Arnold Schwarzenegger once said…
“What is the point of being on this Earth if you are going to be like everyone else and avoid trouble?”
Take a look at your life right now. And ask yourself these questions:
- Are you living your full potential?
- Have you achieved all your goals and are living your dreams?
- Are you living a fulfilling and passionate life?
- Do you wake up with inspiration every day and can’t wait to work on whatever projects you are pursuing?
Let’s be honest.
Do you find it hard to get up every morning because you have no purpose? Do you hit the snooze button and choose to sleep because you have no dreams? Are you feeling stuck and not making progress in life?
Or worse, you wake up each morning without any zest. You force yourself to go to work because you have bills to pay. You go to the office and look forward to leaving by 5 PM.
And you trade your life working 5 days a week in exchange for 2 days off. And you will have to repeat the cycle over and over again, there seems to be no end to it.
That is what a mediocre life looks like.
So, can you stop living in mediocrity or prevent it from happening?
Well, that’s exactly what you will discover in this blog post. Below are the 10 ways how you can escape living a mediocre life and start living an intentional, purposeful, and fulfilling life…
1. Plan your life
If you want to stop living in mediocrity, the first thing you need to do is to plan your life.
Planning and finding out exactly what kind of life you want to live gives you control.
You see, when you have a plan, you know where you’re going. You know what decisions and actions you need to make or take. And that gives you control over your life.
You get to plan your life according to how you want it to happen.
Here’s something you must understand: Success happens by design, not accidents.
No one accidentally becomes an Olympian, and no one accidentally builds a successful business empire.
Success is intentional.
If you want to win the local tennis competition, you’ve got to register for it, train for it, and work hard for it to win the competition.
Similarly, if you want to build a successful business, you must plan for it, work on it, create a company, start selling, market your products, etc.
As you can see, success doesn’t happen by accident, but by design.
Hence, if you want to avoid living in mediocrity, start planning your life.
Action Steps:
Think about what kind of life you want to live. Set it as a goal, write it down, and start creating a plan to get there. If you want to learn how to do this, you need to read this:
2. Improve yourself and make it a habit to read
To stay away from living in mediocrity, one thing you must do is constantly improve yourself.
You see, you are where you are because of what you know and what you have learned over the years. And in order to get to a new and better place, you need to work on yourself.
Do you know that extremely successful people are great learners? For instance, they read, a lot.
Warren Buffett was once asked about his secret to success. And this was what he said according to CNBC:
“Read 500 pages like this every day,” while reaching toward a stack of manuals and papers. “That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.”
Most successful people credit reading as a factor for their success. Check out this article on Insider.com to find out more about the reading habits of successful people.
So, make it a habit to read and learn every day.
I read about 2 to 3 books a month. You should do the same. Start hunting for great books to read.
The more you read, the more you will learn. And the more you learn, the more places you can go.
Imagine you read just 1 book a month. In a year, you will have read 12 books. And in 5 years, you will have read 60 books.
And if each book gives you an idea to improve your life, by the end of the 5th year, you will have 60 new ideas to make your life better.
Can you imagine how your life will change just because you read one book a month?
Action Steps:
Make it a habit to read. Read at least 1 to 2 books a month. If you have more time, read even more. Commit to constantly reading and improving yourself. That’s how you get rid of living in mediocrity. If you have no idea what books to read, check out my success books recommendation here.
3. Challenge yourself to do the difficult
If you want to stop living a mediocre life, you must challenge yourself to do the difficult. It is not easy to venture out of your comfort zone and do something new. That’s why most people are not living their dreams.
But luckily, you are not like most people. You are here, reading this blog post.
So, I believe you have the commitment to do better in life. You want to live a great and fulfilling life. And you must be willing to challenge yourself to do the difficult.
It is easy to hit the snooze button and continue to sleep on your comfortable bed. It is difficult to wake up at 5 AM to work out and pursue your goals when most people are still sleeping.
It is easy to daydream and think about all the great things you want to have in life. It is difficult to make the decision, commit to it, and then take massive action and turn your dreams into reality.
Here’s a quote you should always keep in your head:
“Do what is easy and your life will be hard. Do what is hard and your life will become easy.”
Hence, be willing to challenge yourself to do the difficult. Things may not be easy, but that’s exactly why we do it. Because it is difficult. Why do it if it’s easy, right?
