Are You Destined for Mediocrity?

“A NO uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a YES uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.”  ~Mahatma Gandhi

 

 

 

I have asked women the same question hundreds of times in the last decade.  “Do you want to do a triathlon?”

I have heard 3 responses.

NO
YES, BUT…
YES

I am a big fan of YES in life.  I wish we would say YES more and figure out the details later.  I think we learn from saying YES, we learn from taking risk. 

I have a lot of respect for NO. NO means no.  It means you understand the situation and yourself well enough to answer definitively.  NO means that other things in life are more important.  I get that.  I understand that everything can’t be YES, nor should it.

What makes me crazy is YES, BUT… As soon as someone says YES, BUT… I just want to walk away.  This is the person that wants to say YES, but is unwilling or unable to overcome the challenges that YES involves. Maybe she doesn’t want to hurt my feelings.  Maybe she doesn’t want to feel left out.  Unfortunately, YES, BUT… folks are late.  They back out at the last minute.  They make excuses.  They are whiney.  They balk when it gets hard or it doesn’t quite go as planned.  Their effort is less than full and the outcome is less than expected.  The result is mediocrity.

We all love a hero, be it the athlete that overcomes adversity to run a marathon, the woman that works for 20 years to cure a disease, the kid that raises money to build wells in Africa, or the man that devotes his life to working with the poor in India.   And there are a million every day heroes volunteering in schools, picking up trash, building houses, taking care of the elderly, speaking out in town council meetings, cooking healthy dinners for the kids.  Every one of these people said YES.  Unconditional YES.  YES period.  And then they each dealt with every difficulty along the way.

People ask you to do things all the time.  These choices are challenges, risks that could turn out badly. You can say YES, BUT… to a lot of questions and then do those things half way.  Or you can say YES to a few and NO to the rest, and then go all out on your choices.  In fact, you can say YES to every day.  But yes has to mean YES.  Full in YES.  Heck YES!  Gonna do what it takes YES.  Because if your YES turns out well, the result is a better you.  You get to grow and learn and get stronger and smarter and ever more awesome, ever more the everyday hero that you have the potential to be. 

Otherwise yes really means YES, BUT… which really means kinda, if it’s convenient, and not too hard.  Because in my life, being mediocre is enough.

What’s the point of that?

“Every choice moves us closer to or farther away from something.  Where are your choices taking your life? What do your behaviors demonstrate that you are saying yes or no to in life?”  ~Eric Allenbaugh