In this week’s episode of Lessons from a Quitter, we wrap up our burnout series with a powerful mindset shift — embracing The Happy Life of Mediocrity. We explore how our constant drive to be the best and to “have it all” often leaves us exhausted, disconnected, and unfulfilled. Instead of chasing perfection, we learn how to find joy and peace in being average, accepting that life is always 50/50. Together, we discover how letting go of unrealistic expectations allows us to slow down, appreciate what we have, and create more happiness in our wonderfully imperfect, ordinary lives.
Ep. 380: Happy Life of Mediocrity
Ep. 380
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[00:00:00] Hello my friends and welcome to another episode. I'm so excited to have you here. If you're just tuning in. The last eight episodes have been all about burnout and I keep wanting to move on, but then another topic comes up and I'm like, I gotta talk about this. And this is sort of related to burnout. So if you are dealing with burnout, and I think it's something that so many of us are dealing with at various degrees, kind of a spectrum, some of us much more than others.
The last eight or so episodes will give you so many tools to dive deeper into what you can do. Small changes in order to get yourself out of burnout. Even if you can't quit your job, you can't leave, you can't change anything. You'll find so many tools on how to start dealing with the overwhelmingness that is our lives.
And I wanted to kind of wrap up the series. I mean, it, it sort of has been wrapped, but this issue came up in a coaching call in my membership, the Quitter Club. And I really wanted to talk about it on here because I think it's a concept that a lot of us need to learn [00:01:00] how to approach and master, and we're gonna call it the happy life of mediocrity.
That was actually one of the students in the Quitter Club. Put that in the chat, in our coaching call, and I'm gonna explain what that means. And I really want us to start embracing it. Now, it might sound odd, why would I want mediocrity? Right? We've been trained all of our lives to run as far away from being mediocre as possible.
Nobody wants to be average. We all wanna be the best. And that is where in lines the problem. We are in a culture that is very focused on hyper individualism and also on individual success. This whole self-made bullshit that we've all been brought up in has created this culture of having to do things on your own, having to be the best on your own, having to prove that you're the best on your own.
And a lot of us. Have wasted a lot of our life in this pursuit of [00:02:00] excellence that is almost unattainable. And what I mean by that is we've all experienced that.
Path or goal. I don't know how to journey towards some kind of goal. We've had a there, quote unquote there that we wanna get to, and most of us, if you're listening to this, you've accomplished it. At some point in your life, you wanted to get the degree, you wanted to get some job, you wanted to make a certain amount of money, you wanted something that you thought, when I get there, this is peak.
I will have proved it. I am so good. You know, I'm gonna feel so smart and I'm gonna feel so accomplished and I'm gonna feel so proud. And then you get there and what happens? You already know. It's like five seconds later you're like, I feel the same. 'cause you're the same person with the same brain. And you got there and it doesn't feel as good as you thought it was gonna feel.
And it might even actually feel worse because now you have a new set of stress. Maybe you have taken on new responsibilities, maybe you've sacrificed so much to get there and you're like, was this really worth it? Or whatever it is. You get there [00:03:00] and you're like, this is the same life. And we've talked a lot on this podcast about the concept of 50 50, about no matter where you are, life is 50 50.
It's good and bad emotions. You're never escaping that experience and that. Is, I wanna sort of take that concept and apply it here. Like I wanna expand on that concept and I wanna talk about what it means to have a happy life of mediocrity. I think that for a lot of us. Maybe we understand conceptually this idea of 50 50 and we understand that like it, we've seen it work, play out in our lives.
We've seen like I wanted something, I got it and my life was still the same. It was good for a little bit, but it sort of went back and it became more of the same as. What it's always been, right? There was still stress. Maybe it was different stress you know, maybe you got married, you've always wanted to get married and have kids, and you got married and you had kids and it's great.
There's a lot of things that are different, a lot of things that are wonderful and just a whole new set of stress, right? A whole new set of like disappointments, a whole new set of fears. And so it's not as though you're living on this high where you're like, oh my [00:04:00] God, my life is the best. Everything is wonderful.
I wake up every day and I never have a problem that doesn't exist for anyone, which we know. We can see people that are rich and famous and have seemingly everything and they are the most depressed, suicidal, maybe, on drugs. Like we've, we've all seen this story play out a number of times to understand this, and yet we are so programmed.
Especially in America or Western countries to want to live out this story of. The, I don't know the success story, the underdog, the person that just like, cre, you start out, you create this business, it takes off and you make millions of dollars or whatever it might be. You climb this corporate ladder, you become CEO of the company, and you have all this, you know, these accolades and everybody respects you.
And for whatever reason's. Supposed to make you feel better. Spoiler alert, it won't. But we still kind of go after it that like there's something that I'm supposed to do that is special. There's something. And not to say that you're not special. Your was are [00:05:00] all special. Every person is extremely special.
But I think when you come from a very indivi, individualistic culture that very much harps on this story of individual success, you. Constantly feel as if you're not doing enough or that it's not special enough, or that you have to like do something that's extraordinary and that you have to be perfect in a certain way in order to feel the thing you're supposed to feel.
And for everyone else to take note and for everyone else to, be in awe and then you'll finally feel good. And if that worked, I would encourage you all to do it. But we all know that it doesn't work 'cause we've all experienced it. And I've also seen people create really amazing results and still feel like shit about themselves and still hate their lives and still be really unhappy.
And so you're sacrificing so much to get to some place that you think is gonna all of a sudden have some answer that it's not gonna have. What I want us to all understand a little bit more is that there is so much happiness in mediocrity, [00:06:00] in being average, in accepting that, here's the thing, we are all mostly average.
