Mediocrity

Have you met people that seem content with giving less to their work or their life? They give only what needs to be given and no more. Remember, there is very little traffic on the extra-mile highway. Yet there are a thousand opportunities for people to travel down this road, but instead they just barely go the mile. When we accept excuses instead of accepting responsibility, we promote mediocrity. When we allow mediocrity to enter our lives, we miss opportunities.

We must be alert and willing to respond and to take action. I provide leadership training and work with a variety of companies. Recently I have been working with companies in the service - hospitality industry. One of the items the leaders recognize is the need to help teach customer service and selling skills to the employees. Employees who work on commission often get focused on meeting the goal for the month or the week and so they put their energy into meeting this pre-set goal and for not moving beyond it. In other words, they get locked into settling for less instead of more. For example, a server in a restaurant comes to work and sees each customer as a $ 3.00 tip. The result is the server misses the opportunity to go the extra-mile and to provide more service. The server misses the customers glance at the cheesecake on another persons table and asks about dessert as a fleeting thought instead of way to encourage the customer. If the customer says no, then the ticket goes on the table and yet another opportunity is missed, because maybe the customer wanted dessert, but was too full, if the server had offered then ask if they would like the dessert to-go perhaps for a late night snack, or a surprise for the kids who are home with the babysitter. So many options not explored. This happens when mediocrity attitudes direct the person to the outcome instead of the person directing the outcome.

How you ever come home from work been too tired to worry about taking care of bills or other items that needed to be done, but you did not want to do? We have all done this and perhaps even paid the consequences in terms of late fees if bills were late. Why? We settled for less and so our body gave us less, by not seeking the extra energy that we needed. We can grow old and not have lived or experienced life, because we take the easy road and don’t push ourselves to be ready to receive more.

Where is mediocrity in your life? Is it in relationships at home or at work? What are you willing to do to decrease mediocrity? Then this requires that we take action and eliminate our own mediocrity. This can mean that we need to manage time better, or better understand. What are they conserving the energy for? When we leave mediocrity behind we embrace possibilities and take responsibility for reaching higher. Suddenly we tap all our senses, our eyes see new opportunities that would once have been overlooked. Our ears tune into conversations that we would have once ignored and our intuition starts leading us toward opportunities we never dreamed were options. So eliminate excuses and to let go of mediocrity, begin today because to wait would be to do what the other people are doing. The extra-mile highway to success is yours if you are ready to travel!