Mediocrity is the silent killer

The perfect day

Hi friends!

It's been a while since my last publish, yes I know, and a lot has been going on from many sides. All I wish is that you have been doing well in your journey of personal growth.

I. On Mediocrity

Today, I want to write about one of the most common habits, which is less talked about yet affects us each day: “mediocrity.” The call to be the ultimate passenger, an average player in life.

Sometimes you get comfortable in the seat that you even forget you haven’t reached the destination. The perfect day is coming, and once that day comes, I will do “X”. This is called mediocrity, and it's a silent killer. You get comfortable quickly and forget the main goal.

We all hit this point in our journey when we have done just enough to get some praise, and we quickly feel good. We get stuck taking premature praise from people. What matters here is our ability to delay gratification and start taking immediate action to outgrow this zone.

This phase is like a flat linear line in the growth curve, where anything you do doesn’t amount to a big jump. What you have to do now is as many iterations as possible to get better, though the easiest thing to do is to wait, singing the praises and saying, "When the perfect day comes, I will miraculously be insanely great."

Always be on the lookout for new ideas and seek inspiration from the people ahead in the journey. The power of journaling and writing out ideas as you go cannot be underestimated as you try to pull yourself from mediocrity.

II. Getting Things Done

Something that is less talked about is just the rate of execution, which is how fast you can get things done. This is something that can always be improved at any point in your life.

Getting things done can be a superpower, and when you really take account of your execution results each week, you can see where you are lagging behind, though this requires you to be willing to face the numbers.

This is something we often talk about on our calls with a friend of mine, and the question we usually ask each other is, “What is your execution rate?” This question is confrontational, but it can really bring the cards on the table.

Once that question is asked, the next important question to ask is, what were you executing? We all know it’s easier to spend more time doing the wrong things than doing the right things. What we want to do here is to make sure we are not spending time on the wrong things, which can turn out to be one form of procrastination.

Each week, we want to make sure we are on the right track, and there are many ways to do this. You can either take personal accountability notes each week by just sitting down and asking yourself what you did. This is not something a lot of people do, and by the numbers, you can tell it's not something that is going to be easy to do.

III. On Comfort Zone

One thing that I have come to appreciate in the last few weeks is just the importance of playing outside your comfort zone. Knowing that playing outside within the boundaries of ultimate pressure can really call for growth. To be honest, it's not often we are subjected to pressure. Most of the time, we are just playing in our zone of comfort, and in most cases, there is no growth.

Situations can put us outside our comfort zone, or we can choose to play outside it. When you wait for situations, it's like waiting for “the perfect day.” So, just move into those uncomfortable places, and you will experience real growth.

I hope no one is reading this week's newsletter, but if you are, please keep this to yourself!

Peace✌️

MacDaniel