Are you settling for a mediocre life?
Are you settling for mediocrity? Or are you striving for excellence?
If we put our life on a spectrum, it will have rock bottom on one end and excellence on the other, and mediocrity will be somewhere in the middle.
Spectrum of life
At one point or another, we all hit mediocrity, whether on our way up from rock bottom or down from a life of excellence.
But is a mediocre life so bad?
Well, it depends on where you are in life.
A mediocre life seems pretty good if you've hit rock bottom.
However, if you've come from a life of excellence and settled for mediocrity, you're living a less-than-ideal life.
The Graph of Life from Rock Bottom to Excellence
“Mediocrity begins the precise moment you swap love for challenge with love of comfort.”
Brendon Burchard
A mediocre or average life is one where you’re just living. Living day to day, paycheck to paycheck. Your life lacks meaning, purpose, and intent. You prefer the safety of your comfort zone over the challenge of growth.
Every day is Groundhog Day.
Image Source: Adobe Express
The alarm rings in the morning, and you hit snooze a couple of times, then drag yourself out of bed. Suddenly you realise you've overslept, so you skip breakfast and rush to work. Try to squeeze in as much work as possible in a day, clock in, clock out, head back home exhausted, lie on the couch in front of the TV, have dinner, and go to bed. Then repeat the whole cycle the next day.
Sound familiar?
Yes, you are making ends meet, paying your bills, and doing all your chores.
But is this all there is to life?
Are you living your life? Or is life living you?
As Benjamin Franklin said,
"Many people die at twenty-five and aren't buried until they are seventy-five."
Our life is a gift.
A blessing that we often take for granted by settling for less than what we're meant for.
Life is not meant for comfort 24/7. It's meant to be lived and explored. It's intended to have meaning and purpose, to help us grow and evolve.
No one wants a boring, mediocre life, yet sadly many of us settle for it.
We play safe.
Stay stuck in our comfort zones.
There comes a point where mediocrity starts reaching stagnancy, i.e., it starts to stink, making you miserable. This leads to pain that slowly seeps into all facets of your life.
The longer you stay here, the more miserable you become until you're pushed towards the edge.
Now one of two things can happen here.
You either become so miserable that everything in your life starts falling apart, you can't find a way out, and you eventually hit rock bottom.
Or, you become so miserable that you grow sick and tired. You realise that you are meant for more, so you push yourself out of your comfort zone and use that pain to launch yourself into a life of excellence!
That's what we need to strive for, excellence.
But more often than we realise, we prefer staying stuck in mediocrity, i.e., our comfort zone, hoping that life will change automatically one day.
Mediocrity should only be treated as a rest stop, not our permanent abode. A place to take a break, rest, relax, and rejuvenate before heading towards our destination i.e., a life of excellence.
Stop waiting, and start taking action towards the life you were meant for because a ship in the harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. (Grace Murray Hopper).