life actually have capacity for? Where am I trying to force myself into a pace, voice, style or identity that was never mine? Where do I keep waiting for permission? Where am I making myself smaller, sharper, busier or more impressive than I need to be?

And, perhaps most importantly, what would change if I trusted that my way forward doesn’t have to look exactly like anyone else’s?

This doesn’t mean you become precious, uncoachable or impossible to challenge. Quite the opposite.

The more deeply you know yourself, the more powerfully you can be supported. You can receive feedback without collapsing. You can be challenged without handing yourself over. You can hear an idea and decide whether it’s medicine, noise, or simply not for this season.

That’s self-awareness and inner knowing.

The right strategy helps you stay with yourself

For years, I think many high-achieving professionals have been taught that growth requires self-abandonment.

We may not say it that way, but that’s often what the culture rewards. Push harder. Be more disciplined. Get up earlier. Care less. Toughen up. Speak louder. Be more visible. Be more strategic. Be more like her. Be more like him. Be less sensitive. Be more commercial. Be more polished. Be more impressive. Be more palatable. Be more everything.

No wonder so many people are exhausted. They’re not only trying to grow, create, evolve or lead. They’re trying to do it while leaving half of themselves outside the room.

I’m no longer interested in that kind of growth. The right strategy shouldn’t split you in two. It should help you move forward and remain intact. It should give you enough structure to create movement and enough space to remain honest. It should take into account your ambition and your humanity. It should respect your desire for more without turning you into a machine. It should help you become more visible without becoming more performed.

Because the point isn’t to become someone else. The point is to become more fully, clearly and powerfully yourself.

This is one of the reasons I created The Soft Strength Salon.

Intelligent, high-performing women don’t need another formula that ignores the truth of their lives. They need a room where the real woman is welcome. The woman who has achieved so much already, but can feel that the next chapter is asking for something more honest.

Inside the Salon, we’re not all chasing the same goal or following the same strategy. Some women are growing their leadership. Some are expanding their businesses. Some are preparing for a more visible chapter. Some are untangling their identity from achievement.

What unites them is the desire to move forward in a way that’s honest, aligned and deeply their own. A desire to uncover what's been holding them back, under the surface.

If this article has stirred something in you, and you know this is no longer about needing another generic plan, you’re welcome to apply for a no-obligation call with me.

We’ll explore where you are, what you’re trying to create, and whether The Soft Strength Salon is the right room for you. TO LEARN MORE CLICK HERE

Janelle Ryan is a globally recognised personal, career and leadership coach who works with high-performing professionals and established leaders navigating growth, change and the next phase of their life and leadership. She is the founder of Sky High Coaching, an international speaker, retreat leader and published author, known for her work on internal authority, soft strength and sustainable success. Janelle blends deep insight with practical application to help capable women lead with clarity, confidence and precision.