I hate to tell you, that's just sort of numbers. When you look at numbers, when you look at statistics, when you look at the world around you, there are gonna be people ahead of you. And this is where I think a lot of times, like if you even think about the concept of imposter syndrome, you tend to only look at people ahead of you, right?
When you look back, there's also people quote unquote, behind you, depending on where you wanna be in your life. There's people that haven't accomplished what you wanted or haven't done what you. You know you have, and there are you, we all statistically tend to fall in the middle. That's okay. That is just what life is.
Now. We might be better at some things than other people and then worse at other things. And yes, there's some outliers where you're gonna, maybe the be the best of the best in one thing. You're like the best violinist in the world. Or you go to the Olympics for some sport and there's a small subset of people, but even them.
They're gonna be an outlier in some things, and they're gonna be really mediocre at a lot of other [00:07:00] things, and that's okay. And what I want people to understand is embracing that can save so much heartache and can stop so much burnout. The call that I was on, the person that I was coaching was talking about.
This feeling of always being behind or never being on top of things. And this became very clear that it was this desire. We, we couch it in language of being on top of or being good at or whatever, but it, it, when you dig deep into it, it was like, I need to be perfect at, and it was whether like, oh, I need to get on top of my f finances.
I need to get on top of my health. I need to get on top of my hobbies, even like. Sp how I spend my free time. I'm not, utilizing it at Alpha. It's not productive enough. I'm not doing the most I could be doing, I'm not learning the most, I'm not reading the book, whatever, all of this stuff.
And it comes back to this concept that we have this belief [00:08:00] that an, unless we are doing things at the most excellent level, then we're somehow failing at it. It's like a very all or nothing belief. And so we constantly keep ourselves on this hamster wheel, not even about career or about like. I don't know, even like very, really important things.
Let's say like relationships are really important and maybe your goal is to like find a partner. I'm not even talking about that. We're talking about everything. Like my house has to be the best, right? Like when I decorate for the holidays, it has to be the best. Now we don't think in these terms. It's not as though your brain is like, we have to be the best house on the block.
That's not what we do. But we do look around and be like, this isn't enough. This is looks sad, or everyone's gonna judge my house, or my house isn't. Like clean enough or people are gonna come over and be like, what the hell is this? Or you know, I don't even wanna have people over because it kind of looks kind of sad and run down or doesn't look good, as good as my friend's house is or whatnot.
And we have this kind of comparison, but really what we're telling ourselves is that like, like I just have to get to a place. Like I think if I get to this place where I feel excellent about my home, then I'll feel [00:09:00] good. And so many of us work our little tails off, make all this money so we can buy the better home.
So we can buy like the place that we're gonna feel good in. And then we don't feel good because now we have a bigger home to clean and we have a higher mortgage and there's more stress and we don't actually even spend that much time in the house 'cause we're working all the time and we don't really have all those dinner parties we thought we were gonna have.
But like yeah, it looks nicer. And what I want us to like embrace a little bit is like even within it, when you catch yourself doing this, it's like, what if it was okay for it to be mediocre? What if it was okay to be average? What if it was okay to be like, yeah, my house is not the best looking house.
That's okay. It does the job. I got a roof over my head. I get to make memories in it. I get to still have people over. I get to have really fun times. I get to decorate how I want. What if my decorations for the holidays aren't the best? What if they're just average? What if I don't need to kill myself, but all the lights on outside?
What if I just do a little bit and I just stick one thing outside and that's all the energy I have, and that's okay. Man, it's [00:10:00] average just like everybody else's. And that's fine. And when we were, I was coaching this person, I was really coaching on that, this concept of like understanding that like there will never be a time ever in your life ever, ever, ever, where you will have perfected everything, where you will wake up and you're just this different person.
You're a HU robot that has perfected. How to mother and how to be a good employee and how to have the most perfect house, and how to have everything clean and ready, and how to exercise properly, and how to have all your finances in order and never have any questions. Like it is always evolving, just like a to-do list.
There's always this list of things that you could improve, all of us could, and there's gonna be things that you're naturally better at. And then there's gonna be things that you're not better at, and that's okay. And it's good to kind of know your strengths, but even the things that you're good at. You are likely on some scale of average at them, like maybe on the higher scale of average.
And I don't say this to put you down, I think it's beautiful. I think it's just like an [00:11:00] acceptance of like there are 7 billion people, 8 billion I think at this point on this planet. So like, yeah, I could be a good cook, I could make good food. There's obviously gonna be people that are better than me and that's okay.
I don't have to make the fanciest dinner parties. I can just know that like the reason I'm having a dinner party is because I want connection and I wanna have people over. And so it's okay if it's average. I wanna reduce my own stress in this life. Like that is my goal now, and I've realized like accepting that I have this happy life of mediocrity.
Now, there are some things in my life that are very extraordinary to. Maybe not to someone else. There's things within my family, there's vacations that I go on that I'm constantly in awe like, oh my God, I can't believe I get to do this. And I don't mean to take that away. I don't mean to say like, to not live into the fact that like truly just having life is extraordinary.
True. Truly like getting older and being able to experience these things. It's things that most a lot of people do not get the privilege of. And it is extraordinary. Life is extraordinary. So [00:12:00] I, I don't mean to say that it's like. Eh, whatever. It's just average. What I'm saying is that like there is no need for you to be the best of the best of the best in order to enjoy it.
