Reaching Your Full Potential (3 Top Hacks)
How to Break the Cycle of Mediocrity
As we start to wrap up the end of this year (oh, what a year!) and look around the corner for the new year and the hopes that await us, do you think to yourself, “Wow, I am doing great! How can I get any better?” Or do you think, “Wow, I’m really not anywhere closer to where I want to be than last year and the year before.” So, which one are you? Something in between? I had a dear friend of mine confide in me recently that she did not feel she had improved her career and personal life in the last several years. She was so very transparent in the disappointment in herself. Too often when we reflect back on our life, our accomplishments, our existence, we think- “I’m not where I want to be. I’m not as successful as I expected myself to be.” Why does this happen so often, even to the best of us? Where you wake up in five or ten plus years and have regrets, ponder a life of what could have been, or feel disappointed in more than one facet of your life.
Now don’t get me wrong because it is in our human wiring to want more, to see what is on the other side of the fence, the yearning of not being completely satisfied. It’s part of our instincts that kept primitive humans alive and is thus ingrained in the oldest part of our brains.
Behavioral psychologist simplify the brain into essentially three categories, the Neocortex, the Limbic System, and the Cerebellum (ie Stem). The Neocortex is our ability to reason, create innovativly, and imagine beyond our physical presence. The Limbic System allows us to process & regulate our emotions and make decisions. The Cerebellum houses our “Flight or Fight” instincts for survival. It is often referred to as the Reptilian Brain. I want to highlight the Reptilian Brain because it can often be a default setting when we are uncomfortable and feel challenged. That was pretty much the mantra of 2020 for the majority of us, being uncomfortable and definitely challenged in many facets of our life.
Now, I am not saying that all of us are taking Covid that way. Some of us have actually rolled with the punches and are making lemonade out of this giant lemon. But if you don’t have a system in place to help you do that, you may likely fall into what I call, the “Cycle of Mediocrity”. Let me explain that the Cycle of Mediocrity is where you don’t make much change for the better in your life and not from just Covid times. For example, you just have “a job” that pays your lifestyle. You have just “a spouse” that gives you companionship, but lacks that deeper connection with you in so many ways. And it doesn’t stop there, it keeps going in this endless cycle so much that you don’t even notice the mediocrity that has compounded in such a big way that you would never have imagined how you got here in the first place. And now with this new realization, you are awakened with perhaps an urgent sense that something has got to change in your life.
Having lost both my parents at a young age, I had an early understanding of how truly precious time is. There is nothing like being a teenager and seeing your father’s casket being lowered into the Earth. It was a final closure, whether or not I was ready for it. Crying a lot did help. But what was a far greater healing for me was learning what my father’s and mother’s death meant to me. It was also the greatest gift that they could ever bestow me. It was the gift of understanding so deeply how precious and short our lives are and how we can never waste a moment, a minute, an hour, a year, a lifetime on being in the wrong place, being unhappy in the wrong job, with the wrong boss, the wrong spouse, the wrong friends, the wrong life. Full transparency, my life for many years after my parents’ deaths was a complete Cycle of Mediocrity of just getting by and continuing a cycle of just “ok”, never seeming to progress in my career goals or personal life.
So, how did I get out of that Cycle of Mediocrity after receiving my parents’ greatest gift? It took me a decades after to get there but, I finally transformed my life from “ok” to a life with meaning, purpose, growing my career and personal life. So let me save you the lost time it took me to get there. Without further adeau, here are my top life hacks on how to break that swirling cycle of mediocrity that restrains us from reaching our full potential.
- Connect With Your Ikigai: Firstly, you want to be fully aware and conscious if your life is in fact primarily the result of “happenstance”. Ask yourself if your current life has mostly been a reaction to what life has thrown at you. To rid mediocrity, you want the way you live your life to be primarily driven from purposeful intent to your well thought out goals that connect to your higher purpose. This is Ikigai, a Japanese term defined as having meaningful direction and purpose. This is without question the most compelling force that can keep you on track to avoid settling into any cycle of mediocrity. Your Ikigai does change and evolve as we grow. I must stress that at any age, it is important to know what your higher purpose is or have some figurative clarity on what you know you are born in this world to do, to change, to give, to care passionately about. And it doesn’t have to be grand like solving world hunger and global warming. It can be as simple as making a difference with your local community volunteer work or being the best parent you can be. Another dear friend of mine is an Art Teacher at a private school and serves on the Board of Directors for a charity called Spread the Warmth. This amazing group hand makes scarves for those that are in need of warmth during the colder seasons.
- Rid the Reptilian Mind: For any kind of significant success in stopping the cycle of mediocrity, you need to put your Reptilian Mind in time out when you know it’s taking over at the inappropriate time. This is a tall order because it means getting rid of ego as well. Ego and the Reptilian Mind are brothers that often go hand in hand. If we stop and realize that our thoughts and actions are coming from our Reptilian Mind, we can think more clearly about the situation, the bigger picture, any consequences that could happen. Did you get passed up on a promotion that would give you an increased salary? Definitely don’t blow your top as that signifies your Reptilian Mind taking over. Instead, empty preconceived notions of why you didn’t get the promotion and ask yourself from an objective view why it happened and further root cause it. Easier said than done, right? That is so true because we are in fact fighting our pure instincts in the Reptilian Mind, which in large part means letting go of the ego self. “Listen with the ability to have your mind changed,” says Alan Alda, a six time Emmy Award and Golden Global Award recipient. He played the character, Hawkeye Pierce, in the long time TV hit series called M*A*S*H. Ridding yourself of the Reptilian Mind is the quickest way to let go of your ego and be open to change and personal transformation.
- Create a System of Success: With research and case studies in Atomic Habits, a national best seller that I highly recommend, author James Clear tells us that the discipline to be truly successful comes from creating a “system” of success. He shares that people who are successful do not exude more discipline than others. By creating a system of success, it actually takes less discipline and energy, thereby giving one more time to focus on things that really matter. Think of the professional athlete that does not have to go down the cookie aisle to get groceries. Instead, she has her food pre-ordered and delivered online. She doesn’t have to fight traffic or the lines to get her groceries. She uses that extra time to get workouts in for an upcoming try-out. So, I am challenging you to think of all the things you can do to create your own system of success so you have the energy to strategize and implement away from any cycle of mediocrity. Clear explains why habit tracking also becomes essential to meeting your goals. I myself keep a daily habit tracker for daily check ins to stay on track to hold myself accountable to all my goals. A habit tracker may seem very regimented and extreme, but I ask you —how else can you best align your daily actions to all your goals and reach your full potential? (see my YouTube video, Finding Your Destiny)
After my mother passed away, I didn’t want my parents’ deaths to be in vain. I was going to make something of myself and stop my cycle of just getting by, the mediocrity that I allowed exuded in every part of my life. So, I quit my job, got a better one, started graduate school, and explored my entire unknown self, a window defined in the Johari-Window (see my video, “Why You Aren’t Successful, about this psychology framework). I wrote a list of all the things I needed to do to get out of this mediocrity that enveloped me. It took a lot of hard work. After 10 years, I checked off everything that would help me get closer to my Ikigai. I’m not saying that I’m done by any means. The work to reach my full potential is an on-going and ever changing journey that connects me to my higher purpose. Our life time is so short and our full potential is unbound. And now, I hope the three hacks I’m sharing herein will work for you too.
About the Author: I’m a change management expert that researches and delivers content to help you drive lasting personal success. “Like” and “Subscribe” to my YouTube Channel, Change Geek! Download free content at my website HERE. Or checkout my book on Amazon/Kindle called Change Management and Change Fatigue in the Business Enterprise.