Opportunities in life are abundant.
There are people who take something as little as wanting to entertain people, and they turn it into a whole career (Youtube, anyone?). There are people out there following their passions, traveling the world, working from the comforts of their homes in cool places like Bali.
People are starting charities, just yesterday, I was working out, and a woman started telling me about a charity she started a few years ago for underprivileged youth and giving them an opportunity to play sports in school.
How cool is that? A few days ago, I was watching a YouTube video, and an ad came on. I usually skip, but something prompted me to listen. It was a story of a guy who was a nightclub promoter in New York.
After a decade of indulging his darkest vices, Scott Harrison founded a non-profit organization, Charity: water, which since 2006, has given 8 million people around the world access to clean water by funding nearly 30,000 water projects in 26 countries across the world. Over 1 million people have donated more than $300 million to its cause.
Isn’t that insane? People all over the world are taking their simple life and turning it into something meaningful and powerful.
Most people are afraid of being mediocre; deep down, they know they want to do something meaningful, but putting in the work to achieve what they want seems far-fetched. So instead, they get angry at the ones who weren’t afraid to go for it.
You can overcome this. You don’t have to be someone who settles for mediocrity. You can make the decision to live your life to its fullest potential and achieve your dreams; to do that, there are few steps you can take. They’re not easy. If they were, everybody would be living out their dream life.
But that’s the point, right? Not everybody can do what it takes to escape mediocrity.
Get outside of your comfort zone.
Mediocrity is unavoidable if you stay within your comfort zone. When you play it safe, it’ll lead to a life less than what you want because you don’t take any risks, you don’t challenge yourself, and you skip out on the lessons you learn from failing.
Think about it, if you do what you’ve always done, what will come out of it? The same old result. You’re not going to create anything new in your life, and your life will become boring and repetitive.
The next thing you know, you’re refusing to make any changes because you’ve grown comfortable. Doing something different scares you.
And ultimately, this is what kills any potential for growth. This is what prevents most people from going after their goals and dreams.
How to apply this:
Getting outside of your comfort zone starts with the little things because eventually, they add up to something bigger.
Challenge yourself to get out of your routine, even if it’s as simple as going for a walk in the evening instead of watching TV all night. Even if it means going to dinner with friends instead of holing yourself up at home like you normally do.
Over the weekend, I did something completely out of my normal routine. I started writing my book. I went to the beach in the morning instead of getting straight to work. I asked friends to meet me for dinner. It was refreshing and incredibly stimulating.
Success happens outside of your comfort zone, but you have to take action on it, so make it your priority to continuously get out of your comfort zone.
Overcome your self-limiting beliefs.
“I’m not ready.”
“I’m not good enough.”
“I’m not smart enough.”
“Nobody will like/listen/watch/read it anyway.”
Those are all examples of self-limiting beliefs that are toxic and will hold you back from achieving success.
They are negative self-perceptions that live in your conscious and subconscious rooted in past experiences, opinions of others, values and beliefs of your friends and family, as well as social media.
People who live with these types of thoughts engraved in their minds are the people who will always let those perceptions hinder them from going after what they truly want.
People who don’t want to live mediocre lives understand that defeating your fears and overcoming your self-limiting beliefs is going to take consistent action. All you really need is persistence because once you start seeing progress, slowly but surely, those beliefs begin to evaporate.
How to apply this:
Instead of letting your fears trap you in a life of mediocrity, learn to use them as fuel.
Take things like, “I’m not smart enough,” and change it yourself. Do your research. Learn about whatever it is that you feel you don’t know enough about. Prove yourself wrong.
Take “I’m not ready,” and dive in headfirst. Make it your mission to prove to yourself that everything you’ve ever thought about yourself that’s negative is false.
Create An Action Plan.
People who refuse to be mediocre understand that it’s going to take consistent daily actions to achieve their goals and aspirations.
Little by little, word by word, chapter by chapter, everything will eventually add up to the life you want for yourself.
I started writing over a year ago; I had no idea what the outcome would be. I just knew that everybody who was doing it before me only got to a good place within their careers by putting in the work every single day.
Now, this is what I do every single day and make a living off of it. Had I not been committed every single day to strive towards my dreams, this wouldn’t have happened.
How to apply this:
Do something daily that will inch you closer to living your dream life. Make the necessary choices that will support those dreams, and eventually, as time goes on, you’ll start to see your choices paying off.
Don’t let yourself give up, and don’t let yourself settle for less than what you want. Living an incredible life is achievable, but you have to put in the necessary effort to get there. It won’t happen overnight, it probably won’t even happen in a year or two, but you’re more than capable of overcoming a life of mediocrity.
Learn more than anyone else.
Not just by studying in school, but especially about yourself, how to improve yourself, and how to master all the areas of your life.
Read books that teach you how to succeed in life, read books written by the people who you aspire to be like.
In order to reach a higher level in life, you need the assistance of successful role models, mentors, and coaches. The best athletes and entrepreneurs never relied solely on their natural talent. They leaned on people to guide them along the path to greatness.
How to apply this:
Study something every single day.
Whether this is from reading something that stimulates your mind, taking a course online, watching educational videos, whatever you choose to do should leave you more knowledgeable than the average person.
This will ultimately give you more control over your life and set you apart from the rest.
Don’t Listen To The Naysayers.
