Should You Be Embracing Mediocracy?

The other day my friend Abby went for a run.

Abby is the type of person whom I would call a runner. Running is her preferred mode of exercise and even though she didn’t enjoy the experience, she recently ran a marathon.

Anyway, during her run the other day she ran past some other friends who had earlier told me they went for a run too. As Abby was telling the story she commented how these other runners weren’t really running. It was more like a slow jog, maybe one or two gears up from walking.

Then immediately, in her classic PC fashion, she said that she shouldn’t be judging how others run.

But she was right the first time. They were not running and they shouldn’t be put in the running category.

In my mind, there are four speeds of movement when on foot. Walk, jog, run, and sprint.

I don’t buy the “everyone’s a runner” philosophy.

Don’t get me wrong. Walk, jog, run, or sprint, it’s great that people are doing what they want to get some movement. And these exercises are beneficial. But don’t try to pass yourself off as a runner if you take 30 minutes to cover 2 kilometers.

But the point of this rant isn’t supposed to be about running.

The takeaway is that you should be real to yourself. Don’t let yourself off the hook. If you tell yourself you are running when you’re actually jogging, you will settle with mediocre.

Not that there's anything wrong with mediocre. I love being mediocre. But I don’t lie to myself, or others, with delusions that I’m anything more than that.

You don’t have to excel at anything if you don’t want to.

Just to be clear here. I am not saying you can’t excel. Quite the opposite. I truly believe the vast majority of people can achieve almost any goal they truly desire if they dedicate themselves fully.

You could run a marathon, play in the NBA, or start a unicorn business. But don’t think that it’ll be easy.

And don’t underestimate the time and effort it requires to achieve these things.

I think the hardest part is deciding the life you actually want while weighing up the amount of effort you are actually willing to put in to achieve that life.

Often when people do this they decide that the effort isn’t worth it and prefer to settle for mediocre.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

But if that is what you have chosen, then just like joggers aren’t running, us mediocres aren’t doing anything exceptional - so don’t think you are.