Goals and success

How do you make sure you goals are your own? i.e. you don't adopt someone else's goals as your own? You see someone else's success and adopt their goals as your own, you get inspired what others have accomplished and try to emulate them. Is there something wrong with this? I don't know, on the one hand I think this is a good way to stay motivated, but on the other hand, how do you ensure originality in thought and action. Anyways, this post was brought to you by the recent NPR ted post on success.