A Life Well Lived

Have the Courage to Suck at Something

Excellence is not the only goal

Photo by Ben Hershey on Unsplash

It’s natural to want to be good at everything you put your mind to. Not only does it feel good, but it also helps justify the amount of effort you put in.

But as much as striving to be excellent at something helps us push forward and improve, being rigid in that mindset can hold us back from doing so many things.

‘I’m not good at that’

Be it consciously or not, often we’ll try something and never do it again. We might have enjoyed it but our internal weighing up deemed that the effort and time required for us to excel in it is not available. It’s not a priority.

So we stop doing it. Even though we really liked it.

How many sports have you tried, enjoyed and never played again? Maybe you already have one or two that you pursue — that you deliberately put the time and effort into so you can be great at them. You don’t have the time or energy to become great in others.

But here’s the thing.

You don’t have to be good at all the others. You don’t have to be excellent. You don’t even have to improve. You don’t have to be a runner/cyclist/tennis player in order to do those things.