The pothole of mediocrity

The pothole of mediocrity by Arnold Groenewald

I recently read a story about a frog that accidentally fell into a deep pothole (must have been somewhere in South-Africa). The little frog tried desperately to jump out of the hole, but with no success. He was stuck. After what seemed like forever, one of his old friends, rabbit, came passed the pothole and saw his little friend inside the hole. Mr. Rabbit tried very hard to help his friend the frog, but with no success.
While he was still busy, the frog’s best friend, Mr. Warthog came along. Together they struggled desperately to get their friend out of the hole, but to no avail. Seeing that it was already late the rabbit and the warthog decided to leave their friend there to go and get some food to recover their strength and to bring him something to eat as well, so that, with renewed strength, they can figure out a plan to get him out of the hole before dark.
After a few minutes off walking down the road they suddenly heard a sound of someone coming towards them from behind. “Wait for me”, he shouted. On turning around they discovered that it was their friend the frog. “How did you manage to get out of the whole?” they asked almost simultaneously. “There was a big truck coming straight at the pothole”, he replied: “I had no choice, I had to get out”.
Many times I have asked, especially young people, to write down a list of their dreams and aspirations. I have discovered that children dream big dreams, they dream about significance. They dream about being the best, about making an impact, about changing the world. I have never met a young boy who dreamed about being an alcoholic at 23, or a young girl who dreamed of having 6 children by the time she is 28 and having the welfare take care of her. I have also never heard of a young man whose only ambition was to get home every evening after work and sit in front of the television for 4 to 6 hours with a remote control in his hand until it was time to go to bed, and tomorrow night repeating the same procedure. Yet it is the reality of most people.
Somehow life steals our dreams and we end up falling in the pothole of mediocrity and insignificance. Most people cannot even remember the dreams that they had when they were young; it is all buried inside them as they are sitting in the pothole of life, not going anywhere. Most are stuck there and cannot find a way out, they have stopped trying a long time ago. I remember talking to a friend of mine a while ago about his dreams and him saying that he has stopped dreaming because he doesn’t want to go through the pain of disappointment again. If you are also feeling that you are in stuck this pothole, here is a few suggestions.

1. Become desperate – The little frog had no choice; he had to get out otherwise it was all over. The only way to get out of life’s pothole of mediocrity and insignificance is to make some changes. If you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you will keep on doing what you’ve always got. I think it was Jim Rohn who said you only change for one of two reasons, either because you have gathered enough information to be inspired to change or because you have experienced enough pain, you are desperate enough to acknowledge that you have no choice, you have to change. You must arrive at that place, you must decide that it is now or never, you’ve got to make some changes or you’ll die in the pothole of mediocrity.

2. Take responsibility - The little frog did not look for excuses as to why he ended up in the pothole; he also did not blame his friends when they “abandoned” him. He kept on trying. Fact is that most of the time we have to look in the mirror if we are looking for someone to blame for our circumstances. We have to take personal responsibility to look at why we ended up in the pothole and decide to make some changes.

3. Make a choice to get out – The little frog had two choices, get out or die. If you are trapped in the pothole of mediocrity you also have to make some choices, you can either settle for a life of mediocrity or start determining what is the price you are going to have to pay to get out, and let me tell you, it will usually cost you just about everything you’ve got. After determining that price you will have to choose to start paying the price every day.

4. Take action – It’s going to take some hard work to get out of the pothole of mediocrity, but if you are going to do it you will have to make a choice to start doing something immediately. Anthony Robbins says in his book: ”Awaken the giant within”, that you should never leave the scene of a decision without taking action. The law of diminishing intent states that for every second that you wait before reacting on a good intention the chances double that you will never start to take that intended action. So, I challenge you today to make a choice to do at least one thing today to put you on the way to getting out of the hole of mediocrity, and live your life to your maximum ability.

Arnold Groenewald