Why We Need To Embrace Mediocrity

Does this sound familiar?

Starting projects but not finishing them, getting stuck in the research phase, never publishing anything, thinking deeply and creatively but not having anything to show for it…

It’s an epidemic.

There is one paralyzing reason why we don’t release our work, whether that be launching a podcast, publishing an article, launching a startup, writing a song, filming a youtube video…the list of “passion” projects we all have on our back burner is endless.

On the surface, it looks like we are worried about how people will react to our work. We perform mental somersaults to combat the fears and hesitations, asking ourselves questions like…

“What if people hate it?”

“Will this prove itself in the market?”

“What if it doesn’t perform?”

or even, “What if it goes unnoticed altogether?”

But these fearful thoughts are a Trojan horse hiding an even deeper mental hurdle we face — what we’re really, truly wondering deep down is…

The buck is stopping with us. Sure, others influence, but if it were simply other people, we’d finish the damn project, tuck it under our bed, and occasionally pull it out and stare at it (just for ourselves). But we’re sabotaging our wings pre-flight.

We can see what we want in our mind’s eye. In some special moments, we can touch it, taste it, smell it, feel it, and it’s already created and it’s wonderful. We can almost reap the success before we’ve grown it. But these bursts of creative energy are short-lived, like a flash in the pan. If we don’t immediately satisfy and deliver on them, we burn out.

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