My husband has a folded up note card sitting on top of his nightstand with a quote on it.
I see this quote and read this quote every morning when I’m making our bed and every time I walk by our bed.
In my husband’s own simple handwriting in black ink the quote reads,
“Hell
awaits the mediocre.”
Upon writing this blog post I texted my husband to ask him who the quote is by, who wrote the quote, and sure enough, it was penned by my husband. His own words. I asked, but he couldn’t quite remember who or what inspired this quote.
Nevertheless, this note card has been sitting atop of his nightstand for years, and it still gets me.
Hell awaits the mediocre.
It’s like a punch in the gut sort of moment. A split second moment when you stop and quickly evaluate your current life and how you’re living.
Hell awaits the mediocre.
According to dictionary.com, mediocre means
“of only ordinary or moderate quality; neither good nor bad; barely adequate.” (date accessed 9/15/22)
Barely adequate.
Yeah, that’s not the kind of life that I want to live.
Part of my personal life mission is to leave everything better than I found it, to make an impact in some way, to live a virtuous life, to live a life of excellence (not mediocrity), to live on purpose.
And I think as human beings – especially as moms – it can be so dang easy to get caught up in all of the to-dos, to get caught up in checking off the boxes, and to let all of those things overwhelm you.
I’m here to live on purpose, not to just let life fly by and happen.
I desire to be intentional, purposeful, specific, excellent. As a woman. As a wife. As a mother.
But it can be so easy to just let the day come and go, to wake up every morning and go through the same routine, and then to do it all again tomorrow. It’s easy to get stuck in that sort of mentality. That’s mediocrity.
I don’t want to be mediocre. I don’t want to be “barely adequate.” I want to be excellent. I want to thrive. As a woman. As a wife. As a mother. As a business owner.
The reason is simple. Being mediocre does nothing for anybody. Being mediocre isn’t good for those around me, and it’s not good for me.
Case in point:
I recently created a new parenting class and I sought some guidance from a business coach on how to get it done with all the other tasks on my plate. She suggested that I put a time limit to every task I needed to do to create the class and when the time was up, the class would be good enough.
That didn’t sit well with me. Why? Because for me, that’s not what it means to be excellent. Sure, I could have created this class in four hours, but what would the result be? It would be mediocre work at best.
Instead, it took me 14 hours to create from start to finish. Not because I’m a perfectionist, but because I care about the type of work that I produce. I want to create something that is actually going to help parents be better parents, to be able to implement the tools I’m teaching, and to be able to do it in the easiest way possible so that parents can create a much easier, happier, more peaceful home life.
But creating a new class from start to finish that includes a downloadable guide, a class PowerPoint, and tons of examples in four hours? That wouldn’t be good for anybody. It’d be barely adequate.
We’re not put on this earth to be mediocre. We’re not put on this earth to be barely adequate.
Our world doesn’t need more mediocrity. Our world needs excellence. Our world needs people who are willing to thrive.
Are you living a life of excellence? Are you willing to thrive?
