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I love progress.  I love achievement, success, and all things extraordinary.  I love being passionate, getting excited about things I love, and sharing my excitement with others.  I especially love showing others how to improve their lives, even when it means telling them to stop doing what their doing.

Mediocrity Defined

Averageness; ordinariness as a consequence of being average and not outstanding; moderate to inferior in quality; ordinary: not extraordinary; not special, exceptional, or great; of medium quality

In a nut shell, mediocrity is neither amazing nor terrible.  It’s neither fantastic nor miserable.  It’s just blah.  However, what seems average to one person is amazing to another.  Where I might say graduating from high school with a C average is mediocre, someone else may be filled with joy because they achieved something they never imagined possible.  

“Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.” - Joseph Heller

How to Spot Mediocrity in Your Own Life

Recently, I re-branded this blog.  The tagline for Graduated And Clueless represents what I want to achieve through every post.  I want to show others how to set ridiculous goals and actually make them happen.  I want to help others avoid mediocrity.  Just like goal-setting, mediocrity is personal.  You know yourself better than anyone, so you know when you’re making progress and when you’re going no where.

In your life mediocrity might look like you lying on the couch after work, beer in hand, watching endless hours of House reruns.  Mediocrity might be listening to repetitive Top 40 hits in the car, when you could be listening to a podcast about how to find your life’s passion.  Mediocrity might be working the same mindless job every day simply because you’ve never taken the time to find a better one.  Many times mediocrity is simply doing something that doesn’t matter, when you could be doing something that does.

“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” - Peter F. Drucker

Eliminate Mediocrity

When you find yourself in the middle of mediocrity . . .  run like hell.  Being comfortable is dangerous.  Being mediocre is the scariest place you can be because there is not motivation to do anything better.  Don’t waste your time doing things that don’t matter.  This is easier said than done, but I assume you can point out a few things you do every day that really could be eliminated.  Thus, you can focus your energy and time on what you really want to do with your life.

“Everything I’ve ever done was out of a fear of being mediocre.” - Chet Atkins

Achieve Excellence

Imagine if you removed every bit of mediocrity from your life, what would that look like?  What would you be doing with your time?  By replacing the mediocre parts of your life with above average activities, you will be shocked at how fast you begin making progress toward things that matter, towards excellence.  Excellence is also a personal achievement.  You have the luxury of deciding what a true accomplishment is in your life.  However, my recommendation is to think bigger.  Set ridiculous goals.  Stretch yourself further than you have imagined in the past.  If done properly, what you consider amazing today will be mediocre tomorrow.  Good luck on your goals and stay positive!

The Clueless Graduate,

Jeff Sanders

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