There is no need for you to be excel at things in order for you to find happiness. In fact, I think the opposite is true. I'm gonna go on a limb and say that I think when you try to excel at something. There is some things that come with it. There might be some more success and money and notoriety and some things that feel good and like you wanna excel at something, go for it.
But you have to sort of be really cautious when you have a brain that is wired towards wanting to excel. That's fine if you can limit it to the things you wanna excel at. If you wanna say like, Hey, you know, I really want to. Be an author and if I'm gonna do this, I wanna be a New York Times bestseller and I wanna get on this list and like that's important to me and I'm gonna work my tail off to get that fine, do it.
Go have at it. But then don't also [00:13:00] expect that you're gonna be Suzy Homemaker and that you're gonna have the best, you know, like stay at home mom type life, and that you're gonna also have the best physique and you're gonna work out and be super healthy all the time. And that you're gonna have the best skincare routine and that you're gonna have the best relationship.
It doesn't work like that, and I think the sooner we can all kind of accept that, the sooner we can all relax a little bit and enjoy what we actually have. I recently saw a clip of a podcast, I believe it was that CEO podcast, Steven, I can't remember his name, and I didn't watch the entire podcast, so take this with the Great salt.
It was just a fascinating OB observation. I don't even know who the guest was. This is how little I'm prepared to explain this to you, but I'm just telling you that this quote was very interesting to me. The host asked this, it was some kind of psychologist, some kind of person that studies like happiness and this kind of stuff, and he had said, who is like the happiest person?[00:14:00]
And this person responded with like somebody who has a very average like three bedroom house with a family that they love and friends that they have dinner with, that they go out with and a job that pays their bills and hobbies that they get to do on the weekend or whatever like that is peak happiness.
And it was so fascinating 'cause I a hundred percent agree. And I don't say this to say that we shouldn't strive for excellence. I don't mean to say that you can't try to do things that push you and that for so many of us are very wired for accomplishment, and that's okay. And I myself like to excel at things, but I also, when I started really getting perspective, when I started really becoming aware of like, oh, I've accomplished all these things in my life and I still don't feel like it's enough, and that [00:15:00] didn't give me the happiness I wanted, and that didn't somehow change my circumstances, and it didn't all of a sudden make me like, you know, I don't know, feel so good about myself and love myself, like that's not where that's coming from.
I do still wanna push myself for other reasons, because I want, because I'm, I get bored because my brain needs a problem to solve, and I'd rather give it one than have it create something that isn't actually a problem, because I wanna see what I'm made of because I wanna build my own resilience because I want to be an example for different people, for my kids and whatnot, because I can, because I have this life, right?
There's a lot of reasons to go after big goals. But one of the things that I sort of gave up is this idea that like going after that goal is what's gonna make me happy. That getting there and being this excellent sort of human being, excelling in this one thing is what's gonna be the key to my happiness that is not.
And the more I've accepted that, it's not as though one, there's, I don't have as much of a rush to accomplish certain goals. [00:16:00] I'm, I used to be in this place where it's like, well, I would have to have five goals every year or 10 goals because it's like, well, I need to get these things in order to feel good.
I need to lose weight and I need to, you know, like build my business and I need to make a certain amount of money and I need to have a better relationship with my husband, and I need to do all this stuff so I can feel good. As you know, if you've been around here at all, like I have a very strict rule that you get one goal per year.
And I started really realizing like there's no rush because I am happy in my mediocre life where it is right now while I go after this one thing that I wanna excel in. And I, when I stopped putting the pressure to try to excel in everything to accept the mediocrity of other parts of my life, it allowed me to say like, okay, but in this area, because maybe I'm really curious about it, or I'm really driven in it, or I'm really passionate about it, or I feel really like.
I wanna kind of put my energy in it. It's easier to say in this area, I wanna be, I wanna excel in this area just because, like I said, I wanna push myself just because I wanna see what I'm made of, just because I want to [00:17:00] see if I can hit this goal right. But the rest of my life, I'm just like, yeah, it's good enough.
It's good. My husband always says it's gov. He's saying, he always says it's good enough for government work. So like, anything we do, and just like that's the standard. Now if, you know, if you've listened to, um, the podcast on, in the Burnout Breakthrough series, I did one on B minus work. And it's like learning how to be okay with it not being a plus.
This is sort of this concept, but to your life. And I know that, that some saddens people sometimes, and it saddened me in the beginning 'cause it's like, well, why wouldn't I push for more? Why wouldn't I push for excellence? And again, it's not that you can't, it's that you're making yourself miserable in the process of that.
It's that you're beating yourself up saying there's something wrong with you because you haven't reached it. It's because you're going against statistics, right? Instead of looking at like, I am one within a community. My job is not to be better than everybody. People don't like me because I'm better than 'em.
In fact, a lot of people probably hate that. My. My [00:18:00] role is to see where I fit in in this kind of tapestry of my life and of the world, and where I can be of service and where I can create. Connection and where I can create beauty and I don't ever have to be the best of the best in order to do that.
And I feel like the more I've leaned into that, the happier my life has become. The more simple my life has become, the more the things that matter actually matter. Right. The more it became like I don't have to have the perfect house in order to have people over. I can just have people over. 'cause I want connection and I wanna hang out and I can order food and I can just get pizza.
I, I don't have to. Be the best mom on the block. I can actually just like show up as my mess self and do what I can when I can't. I actually show up more for my kids because there isn't this need for me to prove anything to anybody. When I take off the pressure of needing to constantly be perfect and then constantly telling myself I'm behind, I'm not doing it.
