Reasonable Is Just Average in Disguise

For a long time, I was fine with being average.

Not proud of it, exactly. But fine.

I told myself average was safe.

Realistic. Humble, even.

I showed up, did solid work, avoided big risks, and figured that was a reasonable way to live.

Then I came across something John Maxwell wrote in Developing the Leader Within You 2.0, and it wrecked my comfortable little definition.

He points out that “average” is usually just the word failures reach for when someone asks why they haven’t gone further.

It’s the top of the bottom and the bottom of the top - a label for people who never had to decide which one they actually were.

The part that stung most: he calls it the lazy person’s excuse.

A dodge.

A way of living by default instead of by decision.

I read that and had to sit with it for a minute, because at the time, it described me more accurately than I wanted to admit.

I hadn’t chosen average because I lacked ability.

I’d chosen it because it never demanded anything of me.

No hard conversations about what I actually wanted.

No risk of failing publicly at something that mattered.

No need to take a stand on who I was trying to become.

Average let me avoid all of that - and I’d been calling it balance.

Average isn’t a lack of talent.

It’s a lack of decision. 

And it’s contagious - your team, family and friends will quietly calibrate to whatever standard you’re willing to live with.

To help me stop defaulting to average, here are 3 things that have actually helped:

1. Call out the decision you’ve been avoiding.

Ask yourself: what’s the stand I’ve been avoiding taking, about my work, my goals, or my standards?

2. Replace “reasonable” with “true.”

“Reasonable” is often just average, wearing a nicer outfit. Before you settle on a goal or an effort level, ask if it’s actually what you believe you’re capable of, not just what’s comfortable or just ‘okay’

3. Get an accountability partner.

Average thrives when no one’s watching closely. Find a mentor, peer, or colleague who will call it what it is when you’re settling and give them permission to actually do it.

I’m not writing this from some finished, fully-arrived place. I still catch myself drifting back toward “reasonable” more often than I’d like.

But I no longer mistake it for balance.

It’s a choice, and I’d rather make a harder one on purpose than an easy one by default.

Where has “average” been hiding in your life, disguised as being realistic?

BISOLA MOGAJI