If You Try to be Good at Everything, You'll Lead Down the Path of Mediocrity & Excel at Nothing

You can’t be good at everything.

“Why not? Surely if I try hard enough and practice long enough, I can set my mind to achieving anything? I wasn’t able to hit a tennis ball a few years back, but now I can play a pretty respectable game. Surely proficiency is born from that magical mix of application and belief? If I try harder and believe in myself more than the other man, why can’t I aim for the stars in everything I do?” 

I won’t often write many cynical blogs, but when I come across these unrealistic dreamers with stars in their eyes, I often feel an urge to shake them ever so slightly. Shooting for the moon in everything that you do is a sure-fire route to burnout and bitterness. Sometimes in life it is wise to pick your battles, and sometimes it is worth leaving the field for those, who are slightly more accomplished.

May I say it again? You can’t be good at everything.

In his book “Outliers”, Malcolm Gladwell writes that it takes 10,000 hours to master any given skill. That is a couple of months more than a year of solid activity. If that is the case (and it feels pretty “right” to me), you have to be fairly single-minded in what you want to master. Trying to be good at everything will lead you down the garden path of mediocrity, and you will never truly excel at anything. However, when you dedicate your time to become brilliant at something, there will inevitably be other areas where you are less practiced. Lots of other areas actually….

I would like to say that this is ok with me.

When I come up short in a certain activity (usually because I choose to focus my attentions and efforts elsewhere), as long as I have completed it to the best of my ability, I don’t let any failure bother me. It won’t stop me from trying again next time, and next time my chances of success will be that little bit higher, but I don’t jump up and turn my life upside down in an attempt to become brilliant after every failure. Sometimes you need to let the “less significant” failures wash over you and make sure that you remain standing for the tests that really do matter to you.

Life has so many opportunities to knock you off your course, but in my view, you should only let it get to you when the occasion really matters.

To give a simple example, there are some people, who don’t excel at public speaking. Please, believe me, I would much rather listen to someone coherently reading from cards than listen to someone’s bumbling attempt at off-the-cuff storytelling that often leads nowhere fast. If you are one of these nervous public speakers, you will probably never be brilliant, so simply make sure that you do the basics and get the message across. Spend your time practicing whatever you are passionate about – maybe you enjoy coaching people? The more hours you spend doing that, the more impact you will have on everyone around you. The return on the public speaking “practice” is less clear. 

So, when your best isn’t good enough, don’t sweat it. Go and do something where your best can get even better!