I'm not doing it good enough. I haven't excelled at it, I haven't perfected it. I haven't, whatever. Then I have enough [00:19:00] space to just live my life to just think about like, well, what does make me happy? What do I wanna do? What do I have the capacity to do? Maybe this year I don't have the capacity to host holidays or decorate, and maybe next year I will.
And all of it's okay. All of it's part of this like mediocre life that we're all gonna live. And I know, I mean, I use this the same way I use quitter. Because I think we need to change the connotations of these words. I understand that like sometimes hearing that is really jarring for people because it's like, well, I don't wanna just accept being mediocre, and I just hate to be like, but you are.
I am. We all are. There's nothing wrong with that. I think what was wrong is that we were sold this like. Lie that we only get to be happier or love ourselves or feel good if we're so, we excel at something if we're some kind of like savant. I, I notice this now, [00:20:00] right now with my kids, right? Being in like youth sports, it's such a fascinating experience and I watch myself get caught up in it and I have to reel myself back.
My son is 11 and he is in soccer and. Youth sports is wild. It has become wild. And of course, wherever there's money to be made, people lose their fricking minds in this country. And so they're, it's not as though you're just in a rec league anymore. It's like people are doing fr private coaching and you're in on club teams and you're in traveling ball, you know, soccer and you're driving an hour this way and that way every week.
And you're doing, three practices for three. I mean, it's so intense. And I see these parents and every one of them has this like, I don't know, I just have to remind myself, I'm like, you think your kid's gonna be like messy? I mean, I'm not saying there isn't anyone. Yes, of course there is gonna be the next messy, and it's not.
I hope it is your child, but statistically speaking, it likely isn't. [00:21:00] And it's likely not even, they're not even gonna go to college and play. They're probably just gonna play through high school Again, not to say that you can't. I wanna teach them hard work, but I think we lose the plot. I think, like I look at these parents, I look at myself, I get caught in it and I'm like, this is supposed to be for 11 year olds having fun.
It is supposed to be for them to learn teamwork. It's supposed to be for them to learn, commitment and discipline and get some exercise and have a good time. And when I tell you if you're in kid sports, you know very quickly it is not about that. It is. It is very serious. It is like, oh my God, we've had him training since he was five and he trains with a private coach and he does agility drills.
And I'm like, but what are we doing? Why are we doing that right now? Why are kids so overly scheduled that they have sports and instruments and tutoring and all of these things? What is the point it's like to make them the best at what, for what reason? And I know we all think like, well, I wanna give them the best opportunity for what to excel and then what, we've [00:22:00] all kind of experienced this, we've excelled.
We made the money. It didn't make us happier. I'm not saying that you shouldn't push your children to try to have as much opportunity as they can. You should. I do. Right? But I have to take a step back and be like, what is the point of this? What if my son is just an average 11-year-old and he just wants to have fun?
And I'm getting in the way of that. And what if I just allow him to have a childhood and I allow him to have as much fun as he possibly can right now because things are gonna get serious and it is gonna become harder. And this is not the time for this. And I say this because I have to remind myself because I get in there and I get brainwashed and I'm like, oh my God, we don't have him in private coaching and we need to put 'em in three more classes because I'm a bad mom.
'cause we need to all excel all the time. And I have to like pull myself back and be like, no you don't, Chloe, just because everyone else is doing it. You don't have to. You get to raise your kids the way you want. And so I, again, it's not to say that my kids aren't the most special to me they are. And it's not that I don't see their talents.
And it's not that I don't think that they can [00:23:00] excel in some things, but I know that in a lot of things are gonna be mediocre 'cause that is what life is. And so I don't have to push them in every direction to be like, you have to be the best in instruments and you have to be the best in sports. And you have to be the best at math.
And you have to be the best in school. And you have to, we, we gotta be the best. For what reason? For what reason? I wanna raise. Happy, well adjusted, empathetic, kind children that can stand on their own two feet. That's my goal, that's my purpose here. That's about it. Everything else, cherry on top. I would love if, I think like if you're gonna excel at something, you already kinda have that natural talent, right?
Like you're, not to say that training can't help, but like there is an inclination. We all know, like, you know when your kid is like really athletic or you know when your kid is like really artistic or you know, and by all means, funnel them into that. But I think it's like when the kids clearly don't, like I have so many kids I see on these soccer fields that don't wanna be there, that hate it, have no desire, also zero ability, like [00:24:00] just not the most athletic.
And these parents man are just so hell bent on molding this child into something they're not. And I just want us to like take a step back. And really think about what if it was okay to just have a really happy life that's mediocre. Would I trade excellence and being unhappy for mediocrity and being happy and finding more joy and finding things that.
Light me up and having more rest and having more space and having more peace. And so I'm not saying you have to do this. I know this is like, I feel like I'm the antithesis of a life coach sometimes, even though I'm a life coach. I feel like a lot of life coaches push people to go after bigger goals and impossible goals and do it, and I'm always like.
Let's all take a nap. Let's all just chill. What if we just are average? But um, I have just, I think that my audience tends to be people that burn themselves out because they try to excel too much. And [00:25:00] I just think that sometimes it's okay to take that foot off the gas and just look around at your average life like everybody else is, and know that there will never be a time that you perfect everything and you don't have to.
And you get, when you take that foot off the gas is when you can really look around and see all of the things that you get to enjoy right here in your perfectly wonderful, happy, mediocre life. Embrace that mediocrity my friends. I'm telling you, it's changed my life. I love it. And I hope it changes yours too.
So if that's not for you, it's okay. You can still go after whatever you wanna go after. I just think that for a lot of you, if you really stop to look at what if instead of arguing with reality, instead of thinking that you should be somewhere different, instead of thinking you should be better than you are thinking about, like you're fine exactly the way you are.
