Have you ever gone through a period of being complacent and getting into a routine, then you make a big move that changes a lot of things in your life? Doesn’t that feel great? For me, I will go through periods where I get stuck in a rut and I am accomplishing what I need to, but I am not pushing myself. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, inspiration hits me and I knock out a bunch of those evergreen to-do list items that aren’t urgent but will improve your life upon completion. Every time this happens, I feel on top of the world and very accomplished, but I also feel stupid for not doing these things earlier.
A great example that is somewhat embarrassing to share is my recent struggle with my garage door opener. Sometime about six or seven months ago my one and only remote for the garage door opener broke. We switched the batteries, messed with the wiring, tried to reset it, and nothing worked. At that point, most normal humans would buy a new garage door opener. That is not what my husband and I did. We opened the garage door from the wall-mounted opener in the garage, backed the car into the driveway, and then went back inside to close the garage. Once inside the garage, we then would run at the closing garage door and try to step over the sensor while also ducking so as not to be decapitated by the closing garage door. At first, we could do this successfully about 2 out of 3 times. Sometimes we would give up, close the garage, go back in the house and come out the front door.
Eventually, we got pretty good at jumping the sensor. That’s not the point of this. We did this stupid practice for six months! A mix of laziness and uncertainty about how to get a new garage door opener for our very specific off-brand garage door opening system kept us doing this ridiculous ritual for half of a year. So what, you ask, finally convinced us to figure this situation out? We had company coming to stay with us and the embarrassment of others viewing this, now completely routine, stupid thing we were doing was enough to push us to action. We both dreaded fixing this problem. What if it wasn’t the remote and it was actually an issue with the garage door opener? What if we couldn’t find the right remote for this really specific off-brand garage door opener? Guess what it took to significantly improve our lives? $30 at Lowe’s and 10 minutes of effort setting it up…$30 and 10 minutes versus half a year of what we were doing to work around it.
So what is the point of this long-winded window into my home life? Well, this week we are talking about converting mediocrity into success. Mediocrity is running and jumping (while ducking) over a sensor in your garage for six months rather than spending $30 and 10 minutes to fix something. But why did I do that? Ultimately, it was a fear and a lack of understanding of the issue. I was worried that the problem was bigger than the remote. I didn’t want to know what it could take to fix it if it was bigger than just replacing a remote. I think this is what gets in the way of a lot of people’s success and keeps people living in mediocrity. It’s fear and lack of motivation.
So how do we get past that? Well, sometimes life will provide your needed kick in the pants (like your in-laws coming to stay at your house). But a lot of times this won’t be the case. You are going to have to find a way to motivate yourself to achieve success. One thing that really works for me is to-do lists. Physical to-do lists that sit on my desk remind made of what I need to accomplish and encourage me to keep moving forward. The way that the mediocre part of my brain “hacks” this hack is that I can convince myself that certain things don’t actually need to go on the to-do list. So I will put things like, “write your blog, make lesson plans, grade essays,” on the to-do list, but I won’t put things like, “significantly improve your life by spending $30 and 10 minutes to fix your garage.” By keeping these things off my to-do list I still get the reward of crossing off things that I know I will do anyway. This is not advice-do not do as I do.
So here is my challenge to you this week. Sit down, make a to-do list. Start with the things you will finish immediately, but make sure to include the garage doors in your life. What are those things that you can do in school or in your career or your personal life that are hard or scare you, but will ultimately improve your life? Let’s tackle those together. Conquering those to-do list items is the way you convert mediocrity to success.
-Bria