Being Mediocre

I’ve been thinking about this concept of mediocrity. Been mulling over it for the past year. It was almost a year ago that I found out we were expecting our second child. My son was two and a half at the time. I’d been running a financial services business “part-time” in addition to teaching middle-school Spanish full-time, with a one-plus hour commute each way. After quite inconsistently working to build my business over the previous five years, I knew exactly the time commitment and mental energy it was going to take me to reach any level of success, even on a part-time basis. Just about the moment I found out I was pregnant, I realized that I wanted to leave my business. 

The realization gave me a sense of peace. My body and my spirit longed to nest. After five years of working on my mental toughness and dreaming of an abundant life as a successful businesswoman, I spent the next several weeks contemplating what it would mean to quit. I asked myself if living a mediocre life might actually make me happier and more fulfilled. Was I giving up, or was I making the sane choice to prioritize my family? 

There is no answer to this. Except the answer that makes sense for me and my soul, at this moment in life. I had convinced myself over a period of five years that the path to my ideal and abundant life was to build this specific business with this specific company. Yet it wasn’t hard to suddenly convince myself that the right thing to do now was to leave my business (perhaps temporarily) and focus on my family for a few years. All the times that I’d wanted to shake other people and scream in their face, “You can do more! You can have more! Stop accepting mediocrity!” Now, I was feeling the biggest sense of relief at letting myself settle for a little less. Teacher, mother… and I wasn’t going to push myself to do any other side hustle or major project.

There are a couple things I want to unpack here. One is that living an abundant and fulfilling life will look different for everyone. I’ll admit that in the past I’ve been brainwashed to believe that the only path to success is running your own business. I do believe that having multiple streams of income gives one a better chance at financial freedom, and that financial freedom translates to the ability to do what you love and make an impact on others. But I’ve also come to learn that success comes in many forms. One of my favorite podcasts is called Max Out by Ed Mylett. His idea of “maxing out” applies to all areas of life and to different kinds of lifestyles. You can max out in your business, your regular 9-5, your health. You can max out as a mother or a father. 

In other words, success means living the best version of yourself, giving the most you have to offer, exploring ways to improve, reading and listening to perspective-shifting ideas, implementing new knowledge, attacking what you do with enthusiasm and passion, reflecting and trying to get better each day. 

I can have a business and still be mediocre, if I’m not consistently implementing a plan of action to meet my goals. I can abandon all my businesses and continue to be an exceptional teacher and mother, and ultimately lead an abundant life. Some people are rockstar business people but mediocre parents. It’s also possible to run successful businesses and be an exceptional parent. 

And it’s okay to change your mind. It’s possible to believe with all your heart you are going down the right path and then realize that you need to make a change and do it differently. As long as you consider your decisions carefully, keeping your values and big picture goals in mind, there’s nothing wrong with changing course. Our experiences give us perspective, and we can only make decisions with what we know and believe to be true at the time. 

But let me tell you one thing about mediocrity versus success. Most people live mediocre lives. Most people aren’t successful. You might be led to believe otherwise, based on the flood of articles online about being happy, finding fulfillment, making money, achieving success. Everyone wants to live a life of ultimate fulfillment. But many unfortunate realities work against us. Human beings are lazy by nature. We lack confidence, we care far too much what other people think of us. Especially in today’s modern world, we are riddled with anxiety. The result of these obstacles is that the vast majority of people give up on their dreams. Dreaming becomes cheesy. 

But another eminent characteristic of the human spirit is that we do dream. 

Hence the reason you will see so many people join a gym, then quit. Join a business, then quit. Write 1 chapter of a book, then quit. We have dreams, but they get crushed if we let them. Only some people, a tiny minority, max out their lives. These people work relentlessly on building their confidence, controlling their mindset, creating productive habits, implementing their action plans and getting down to work. 

So if you – you – have a nagging feeling in your heart that just won’t go away that you are supposed to be doing something great, like starting a business or writing a book or going for a degree… that’s your soul talking to you. If you’re a person of faith, that’s God talking to you. But if you’re looking for affirmation from others, the hard truth is you might not get it. Because… (I’m finally getting to my point… are you really listening now?) most people are mediocre. If you were to confess your wild dream to really successful person, they would probably tell you to go for it! But people stuck in the rat race, in the ruts of mediocrity, people who’ve given up on their wildest dreams, they won’t understand. They will see only the obstacles, the impracticalities. 

YOU have to be your own biggest cheerleader. YOU have to believe in yourself more than others believe in you. 

This may sound simplistic, but I really want you to think over what I’m telling you. This is a simple matter of majority versus minority, and a sort of peer-pressure phenomenon. If you have a dream in your heart, you will be persuaded to stuff it down simply because you don’t see the majority of people thinking the way you think or doing what you’re trying to do. Most people don’t believe they can build a great business, make a bunch of money, write a moving book, or become the boss of their company… so they don’t believe you can either! But there is a minority of people who can and have done all those things. And you also can, if you believe it! If you take the steps. If you build up your confidence every day. Feed yourself powerful, inspirational material in the form of books and podcasts. Set goals and make detailed action plans. And get to work. 

Obviously, reaching your wildest dreams requires a tremendous effort. Other things might get in your way. Obstacles such as time, your own work ethic. But my only point here is… never let the fact that other people don’t believe in you be the reason you don’t go for your dream. It will appear that everyone around you is leading a “normal” life, while you’re trying to do something crazy. But this is just an illusion! It’s just a matter of majority vs. minority. I’m going to say it one more time: The majority of people are living mediocre lives. If you want more, you have to forget what the majority is doing and seek out examples from the minority.

Lastly, I’m not judging people who are currently stuck in mediocrity. I still consider myself one of them in many ways. We have all been and will all be at some point. We all have parts of our lives that are still in a mediocre state and other parts that are flourishing. For my part, I’m trying to push myself to improve in as many areas of my life as I can manage. It’s often messy. Sometimes I have to take a step back, reflect and decide to focus on a different area. Sometimes I have to put a pin in one of my dreams in order to prioritize a different area without losing my sanity. Sometimes I have to give myself grace and embrace the rat race, embrace “mediocrity” for a minute. And on some unextroardinary days, like today, when I carry a tray of 4 iced lattes while pushing my infant in a stroller, and I don’t spill them… I realize that THIS, at this particular moment in my life, is my success, my fulfillment, for today.