There's nothing that's broken. It's just that you keep telling yourself you should be further along or you should be better. And what if you shouldn't? What if you just get to be who you are and you get to enjoy the life that you have and you don't let life pass you by waiting for some day when you're perfect or extraordinary or better than everybody else?
Life could be so much [00:26:00] more fun, I promise. All right. I hope this helps, and I will be back next week with another episode.
The last eight or so episodes will give you so many tools to dive deeper into what you can do. Small changes in order to get yourself out of burnout. Even if you can't quit your job, you can't leave, you can't change anything. You'll find so many tools on how to start dealing with the overwhelmingness that is our lives.
And I wanted to kind of wrap up the series. I mean, it, it sort of has been wrapped, but this issue came up in a coaching call in my membership, the Quitter Club. And I really wanted to talk about it on here because I think it's a concept that a lot of us need to learn [00:01:00] how to approach and master, and we're gonna call it the happy life of mediocrity.
That was actually one of the students in the Quitter Club. Put that in the chat, in our coaching call, and I'm gonna explain what that means. And I really want us to start embracing it. Now, it might sound odd, why would I want mediocrity? Right? We've been trained all of our lives to run as far away from being mediocre as possible.
Nobody wants to be average. We all wanna be the best. And that is where in lines the problem. We are in a culture that is very focused on hyper individualism and also on individual success. This whole self-made bullshit that we've all been brought up in has created this culture of having to do things on your own, having to be the best on your own, having to prove that you're the best on your own.
And a lot of us. Have wasted a lot of our life in this pursuit of [00:02:00] excellence that is almost unattainable. And what I mean by that is we've all experienced that.
Path or goal. I don't know how to journey towards some kind of goal. We've had a there, quote unquote there that we wanna get to, and most of us, if you're listening to this, you've accomplished it. At some point in your life, you wanted to get the degree, you wanted to get some job, you wanted to make a certain amount of money, you wanted something that you thought, when I get there, this is peak.
I will have proved it. I am so good. You know, I'm gonna feel so smart and I'm gonna feel so accomplished and I'm gonna feel so proud. And then you get there and what happens? You already know. It's like five seconds later you're like, I feel the same. 'cause you're the same person with the same brain. And you got there and it doesn't feel as good as you thought it was gonna feel.
And it might even actually feel worse because now you have a new set of stress. Maybe you have taken on new responsibilities, maybe you've sacrificed so much to get there and you're like, was this really worth it? Or whatever it is. You get there [00:03:00] and you're like, this is the same life. And we've talked a lot on this podcast about the concept of 50 50, about no matter where you are, life is 50 50.
It's good and bad emotions. You're never escaping that experience and that. Is, I wanna sort of take that concept and apply it here. Like I wanna expand on that concept and I wanna talk about what it means to have a happy life of mediocrity. I think that for a lot of us. Maybe we understand conceptually this idea of 50 50 and we understand that like it, we've seen it work, play out in our lives.
We've seen like I wanted something, I got it and my life was still the same. It was good for a little bit, but it sort of went back and it became more of the same as. What it's always been, right? There was still stress. Maybe it was different stress you know, maybe you got married, you've always wanted to get married and have kids, and you got married and you had kids and it's great.
There's a lot of things that are different, a lot of things that are wonderful and just a whole new set of stress, right? A whole new set of like disappointments, a whole new set of fears. And so it's not as though you're living on this high where you're like, oh my [00:04:00] God, my life is the best. Everything is wonderful.
I wake up every day and I never have a problem that doesn't exist for anyone, which we know. We can see people that are rich and famous and have seemingly everything and they are the most depressed, suicidal, maybe, on drugs. Like we've, we've all seen this story play out a number of times to understand this, and yet we are so programmed.
Especially in America or Western countries to want to live out this story of. The, I don't know the success story, the underdog, the person that just like, cre, you start out, you create this business, it takes off and you make millions of dollars or whatever it might be. You climb this corporate ladder, you become CEO of the company, and you have all this, you know, these accolades and everybody respects you.
And for whatever reason's. Supposed to make you feel better. Spoiler alert, it won't. But we still kind of go after it that like there's something that I'm supposed to do that is special. There's something. And not to say that you're not special. Your was are [00:05:00] all special. Every person is extremely special.
But I think when you come from a very indivi, individualistic culture that very much harps on this story of individual success, you. Constantly feel as if you're not doing enough or that it's not special enough, or that you have to like do something that's extraordinary and that you have to be perfect in a certain way in order to feel the thing you're supposed to feel.
And for everyone else to take note and for everyone else to, be in awe and then you'll finally feel good. And if that worked, I would encourage you all to do it. But we all know that it doesn't work 'cause we've all experienced it. And I've also seen people create really amazing results and still feel like shit about themselves and still hate their lives and still be really unhappy.
And so you're sacrificing so much to get to some place that you think is gonna all of a sudden have some answer that it's not gonna have. What I want us to all understand a little bit more is that there is so much happiness in mediocrity, [00:06:00] in being average, in accepting that, here's the thing, we are all mostly average.
I hate to tell you, that's just sort of numbers. When you look at numbers, when you look at statistics, when you look at the world around you, there are gonna be people ahead of you. And this is where I think a lot of times, like if you even think about the concept of imposter syndrome, you tend to only look at people ahead of you, right?
When you look back, there's also people quote unquote, behind you, depending on where you wanna be in your life. There's people that haven't accomplished what you wanted or haven't done what you. You know you have, and there are you, we all statistically tend to fall in the middle. That's okay. That is just what life is.