Action Steps:
Every day and every week, challenge yourself to do something difficult. Here are some suggestions for what you can do:
- Take a cold shower
- Learn to cook a meal
- Start writing or create a journal
- Read at least 2 books a month
- Challenge yourself to read a book in a day
- Wake up at 5 AM
- Take a fitness class
- Get a coach or a mentor
When you challenge yourself to do the difficult, you are working on improving your mental strength. And when you become mentally tough, the more you can achieve in life. Here’s a great guide you should check out:
4. Get to know people who are more successful than you
That’s right, go and make friends with people who are more successful than you. If you want to get rid of mediocrity, you must join the ranks of those who are already successful.
Jim Rohn was right when he said…
“You’re the average of the five people spend the most time with.”
Imagine you always mix with people who smoke, there is a high chance you will end up being a smoker too.
According to research done by Harvard sociologist, Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, drinking habits can be contagious. Here’s what the study found:
“If a close connection (friend, relative, coworker) drank heavily — defined as an average of one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men — participants were 50% more likely to drink heavily themselves; if someone connected by two degrees of separation (a friend of a friend) drank heavily, participants were 36% more likely to do so.”
Do you see how people around you can influence your success in life?
If you always spend time with people who drink, you are more likely to end up a drinker too.
The same goes for living in mediocrity.
If you spend most of your time with mediocre people, guess what, you will become a mediocre person who lives in mediocrity too.
So, be mindful of who you spend your time with.
Action Steps:
Make it a habit to make friends with people who are doing much better than you. In other words, go and network with other successful people. Let their mindsets and beliefs influence you so that you will become one of them as well. Here’s an article to help:
5. Develop productive habits
If you want to win your life, you must win your day. And that means you must develop productive and successful habits that will help you make progress to get what you want each day.
I like how John Maxwell puts it:
“You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.”
Habits are important because they dictate what you do each day. Your habits influence how you think, act, and feel. And therefore, if you want to live a better and more successful life, you must develop productive habits that will get you the results you want.
Most people allow their habits to control their lives. They live unconsciously and they allow things to happen according to their habits.
And if they have bad habits, which most people do, they will end up living mediocre life.
Ask yourself, do you have bad habits of binge-watching Netflix or YouTube? Do you play games uncontrollably? Do you smoke and drink? Have you made it a habit to hit the snooze button and oversleep?
These bad habits will negatively impact your life.
Hence, it is time to put it all to an end. It is time to get rid of the bad habits, develop new and productive ones, and start living your dream life.
Action Steps:
Identify the bad habits that are causing a negative impact on your life. Get rid of them. And then start installing new habits that will help you get what you want in life. It is not going to be easy. And that’s why I recommend you read this book, Atomic Habits…
6. Stop wasting time with the soft life
What is a soft life? This is what soft means:
“A life that is typified by or filled with ease and comfort, without requiring any hard work, sacrifice, or unpleasantness.”
Take a look at the top athletes in the world. People like Kobe Bryant, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Michael Jordan, and Muhammad Ali.
Do you think these people are living a soft life? No, not at all. These people are extraordinary people who trained themselves to become the best of the best at every moment.
Do you think Michael Jordan can become the best basketball player in history if he is living the soft life?
The answer is obvious, isn’t it?
The same goes for everything you want to achieve in life. You must work hard for it. You must train yourself and get good at it.
There’s no way you can accomplish outstanding success if all you do is watch TV all day on your couch.
You must challenge yourself to get good at what you do.
- If you want to become a writer, challenge yourself to write and improve your writing skills to become the best.
- If you want to build a successful YouTube channel, learn how to do it, record the videos, and publish frequently to get good at it.
- If you want to have 6-pack abs, then you must commit, train, and exercise every day to get it.
It doesn’t matter what kind of success you want to achieve in life. You must get rid of living the soft life. That’s one way to end mediocrity.
Action Steps:
Set goals and challenge yourself to stick to your goals until you achieve them. Develop the characteristic to become relentless. And most importantly, don’t quit when things become hard. Instead, learn to push on and find ways to overcome the obstacles that prevent you from getting what you want. Here are 2 articles you should read:
7. Adopt the growth mentality
Successful people are successful because they adopted the growth mindset. On the other hand, people who are living in mediocrity are not getting anywhere in life because they have a fixed mindset.
Here’s what you need to know about these two types of mindsets:
- Growth mindset: You believe your intelligence, talents, and skills can be developed over time.
- Fixed mindset: You believe your intelligence, talents, and skills are fixed and there’s nothing you can do about them.
