Five Ways to Give Up Mediocre for Personal Best

With schedules and to-do lists jammed with a thousand things, it’s easy to begin lowering the bar for yourself. You convince yourself that just getting it done is more important than how well you are actually doing it. You start to trade performance or quality for completion. Sometimes you are so stuck in your comfort zone that you don’t realize that life has become pretty mediocre.

Try these five ways to give up mediocre:

1. Pick and choose.
You can’t do everything, or at least you can’t do everything well. Often in a busy life with multiple commitments you sacrifice your personal best on all of them. Take inventory of how you spend your time and decide which things require your best and which ones can get by with mediocre. Here’s a hint – the things that are most important to you such as relationships, health and wellness deserve more energy than things like household chores or other people’s to-do lists. Make a conscious decision about what gets your best and what can be mediocre.

2. Focus on excellence rather than perfection.
Having to get it right is often the reason you choose to give little or no attention to something. If you can’t figure out how to do it perfectly, then you won’t do it at all. This kind of black and white thinking always ends up leading to a mediocre effort. Shifting into a personal best mindset rather than an all or nothing one lets you excel on your terms. Have an honest conversation with yourself about what personal best looks like for you.

3. Do 2% more.
Raising the bar doesn’t have to mean an enormous change in effort. Simply requiring 2% more of your self, in time or energy, can begin to create forward momentum. Since a small increase often feels relatively easy, you’re able to stick with it. You’ll also get a sense of how much more you might be able to do without over stretching yourself. You just might find out that you’re capable of so much more than you have been asking of yourself in some areas.

4. Give up something.
Step back and look at how many commitments you have. Chances are there are things on your list that take your time and energy away from those things that are most important. Get rid of the things that drain you with little or no return. Then you will have more time and energy to commit to your personal best in other areas. And yes you can say no to things! Frame it this way: I’m making a personal commitment to spending more time and energy on __________, so I’ll have to say no to your request.

5. Listen to your internal chatter.
Those little voices in your head can give you clues to what’s going on in your life. If you find yourself repeatedly saying “I’m too tired or busy.” or “I can’t be bothered.” then likely you are settling for less than your best in some important areas. Pay attention to how often you negotiate with yourself or rationalize. Begin replacing the mediocre chatter with more empowering statements such as “My _____ is a priority for me. I choose to focus my energy there.”