If you’re striving to escape mediocrity, others will judge you.
They’ll question you, they’ll make you feel like you’re making the wrong decisions, but usually, it’s because they’re too scared to go after their dreams, so they try to drag you down with them.
If you want more out of life, you have to do things others aren’t willing to do. You have to do what others are scared to do. You can’t let their negative opinions or words affect you. It’s not your business what others say and do, and quite frankly, it’s not theirs either.
What matters is what you do and how you live your own life.
How to apply this:
This has been something I struggled with for a long time; in my family, the right way to go about things is to get a college degree and have a 9–5.
I gave up on my dreams many times because of what others said to me, which is why I decided that other people’s negative opinions would no longer impact my life.
I chose to live my life on my terms despite what others were saying/are saying. And it’s not easy, especially when you have resistance coming from friends and family.
At the end of the day, remember that it’s your life, and you need to fight for what you want. Life has so many opportunities and different doors to choose from, but you need to be strong enough to go explore and be willing to do what others are so afraid of doing.
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Mediocrity is the state of accepting and living life according to average standards, in other words : barely making it. Living in mediocrity creates a mid-level comfort zone. Many people around the world are comfortable living in mediocrity. They pick the path taken by many and follow it till the end because it provides security. A mediocre life causes you to put aside your dreams and ambitions for what makes more sense. While you may survive in a mediocre life, you will never thrive. You will always be among the rest and nothing about you will be outstanding. If you are ambitious and really want to make an impact on the world, you should never live your life in this way. Here is how not accepting mediocrity from yourself will make you successful.
Rejecting mediocrity gets you closer to big goals
People who are mediocre are afraid to think big. They are even more terrified of making any steps towards big goals. They follow what the society tells them to do. The rules and regulations that govern their surroundings determine their level of thinking. This keeps them average and they suffer the problems which affect the masses. To avoid falling in this trap, do not accept mediocrity from yourself when setting goals. Strive for big ones. Define them and then take small steps to get there. This will put distance between you and the mediocre.
Refuse to be safe and take that risk so as to be successful
Risks are often scary. The scariest among them are the ones that determine the path which our lives take in the future. At a certain point in our lives, each one of us faces a risk that we can take and become great or avoid and stay mediocre. When this time comes, many people freeze in their tracks and are afraid to go for what they desire. This condemns them to a mediocre, boring life. Whenever you come across such a risk, search within your heart and go for what you want. This will require courage and resilience. However, you are most likely going to survive the outcome of this risk. Moreover, you will become successful and live a life worth documenting.
Refuse to do what you should and do what you want to gain success
Do you know what you want? Many people have been told what to choose and how to behave that they no longer even know what they want. They end up living the lives that they should instead of the ones that they want. To keep society in control, there are rules about how to behave in particular situations. These rules are created to fit the largest number of people. Accepting them puts you on the fast track to a life of mediocrity. Refuse to accept mediocrity in yourself by not abiding to any general rules that holds you back from what you want. While maintaining decorum and a civilized nature, you can refuse to follow the herd mentality and do what you want. This will make you successful.
Not accepting mediocrity makes you different in a good way
One of the main things that makes people mediocre is being afraid to be different. They look around them and see other people who share in the same fear. This causes them to get comfortable in their mediocrity. Such a decision causes them to live in fear their entire lives. Refuse mediocre decision-making from yourself such as this. Strive for more in life. You can do this by looking up to advisers, mentors and role models who broke out of the social mold and became legends. Strive to be different.
Reject the mediocre activities that people do in their free time to be successful
Time is the most important resource that we have. You can choose to invest it in a mediocre way or one that will improve you. Average people spend their time engaging in mediocre activities. Examples of these are partying, watching television and other activities regarded as fun by the masses. If you want to be successful you must avoid this way of spending time. Reject the mediocre popularity of these activities and do those which improve you. Examples of these are reading, running a business on the side or exercising. This is hard to do because it is the extra mile. However, it makes you more successful than the people around you.
Rejecting the mediocre opinion of the masses makes you successful
Every one of us has a big decision to make when they reach adulthood. This is the decision of what sort of man or woman to be. Many people who reach this age pick an adulthood that is accepted by the masses. One fact is that the majority are mediocre in nature. Therefore, their choice of identity is bound to be average too. If you want to be successful, reject the common opinion and chart your own path. In some cases, you have to reject the path that your surroundings encourage you to take. This will eventually make you the man or woman that you desire to grow into. Robert Frost encourages us to take the road less traveled, for it will make all the difference.
Have a dream
Everyone has a dream. Mediocre people give up on theirs. Why do they do this? It is because pursuing a dream is lonely, hard and often goes against the general opinions shared by the society. We have learned that majority of the society is average. Hence, their opinions are the same. As such, do not accept mediocrity from yourself by giving up on your dream too. Find that thing that you always wanted to be and pursue it relentlessly. You are going to be labeled different or even called a loser but eventually, you will achieve it and the mediocre will talk about how they knew you.
The Important Take Away
A mediocre life is a wasted life. It condemns you to live in fear. It makes you put your future in the hands of other people’s opinions and ideas. It is a thankless life that kills you while you are still breathing. Refuse mediocrity from yourself. The guidelines above can help you to embrace your own unique existence. Follow them and live a glorious life that people will talk about for eternity.
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