I love this quote from Teddy Roosevelt:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
Is it fair to say that everyone wants to do something spectacular? Something that makes a big splash? Something significant?
I don’t know if it’s true for everyone, but it is definitely true for me. I really want to make an impact by challenging the status quo and breaking through the mediocrity of tired ideas.
But what does it take to do that? And why do so many of us settle for less?
I think it’s partly because it is so easy to get comfortable with the way things are. It takes time, energy and a plan to do something great. We have to be intentional about how we use our precious “free” time. In my experience, it’s time that might be spent doing irrelevant, unproductive things anyway (like surfing Facebook). It also takes a willingness to fail (see my post on failure). The best way to come up with a great idea is to first come up with a hundred failed ones.
Another reason I think so many of us never reach our potential is because we are constantly distracted. Especially in the uber-connected world we live in today. For instance, at this moment, I have six tabs open in Firefox, I’m listening to iTunes, uploading a video to Vimeo, checking new Tweets in TweetDeck, and writing this blog. It is amazing how refreshing it can be to completely disconnect from your digital life for a day. Try it sometime.
A lot of us don’t believe we are capable of doing something great. We’re just average people. I think this is crap. Everyone has a story. Everyone has potential creative energy stored inside.
We can also get caught up in criticizing those before us who have tried and failed. It gives us a great excuse to not expose ourselves to failure. It’s much easier to be a critic than a craftsman. They may have failed, but I guarantee you they learned invaluable lessons in the process. Failure is an amazing teacher.
Like Teddy says, greatness can only happen when we actually get in the fight. And it will feel like a fight most of the time. It takes a scrappy resolve to do something great.
So the question is, what’s holding you back from getting in the fight?
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