5 Ways Mediocrity Saves You From Failure!

It's this week's episode, I'm going to share with you 5 of my favourite daily mediocrity hacks to avoid the unnecessary and perilous sting of failure! 

Spoiler alert… Success is based on failure. In fact, if you’re trying to achieve something right now, failure is lurking around you as you listen (you’re reading this). Like a buzzkill, dream ghost waiting for you to make the terrible decision to pursue the impossible based on the lies of False Hope so it can haunt you for the rest of your life. Failure is inescapable if you’re dumb enough to pursue your dreams. However, there is a choice! And the choice is simple; try and fail or don’t try and never fail. By choosing to avoid the seduction of inspiration, which leads to trying, you can sit back and enjoy the power of your limiting beliefs as you bask in the cozy confines of your comfort zone.

Now, because I care about your mediocrity, I’m going to share some of the daily habits I employ to avoid the trappings of failure. Never let yourself be tricked into chasing the shiny gleam of False Hope, because in the end the success you were so foolishly trying to achieve will betray you… And probably kill you. 

So grab a pen and pad of paper or open a new note on your phone, cause these daily habits will make or break your life. Here we go!

1.    Avoid the Allure of Taking Risks

Now, this may seem obvious, but too many people are falling prey to hollow promises of risk-taking. Remember to be victimized by failure you need to be actively trying to achieve something; whether it’s a promotion, a date with your crush, your dream career, or losing weight, the key is ignoring the allure of any of it. By choosing to do nothing and just accept where you are in life, you’ll avoid failure. Simply put; how can you fail if you never try? Failure is a fire that feeds off of perseverance, positivity, courage, and determination, the only way to extinguish its burning flames is to use indifference, settling, acceptance, and of course, mediocrity. Thankfully all those countermeasures are found in abundance inside all of us.

2.    Skip the gym

Working out is a massive waste of time, effort, and money. The gym is essentially a den of failure. You show up with the great intentions of changing your appearance, getting healthy, and increasing your self-confidence, only to enter a parallel universe with strange futuristic torture machines being operated by people who look like they’ve been chiselled out granite. The next thing you know you’re on the treadmill with all the other ordinary people, and after 20 minutes of walking at a pace slower than evolution, you go home, order a pizza, and smartly never return. Yet you still keep your monthly membership and bring your gym bag with you to work to keep up the charade because all your coworkers keep asking you about how your workout regime is going. FYI, fit people were born fit.

3.    Double Down on Daydreaming

I’m all in on the merits of daydreaming because it’s something that’s incredibly powerful and it should be a part of your daily routine. Escapism allows you to immediately feel the emotional benefits of being successful without trying and more importantly failing. For instance, say you’ve always dreamed about opening your own bakery, but you’re scared that people might not like your already widely popular and delicious cupcakes and cookies. You’re right to be scared. You can’t trust the opinions of people who’ve tried your baked goods. They were probably just being polite instead of being honest. So instead, close your eyes and picture yourself having a successful bakery. See all the people excitedly coming in and buying your delicious baked goods. Now imagine how happy you look as you see your business booming! It feels great, doesn’t it? And when you’re done open your eyes, how do you feel? Probably invigorated and so you should! You just ran a successful bakery and lived your dream without spending years trying to find capital, stressing yourself out as the business struggles to get off the ground, and more importantly, you’ve avoided the inevitable failure that comes from opening and operating your own a small business. Best of all, you’ve killed an hour at your soul-sucking job!

4.    Criticize People

Chances are you have people in your life that are actively trying to succeed at something, and you have a front row seat for it. Well, what are you to do in a situation like that? Criticize them. Preferably in public or on social media to ensure they wise up and stop. Nothing extinguishes someone else’s burning fires of inspiration faster than public shaming. Criticism is essential for two crucial reasons, one; you don’t want them to feel the crushing weight of failure and two, and more importantly, it prevents them from actually succeeding against the odds which only makes everyone else look incredibly lazy or fearful of trying. That’s the worst-case scenario, having someone you know actually accomplish their dreams and having them flaunt their happiness in your face while having to listen to them spout the merits of chasing your dream all because they defied the laws of life and caught lightning in a bottle. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

5.    Play the Victim Card

In the off chance, you do attempt to foolishly try something you’ll also predictably have to deal with failure. Blaming others allows you to put the failure on someone else. Victim card playing is a responsibility escape pod. You can claim that you tried, but the outcome wasn’t your fault. The failure rests on someone else or on the cruelty of Life, thereby freeing you from the embarrassment of said failure. The key to pulling this off is to surround yourself with easy targets to pin the fault on. It’s always better to be the passenger than the pilot when it comes to your life. So let others make decisions for you, even if you don’t like their choices, that way when their selections predictably make you miserable, you can say, “It’s not my fault! I didn’t choose that!” Boom. Victim card playing 101. 

It’s imperative that you start implementing these habits into your life immediately!  And be sure to share this wisdom with the people you care about. We’re a reflection of whom we surround ourselves with! So ensure those people reflect your fear of failure and love of comfort zones!

The more that we choose to avoid the perils of failure the less likely we’ll have to experience it. And what a glorious world it will be when we collectively say no to the false hope of success and the pain of failure. Instead, we’ll boldly choose to settle in our mediocrity by accepting our lives as unchangeable and responsibly escape into the distractions of instant gratification like daydreaming and social media. That’s called living 2.0, and that future can be today!

Rob NardecchiaComment