“Why Most People Will Remain in Mediocrity” It is because in any population the scale of abilities follow the normal distribution, where most cluster around the mean or average. Mediocre means “of only average quality” so if everyone in Society read the same self-improvement books, looked themselves in the eye in the mirror and said “I am the best” every day, perhaps everyone would double their achievements, but the vast majority would still cluster around the new (albeit higher) average, so would still be mediocre. Mediocre is a terrible word as it implies that the average human is sub-standard when in fact he is the standard, average guy.

Mediocre is a self fulfilling prophecy of failure because it defines the goal as 2, or even 3 standard deviations away from and better than normal. Only 2.5% of the population are more than 2 std deviations above normal in any measure of performance, only 0.15% are 3 std deviations above normal. That’s a tiny percentage, 375,000 people in the United States. If that is how you define success, of course the great majority of your fellows are mediocre by that standard. That’s how statistics work.

Set yourself goals by all means, tell yourself you are a winner, and one day you will be, but don’t judge the population as mediocre because they have close to average abilities and achievements: that is inevitable, it’s just maths.

Thanks for your checklist by the way, I’d say everything in it is literally true, but to achieve happiness, at some point you need to be able to say “This is enough; I have reached the place I wanted to be, and achieved all the goals I set myself. Now I can enjoy being me.”

That is when you become extraordinary, when you know when you have enough. Since then, I have put my efforts into helping others as I don’t need anything more for myself.