One thing I worked on whilst away from social media was exploring mediocrity. We are taught to always strive for more. To never be satisfied. To always aim to be better than average but what happens if you are average? I’m an average achiever. Middle ground. I’ve never been the best and I’ve never been the worst. I’ve always been ‘halfway up the mountain’ (I hasten to add that I have actually walked to the top of a real mountain twice!). I’ve took part in races and never come first or last. I’ve competed in powerlifting and same result; never first never last, always somewhere in the middle.
The messages we get that tell us to reject mediocrity often leave people like me feeling somewhat lacking. And left feeling that maybe we just didn’t work hard enough or maybe we didn’t want it enough. Maybe it’s our own fault that we didn’t get first place or maybe if we had pushed ourselves that little bit more we would have gotten a different outcome.
At what point do we stop rejecting ‘mediocrity’ and embrace it as “I did my best at the time with the energy and resources I had available and to the best of my abilities and that is enough”. In my experience, even when I have pushed myself to the best of my ability, the result is still ‘middle ground’.
Success means different things to different people. I’ve read all the self-help books and tried all the morning routines. I’ve visualised myself being productive and tried to emulate the behaviours of someone ‘successful’ but it never feels quite like me.
I’ve reached a place of acceptance. I accept that I cannot be good at everything. I’m pretty average and I believe that’s ok. There are things that I do well and excel at and there are things that are out of my scope and there are things that I’m pretty average at and that’s ok. Maybe I can use all the misplaced energy trying to be something that just isn’t me and put my energy into being pretty good at being average.
Karen Preene 