People with a growth mindset tend to believe that they can improve their lives and live better.
On the contrary, people with a fixed mindset believe that everything is fixed. When they see someone earning from investing, they will tell themselves, “I don’t have the knowledge or skills to invest”. And hence, they choose to stay where they are.
People with a growth mindset believe otherwise. When they see someone who is more successful than they are, they tell themselves, “If they can do it, I can do it too. I just need to learn how and improve myself to get there.”
Do you see the difference between a growth and a fixed mindset?
And this is why people who are living in mediocrity tend to have a fixed mindset. They believe that things happen to them and there’s nothing they can do to improve their lives.
On the other hand, people with a growth mindset believe they are the ones who are in control. If they don’t know how to do something, they can learn. If they don’t have the skills, they can train themselves.
This is why you need to get rid of the fixed mindset and develop a growth mindset.
Action Steps:
Learn to develop a growth mentality. Here are some suggestions for what you can do…
- Believe in yourself
- Stop blaming or making excuses
- Learn to take 100% responsibility – Read this guide.
- Read more and get to know other successful people
- See your problems and failures as opportunities
- Focus on making progress
Thus, develop the growth and success mindset that will help you become someone better. Read this article:
8. Take massive action
No matter what result you want to achieve in life, you must be willing to take massive action and work toward the success you desire.
Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are not taking enough action.
It is easy to daydream about what you want to have in life. Most people are living in mediocrity because all they do is dream and think about what they want, without putting in any solid action.
Successful people, on the other hand, are an action taker. They dream about what they want. They set goals and make plans. And most importantly, they act. They execute and they take massive action until they arrive.
Unsuccessful people only do the dreaming and thinking part. They don’t take the necessary action.
They dream about their perfect dream life at night. They dream about quitting their job and starting a business they love. They dream about traveling the world and building a multi-million-dollar business. They dream about enjoying life.
But the next day they continue to do what they do every day – go to work, complain about their company and boss, make lousy excuses, and they don’t do anything about their dreams.
That is why most people are living in mediocrity.
Never let this be you. If you want something, go for it. And take massive action.
Action Steps:
Apply the Rule of Five. Take at least 5 action steps that will get you to your goals and dreams every day. And that’s how you end mediocrity.
9. Put in 100% commitment to your goals
Are you 100% committed to your goals and dreams? Or do you just wish and hope to live a better life?
There is no way you can become successful if you are not 100% committed.
The reason people are living in mediocrity is that they quit on their goals and dreams halfway.
I believe we all have goals and dreams. And we all want to live a better and more successful life.
So, you see, both winners and losers have goals and dreams. And what separates the winners from the losers is not goals and dreams, instead, it is their level of commitment toward their goals and dreams.
How much are you willing to do for your goals and dreams?
If you want to be the best golfer in the world, are you willing to train in the rain, at midnight, 3 AM?
That was what Tiger Woods did when he was still a student at the university. That was his level of commitment.
So, are you committed to living a more successful and better life? Or do you prefer to live in mediocrity?
Action Steps:
So, you want to get rid of mediocrity? Well then, you must develop your commitment to that. But how do you do that? Here’s a guide you should read:
10. Live with purpose and passion
Do you wake up each morning feeling tired and exhausted, and you refuse to go to work?
Or do you wake up each morning feeling excited? In fact, you can’t wait to get up because you have dreams and goals to pursue.
That’s the difference between living in mediocrity and living life with passion and purpose.
This article on IQMatrix.com says it best:
“With passion and purpose, you can overcome any obstacle, solve any problem, and circumnavigate the endless challenges that life throws your way. Without it, people often succumb to anger, frustration, disappointment and continuously get caught up in seemingly insurmountable problems.”
People are living in mediocrity because they lack passion and purpose in life.
When you have a purpose and you know what you want out of life, and you are passionate about what you do, living every day becomes blissful.
And that’s when you’ll stop living a mediocre life.
Action Steps:
Develop and live life with passion and purpose. This is easier said than done. And so I have included a guide below to help you with this:
Takeaway
Now you know what you need to do to get rid of a mediocre life. It is time to work on your life with a bigger purpose and priority.
Follow the steps above to end mediocrity once and for all. The moment you decided you are not going to let life happens, and you know you are in control and can create the life you want, success will come to you.
By the way, if you want to live your best life, then you should join this free web class. Dr. Steve G. Jones will show you his game plan on how to turn your biggest dreams into reality.