Is It Ever Alright To Be Average?
I was brought up to try my hardest at everything. This is a good way to be as long as you bear in mind that you won’t be good at everything. I was also brought up with an old proverb “if a job is worth doing it is worth doing well”. Another good proverb but what does it mean to do a job well? I’ve also encouraged myself to “aim for excellence” in everything. This is again a good thing to do. However there is a problem with all of this.
The problem is that I can’t be good at everything. To become good at something requires a great deal of effort and time – effort and time that I don’t have for everything. If I want to be an expert in say – stress – then I have to put in a great deal of time researching and learning about stress. I can’t physically do that for everything. The number of things we can become an expert in is limited by our own capacity. Some of us can excel in several things and others in just a few but we can’t excel in everything. The truth is if you try to be an expert in everything you will end up not an expert in anything. There is another old saying for this one: “Jack of all trades, master of none”.
This simple truth can help you when it comes to managing your stress. Some of your stress will be generated by expectations you have of yourself. You demand certain things of yourself and if you can’t measure up then it dents your self image and you feel anxious about it. Learn to accept yourself as you are and don’t try to be an expert in everything. Sometimes its OK to discover that someone else is better at something than you are.
The answer to my question that I posed in the title is: yes. It is alright to be average at times. Average means normal, it means not excelling and that is OK. In face to be an expert in something you have to be average at many things. Average doesn’t mean bad, it doesn’t mean that you put no effort in, it doesn’t mean to be satisfied with doing a bad job. So “if a job is worth doing it is worth doing well” and doing well for you might mean doing an average (normal) job.
Am I then promoting the idea that we should be satisfied with being an average kind of person? No I’m not. Discover your talents and excel in them but understand that to be an expert in one or two things means being satisfied with being average in lots of things. The trick is in knowing what you want/should be an expert in.
Christopher Brown is a full-time Stress Management Consultant in the UK. To discover more visit his website at http://www.browncow-opportunities.co.uk where you can sign up for a free e-course called “Avoiding Burnout”. You may also contact Chris direct at chris@browncow-training.co.uk
