It’s great to have role models or benchmarks of what success looks like. It also makes sense to study their career trajectories, strategies, and tactics.

What doesn’t make sense is limiting your work and options based on you think the person you’re modeling after would or wouldn’t do.

For starters, unless you know your role model personally you’re only getting a limited perspective of what they’ve done. You don’t know what opportunities presented themselves, and how different the times were.

You’re living and working in your era, as you, not someone else’s era, as them.

If you’ve laid out a path that you imagine someone else took, that you believe is destined for success, learn to be flexible and open. Keep your eyes on what’s in front of you.