Now. We might be better at some things than other people and then worse at other things. And yes, there's some outliers where you're gonna, maybe the be the best of the best in one thing. You're like the best violinist in the world. Or you go to the Olympics for some sport and there's a small subset of people, but even them.
They're gonna be an outlier in some things, and they're gonna be really mediocre at a lot of other [00:07:00] things, and that's okay. And what I want people to understand is embracing that can save so much heartache and can stop so much burnout. The call that I was on, the person that I was coaching was talking about.
This feeling of always being behind or never being on top of things. And this became very clear that it was this desire. We, we couch it in language of being on top of or being good at or whatever, but it, it, when you dig deep into it, it was like, I need to be perfect at, and it was whether like, oh, I need to get on top of my f finances.
I need to get on top of my health. I need to get on top of my hobbies, even like. Sp how I spend my free time. I'm not, utilizing it at Alpha. It's not productive enough. I'm not doing the most I could be doing, I'm not learning the most, I'm not reading the book, whatever, all of this stuff.
And it comes back to this concept that we have this belief [00:08:00] that an, unless we are doing things at the most excellent level, then we're somehow failing at it. It's like a very all or nothing belief. And so we constantly keep ourselves on this hamster wheel, not even about career or about like. I don't know, even like very, really important things.
Let's say like relationships are really important and maybe your goal is to like find a partner. I'm not even talking about that. We're talking about everything. Like my house has to be the best, right? Like when I decorate for the holidays, it has to be the best. Now we don't think in these terms. It's not as though your brain is like, we have to be the best house on the block.
That's not what we do. But we do look around and be like, this isn't enough. This is looks sad, or everyone's gonna judge my house, or my house isn't. Like clean enough or people are gonna come over and be like, what the hell is this? Or you know, I don't even wanna have people over because it kind of looks kind of sad and run down or doesn't look good, as good as my friend's house is or whatnot.
And we have this kind of comparison, but really what we're telling ourselves is that like, like I just have to get to a place. Like I think if I get to this place where I feel excellent about my home, then I'll feel [00:09:00] good. And so many of us work our little tails off, make all this money so we can buy the better home.
So we can buy like the place that we're gonna feel good in. And then we don't feel good because now we have a bigger home to clean and we have a higher mortgage and there's more stress and we don't actually even spend that much time in the house 'cause we're working all the time and we don't really have all those dinner parties we thought we were gonna have.
But like yeah, it looks nicer. And what I want us to like embrace a little bit is like even within it, when you catch yourself doing this, it's like, what if it was okay for it to be mediocre? What if it was okay to be average? What if it was okay to be like, yeah, my house is not the best looking house.
That's okay. It does the job. I got a roof over my head. I get to make memories in it. I get to still have people over. I get to have really fun times. I get to decorate how I want. What if my decorations for the holidays aren't the best? What if they're just average? What if I don't need to kill myself, but all the lights on outside?
What if I just do a little bit and I just stick one thing outside and that's all the energy I have, and that's okay. Man, it's [00:10:00] average just like everybody else's. And that's fine. And when we were, I was coaching this person, I was really coaching on that, this concept of like understanding that like there will never be a time ever in your life ever, ever, ever, where you will have perfected everything, where you will wake up and you're just this different person.
You're a HU robot that has perfected. How to mother and how to be a good employee and how to have the most perfect house, and how to have everything clean and ready, and how to exercise properly, and how to have all your finances in order and never have any questions. Like it is always evolving, just like a to-do list.
There's always this list of things that you could improve, all of us could, and there's gonna be things that you're naturally better at. And then there's gonna be things that you're not better at, and that's okay. And it's good to kind of know your strengths, but even the things that you're good at. You are likely on some scale of average at them, like maybe on the higher scale of average.
And I don't say this to put you down, I think it's beautiful. I think it's just like an [00:11:00] acceptance of like there are 7 billion people, 8 billion I think at this point on this planet. So like, yeah, I could be a good cook, I could make good food. There's obviously gonna be people that are better than me and that's okay.
I don't have to make the fanciest dinner parties. I can just know that like the reason I'm having a dinner party is because I want connection and I wanna have people over. And so it's okay if it's average. I wanna reduce my own stress in this life. Like that is my goal now, and I've realized like accepting that I have this happy life of mediocrity.
Now, there are some things in my life that are very extraordinary to. Maybe not to someone else. There's things within my family, there's vacations that I go on that I'm constantly in awe like, oh my God, I can't believe I get to do this. And I don't mean to take that away. I don't mean to say like, to not live into the fact that like truly just having life is extraordinary.
True. Truly like getting older and being able to experience these things. It's things that most a lot of people do not get the privilege of. And it is extraordinary. Life is extraordinary. So [00:12:00] I, I don't mean to say that it's like. Eh, whatever. It's just average. What I'm saying is that like there is no need for you to be the best of the best of the best in order to enjoy it.
There is no need for you to be excel at things in order for you to find happiness. In fact, I think the opposite is true. I'm gonna go on a limb and say that I think when you try to excel at something. There is some things that come with it. There might be some more success and money and notoriety and some things that feel good and like you wanna excel at something, go for it.
But you have to sort of be really cautious when you have a brain that is wired towards wanting to excel. That's fine if you can limit it to the things you wanna excel at. If you wanna say like, Hey, you know, I really want to. Be an author and if I'm gonna do this, I wanna be a New York Times bestseller and I wanna get on this list and like that's important to me and I'm gonna work my tail off to get that fine, do it.
