According to Osho, Buddha's six years of austerity were both wasted and useful: wasted because no effort causes enlightenment - realization flowers only in profound stopping; useful because relentless striving exhausted the itch to seek and ripened the capacity to truly stop. Imitating 'stopping' without seeing effort's futility fails; intensity, not duration, matures one to surrender.
Trying very hard didn’t give Buddha awakening, but it tired him enough to truly be still so it could happen.