Living Above The Level of Mediocrity – Are You Settling?

How often do you find yourself just settling? It’s probably more often than you realize. The dictionary defines it as, “to accept someone or something that is not exactly what you wanted because you don’t think you can have what you want.” Once you adopt that mindset, you have accepted a life of mediocrity. Surprisingly, many of us settle for mediocrity in various aspects of our lives. We deal with jobs we hate, friends that let us down and we may even let our significant other get away with some things we probably shouldn’t. We often get so wrapped up in trying to make someone else (or everyone else) happy that we forget about ourselves. The fact of the matter is – you can’t always try to please everyone that comes and goes in your life.  No matter how hard you try, there will come a point when you realize that you matter just as much if not more – and it’s time for you to step back and think about yourself for a change.

I have often said that life is about choices and the choices we make ultimately define us. We may not always be able to choose our circumstance in life, but we can determine the quality. When we do that, we can choose not to settle for mediocrity. How many of us have settled for something that just didn’t feel quite right? Or for a job that didn’t allow any potential for growth and development? How many times have we settled for a relationship that brings more pain than joy? Or for friends that are taking more than they are giving?  We all have been in these kinds of situations at one point in our lives. Perhaps we thought it was our only alternative.  Believe me, there are always options. Being mediocre and settling may seem like a safe place at first, where you think things can’t get any worse, but that also means things cannot get any better, either! Hold fast to these thoughts:

• It doesn’t matter how stable or secure you think your life is, everything can change in the blink of an eye.
• The longer you go with the flow and wait for someone to give you an opportunity, the harder it becomes for you to break out of your mediocre mindset and make any changes.
• The only future you have from following the masses and taking the “safe” road is a life of perpetual mediocrity.

How does mediocrity happen? We just don’t all of sudden wake up one morning and say, “I think I’ll live the rest of my life just    hum-drum. What happened to that spunk you used to have? What happened to that desire you had to change the world? Now, you’re not even trying to change yourself, much less the world! At some point, you said, nothing is going to change, this is the way it’s always been and this is the way it’ll always be. So you stopped trying. That’s what happened. It’s because you don’t have your mind right. The enemy continuously feeds you lies about how the world works and how you should act in it. That voice will say, “just go with flow,” or “don’t put yourself out on a ledge, you might fall off!” And if you let them, these thoughts will cripple you. You’ll go through your entire life knowing that you were meant for more than this. You’ll feel that you have enormous potential and so much more to offer, but never quite sure why you’re always living an average, mediocre, uneventful life.

Although this may be where you are now, it doesn’t have to be where you stay. Life is too precious to be lived in mediocrity. Life is a golden opportunity and we should use it as good as we can. Do you dare to be different? How?

1. Do you still have that dream? One of the main reasons why people just follow the herd is because they either don’t have a dream or have given up on a dream they once had. If there is nothing to pursue then why bother being different. Having a dream sets you above average: not having a dream means going to mediocrity on autopilot.
2. Do you find yourself doing what you want or what you should? There are often implicit “rules” about what you should do in a given situation. For example, if you are offered two jobs, the “rule” says you should take the one with the higher pay. But is that the job that is going to help you achieve your dream? Or is it just the “safer” of the two, so it’s better to safe than sorry!
3. Do you worry more about being loved than being what you love? One of the major reasons why we don’t want to be different is because we’re trying to meet someone else’s expectations. We tend to worry more about what other people say than what matters most to us. Living someone else’s life is a bad way to live your life!

Life is way too short to settle for anything less than what we truly want. The moment we begin to settle in the most important roles of our lives is the moment we begin our descent in mediocrity. Excellence is the place where people who refuse to settle live. It is a journey of continuous progression towards the goals in your life.