Go have at it. But then don't also [00:13:00] expect that you're gonna be Suzy Homemaker and that you're gonna have the best, you know, like stay at home mom type life, and that you're gonna also have the best physique and you're gonna work out and be super healthy all the time. And that you're gonna have the best skincare routine and that you're gonna have the best relationship.
It doesn't work like that, and I think the sooner we can all kind of accept that, the sooner we can all relax a little bit and enjoy what we actually have. I recently saw a clip of a podcast, I believe it was that CEO podcast, Steven, I can't remember his name, and I didn't watch the entire podcast, so take this with the Great salt.
It was just a fascinating OB observation. I don't even know who the guest was. This is how little I'm prepared to explain this to you, but I'm just telling you that this quote was very interesting to me. The host asked this, it was some kind of psychologist, some kind of person that studies like happiness and this kind of stuff, and he had said, who is like the happiest person?[00:14:00]
And this person responded with like somebody who has a very average like three bedroom house with a family that they love and friends that they have dinner with, that they go out with and a job that pays their bills and hobbies that they get to do on the weekend or whatever like that is peak happiness.
And it was so fascinating 'cause I a hundred percent agree. And I don't say this to say that we shouldn't strive for excellence. I don't mean to say that you can't try to do things that push you and that for so many of us are very wired for accomplishment, and that's okay. And I myself like to excel at things, but I also, when I started really getting perspective, when I started really becoming aware of like, oh, I've accomplished all these things in my life and I still don't feel like it's enough, and that [00:15:00] didn't give me the happiness I wanted, and that didn't somehow change my circumstances, and it didn't all of a sudden make me like, you know, I don't know, feel so good about myself and love myself, like that's not where that's coming from.
I do still wanna push myself for other reasons, because I want, because I'm, I get bored because my brain needs a problem to solve, and I'd rather give it one than have it create something that isn't actually a problem, because I wanna see what I'm made of because I wanna build my own resilience because I want to be an example for different people, for my kids and whatnot, because I can, because I have this life, right?
There's a lot of reasons to go after big goals. But one of the things that I sort of gave up is this idea that like going after that goal is what's gonna make me happy. That getting there and being this excellent sort of human being, excelling in this one thing is what's gonna be the key to my happiness that is not.
And the more I've accepted that, it's not as though one, there's, I don't have as much of a rush to accomplish certain goals. [00:16:00] I'm, I used to be in this place where it's like, well, I would have to have five goals every year or 10 goals because it's like, well, I need to get these things in order to feel good.
I need to lose weight and I need to, you know, like build my business and I need to make a certain amount of money and I need to have a better relationship with my husband, and I need to do all this stuff so I can feel good. As you know, if you've been around here at all, like I have a very strict rule that you get one goal per year.
And I started really realizing like there's no rush because I am happy in my mediocre life where it is right now while I go after this one thing that I wanna excel in. And I, when I stopped putting the pressure to try to excel in everything to accept the mediocrity of other parts of my life, it allowed me to say like, okay, but in this area, because maybe I'm really curious about it, or I'm really driven in it, or I'm really passionate about it, or I feel really like.
I wanna kind of put my energy in it. It's easier to say in this area, I wanna be, I wanna excel in this area just because, like I said, I wanna push myself just because I wanna see what I'm made of, just because I want to [00:17:00] see if I can hit this goal right. But the rest of my life, I'm just like, yeah, it's good enough.
It's good. My husband always says it's gov. He's saying, he always says it's good enough for government work. So like, anything we do, and just like that's the standard. Now if, you know, if you've listened to, um, the podcast on, in the Burnout Breakthrough series, I did one on B minus work. And it's like learning how to be okay with it not being a plus.
This is sort of this concept, but to your life. And I know that, that some saddens people sometimes, and it saddened me in the beginning 'cause it's like, well, why wouldn't I push for more? Why wouldn't I push for excellence? And again, it's not that you can't, it's that you're making yourself miserable in the process of that.
It's that you're beating yourself up saying there's something wrong with you because you haven't reached it. It's because you're going against statistics, right? Instead of looking at like, I am one within a community. My job is not to be better than everybody. People don't like me because I'm better than 'em.
In fact, a lot of people probably hate that. My. My [00:18:00] role is to see where I fit in in this kind of tapestry of my life and of the world, and where I can be of service and where I can create. Connection and where I can create beauty and I don't ever have to be the best of the best in order to do that.
And I feel like the more I've leaned into that, the happier my life has become. The more simple my life has become, the more the things that matter actually matter. Right. The more it became like I don't have to have the perfect house in order to have people over. I can just have people over. 'cause I want connection and I wanna hang out and I can order food and I can just get pizza.
I, I don't have to. Be the best mom on the block. I can actually just like show up as my mess self and do what I can when I can't. I actually show up more for my kids because there isn't this need for me to prove anything to anybody. When I take off the pressure of needing to constantly be perfect and then constantly telling myself I'm behind, I'm not doing it.
I'm not doing it good enough. I haven't excelled at it, I haven't perfected it. I haven't, whatever. Then I have enough [00:19:00] space to just live my life to just think about like, well, what does make me happy? What do I wanna do? What do I have the capacity to do? Maybe this year I don't have the capacity to host holidays or decorate, and maybe next year I will.
And all of it's okay. All of it's part of this like mediocre life that we're all gonna live. And I know, I mean, I use this the same way I use quitter. Because I think we need to change the connotations of these words. I understand that like sometimes hearing that is really jarring for people because it's like, well, I don't wanna just accept being mediocre, and I just hate to be like, but you are.
I am. We all are. There's nothing wrong with that. I think what was wrong is that we were sold this like. Lie that we only get to be happier or love ourselves or feel good if we're so, we excel at something if we're some kind of like savant. I, I notice this now, [00:20:00] right now with my kids, right? Being in like youth sports, it's such a fascinating experience and I watch myself get caught up in it and I have to reel myself back.
My son is 11 and he is in soccer and. Youth sports is wild. It has become wild. And of course, wherever there's money to be made, people lose their fricking minds in this country. And so they're, it's not as though you're just in a rec league anymore. It's like people are doing fr private coaching and you're in on club teams and you're in traveling ball, you know, soccer and you're driving an hour this way and that way every week.
And you're doing, three practices for three. I mean, it's so intense. And I see these parents and every one of them has this like, I don't know, I just have to remind myself, I'm like, you think your kid's gonna be like messy? I mean, I'm not saying there isn't anyone. Yes, of course there is gonna be the next messy, and it's not.
I hope it is your child, but statistically speaking, it likely isn't. [00:21:00] And it's likely not even, they're not even gonna go to college and play. They're probably just gonna play through high school Again, not to say that you can't. I wanna teach them hard work, but I think we lose the plot. I think, like I look at these parents, I look at myself, I get caught in it and I'm like, this is supposed to be for 11 year olds having fun.
It is supposed to be for them to learn teamwork. It's supposed to be for them to learn, commitment and discipline and get some exercise and have a good time. And when I tell you if you're in kid sports, you know very quickly it is not about that. It is. It is very serious. It is like, oh my God, we've had him training since he was five and he trains with a private coach and he does agility drills.
And I'm like, but what are we doing? Why are we doing that right now? Why are kids so overly scheduled that they have sports and instruments and tutoring and all of these things? What is the point it's like to make them the best at what, for what reason? And I know we all think like, well, I wanna give them the best opportunity for what to excel and then what, we've [00:22:00] all kind of experienced this, we've excelled.
We made the money. It didn't make us happier. I'm not saying that you shouldn't push your children to try to have as much opportunity as they can. You should. I do. Right? But I have to take a step back and be like, what is the point of this? What if my son is just an average 11-year-old and he just wants to have fun?
And I'm getting in the way of that. And what if I just allow him to have a childhood and I allow him to have as much fun as he possibly can right now because things are gonna get serious and it is gonna become harder. And this is not the time for this. And I say this because I have to remind myself because I get in there and I get brainwashed and I'm like, oh my God, we don't have him in private coaching and we need to put 'em in three more classes because I'm a bad mom.
'cause we need to all excel all the time. And I have to like pull myself back and be like, no you don't, Chloe, just because everyone else is doing it. You don't have to. You get to raise your kids the way you want. And so I, again, it's not to say that my kids aren't the most special to me they are. And it's not that I don't see their talents.
And it's not that I don't think that they can [00:23:00] excel in some things, but I know that in a lot of things are gonna be mediocre 'cause that is what life is. And so I don't have to push them in every direction to be like, you have to be the best in instruments and you have to be the best in sports. And you have to be the best at math.
And you have to be the best in school. And you have to, we, we gotta be the best. For what reason? For what reason? I wanna raise. Happy, well adjusted, empathetic, kind children that can stand on their own two feet. That's my goal, that's my purpose here. That's about it. Everything else, cherry on top. I would love if, I think like if you're gonna excel at something, you already kinda have that natural talent, right?
Like you're, not to say that training can't help, but like there is an inclination. We all know, like, you know when your kid is like really athletic or you know when your kid is like really artistic or you know, and by all means, funnel them into that. But I think it's like when the kids clearly don't, like I have so many kids I see on these soccer fields that don't wanna be there, that hate it, have no desire, also zero ability, like [00:24:00] just not the most athletic.
And these parents man are just so hell bent on molding this child into something they're not. And I just want us to like take a step back. And really think about what if it was okay to just have a really happy life that's mediocre. Would I trade excellence and being unhappy for mediocrity and being happy and finding more joy and finding things that.
Light me up and having more rest and having more space and having more peace. And so I'm not saying you have to do this. I know this is like, I feel like I'm the antithesis of a life coach sometimes, even though I'm a life coach. I feel like a lot of life coaches push people to go after bigger goals and impossible goals and do it, and I'm always like.
Let's all take a nap. Let's all just chill. What if we just are average? But um, I have just, I think that my audience tends to be people that burn themselves out because they try to excel too much. And [00:25:00] I just think that sometimes it's okay to take that foot off the gas and just look around at your average life like everybody else is, and know that there will never be a time that you perfect everything and you don't have to.
And you get, when you take that foot off the gas is when you can really look around and see all of the things that you get to enjoy right here in your perfectly wonderful, happy, mediocre life. Embrace that mediocrity my friends. I'm telling you, it's changed my life. I love it. And I hope it changes yours too.
So if that's not for you, it's okay. You can still go after whatever you wanna go after. I just think that for a lot of you, if you really stop to look at what if instead of arguing with reality, instead of thinking that you should be somewhere different, instead of thinking you should be better than you are thinking about, like you're fine exactly the way you are.
There's nothing that's broken. It's just that you keep telling yourself you should be further along or you should be better. And what if you shouldn't? What if you just get to be who you are and you get to enjoy the life that you have and you don't let life pass you by waiting for some day when you're perfect or extraordinary or better than everybody else?
Life could be so much [00:26:00] more fun, I promise. All right. I hope this helps, and I will be back next week with another episode.
