I had fallen into the classic trap:

Definitely not loosing now is better that maybe winning in the future.

In other words we are so caught up in keeping what we have that we are often afraid of taking the last few steps needed to complete our goals for fear of losing what we have already achieved and ending up with nothing.

By not wanting to lose anything we end up losing everything.

I have a friend who one day mentioned that he’d like to take up squash. At that time I was consulting at a company working with a guy who was a squash fanatic. So I suggested they get together. So they started playing together regularly.

Time after time the squash player would come into work and boast of how he had beat my friend yet again. I asked my friend why he kept playing. “I want to learn how to play squash,” was his answer.

This went on for over 3 months. Then the squash player came in and said how my friend had “gotten lucky” and beat him. Then he lost to my friend for the second time. The next week the squash fanatic was “very busy now days. It’s hard to find the time.” And he no longer played my friend.

I caught up with my friend and asked him for his side of the story.

His explanation was simple, “I lost 15 games in a row because every time I played him I tried something different. He won 15 games in a row by doing the same thing each and every game. The 16th time I tried something different I won. The 17th time we played I did what I’d done in match 16 he did what he had done in all 16 matches. I won. The 17th time he did the same thing yet again. I built on what I had discovered in match 16. I won again. We never played a 18th match.”

I no longer consult at that firm but from time to time I still run into the fanatical squash player.  I always ask him about his squash games with my friend. He always boasts about beating him 15 times in a row. When I ask when the next game will be he is always too busy to play.

He had learned how to win squash games by playing in a certain way that would get him a certain amount of success. He had learned to judge which players he could beat and which he couldn’t, and so chose which players he would play accordingly. He had decided he had learned enough and didn’t want to learn anything new. So he didn’t.

The trouble is the world keeps changing. New things keep happening all the time.

If you stop learning you will get left behind.

If you need help learning how to learn again, or if you have just gotten a little stuck, phone Declan on 087 2420699 or email declan@conspiracyofmediocrity.com and we will get you moving again.

I can’t tell you how to be successful. And I can’t judge if you are successful or not. Only you can decide to be successful. And only you can determine what success means to you. And only you can achieved your success.

You have to look into your own hart and be true to your own passion.

You have to make your own meaning to your own life.

You have to live your dreams.

Your response makes you count.

So stand up and be counted.

Dumb Little Man! had a recent post Five Ridiculous Alarm Clocks which I found both amusing and intriguing. Intriguing, because the geeky nerd inside me loves technology and gadgets and the unusual application of such things. Amusing because as someone who spent decades getting out of bed late and being the guy in the office who was always late for work, I know that such crazy alarm clocks are only effective for a short while, if at all.

Often we seek “easy” solutions to our problems from our external world, an elaborate alarm clock to wake us in the morning, rather than the “hard” solution of changing our internal view of the world, or simply reprogramming a habit. But the “easy” solution is very seldom permanent and the “hard” solution is usually easer in the long run.

Most of us think that some people are naturally early risers and some of us like to stay up late, “Larks” and “Owls” as my Mother used to say. But in reality rather than being deeply embedded aspects of our personalities staying up late at night or getting up early in the morning are simply habits that we have picked up as we went along.

And like all habits getting out of bed is an easy one to reprogram once you know how. It is no good just making a firm resolve to get up early, because our habits are controlled by our subconscious mind and when your alarm goes off in the morning you will preform your usual habit and not any new habit you may thing you want to do.

So how do you make a habit then? Repetition. Habits are formed by repeating the same actions over and over until we do them automatically. Until the subconscious mind takes over and we perform the actions with out any conscious effort. So that is what we need to do in order to make a habit of getting out of bed once the alarm goes.

Like Pavlov with his dogs we will create a conditioned response so once your alarm rings you will be up and out of bed before you can even think of pulling the covers over your head and hitting the snooze button.

It is best to pick a time when you don’t have to set your alarm clock for a couple of days. Because having your alarm go off in the morning and not get up is going to reinforce the old habit and break the new habit before it has a chance to take complete hold.

What we want to do is recreate as closely as possible the conditions that normally exist when you want to get up in the morning. And then perform the action we want to become a habit, that is getting out of bed when the alarm rings.

Pick a time, not too late in the evening, we don’t want you to fall asleep for real, when the light is about the same as it is in the morning. Got to your bedroom. Get undressed put on your PJ’s, or stay naked, however it is that you normally sleep. Set your alarm for a few minuets from now and get into bed. Take a deep breath, roll over and snuggle up.

When your alarm goes off: first get out of bed then turn your alarm off, take a deep breath, stretch, touch your toes and go into the bathroom, or kitchen if you need your coffee before you do anything else. Do what you would normally do when you get out of bed. Or at least pretend to do it. The idea is to create a new link in your subconscious mind bridging the time between being asleep in bed and what you do first thing when you get up.

Next do it again. Go back to bed, set your alarm for five minuets time and snuggle under the bedclothes. Then get out of bed once your alarm goes off, take a deep breath and go into the bathroom. Then do it again and again. Remember the key to making a habit is repetition. You need to repeat it until it becomes automatic.

Half a dozen times three or four days in a row will be enough to reprogram your habit from hitting the snooze button and rolling over to getting out of bed and turning your alarm off. For that day on you will automatically get out of bed when your alarm goes off.

You may feel a little silly doing this. Going to bed just to pretend to get up in the morning might seem strange. Especially if you have to explain what your are doing to your family or a room mate. But do it any way. When you are getting up with your alarm every day both they and you will forget any silliness you might have felt.

Just remember when you are getting out of bed earlier you have to go to bed earlier. Earlier risers still need the same amount of sleep.

Changing you habits is easy once you learn how. Learning how to change your habits is easy. The hard part is wanting to learn how to be in control of your habits, because then you will have to accept responsibility for them and not be able to blame “that stupid alarm clock” when you are once again late for work.

If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;
If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And — which is more — you’ll be a Man my son!

—Rudyard Kipling

In his Dancing with entropy Seth writes “There is no good, there is no bad, there’s just what happened.”

This is the theme of a longer article I am working on, and perhaps even a full chapter in my book. Things happen, always, all of the time, forever, and we only hurt ourselves by trying to make them fit into our subjective beliefs of good and bad, or right and wrong.

For instance missing a mortgage payment on the face of it is a bad thing. “Your home is a risk if you don’t keep up repayments.” But in my case it was a good thing.

When I realised half way through the month that come the 30th there simply would not be enough cash in our bank account to cover all the direct debits and standing orders that were due I sat down and cried. Then I picked myself up and did what I had never done before – monthly accounts. I took a long hard look at what money was coming in and what money was going out and started to do what I had until then only paid lip service to. I set a budget and stuck to it.

I have not missed a mortgage payment since and I am slowly chipping away at all my other debts, Car Loans, Credit Card etc. So missing that one payment made me improve my financial life. It gave me the wake up call I needed to actually do something and not just pretend to be addressing the problem.

It is a conspiracy that up to now has had no name. A conspiracy so commonplace that few even notice that it exists, let alone question its power over us. It is a conspiracy that your parents indoctrinated you with and that you continue to perpetrate today.

It is a conspiracy that few people escape. And those few that do escape it are either demonised or idolised (or more often both).

It is a conspiracy that few people ever want to escape, even when they are shown the control it has over every single aspect of their lives.

It is the Conspiracy of Mediocrity.

The Conspiracy of Mediocrity is made up of of almost every body you have ever met, or will ever meet, in your entire life. Everyone who:

• … asks you to conform
• … expects you to “fit in”
• … wants to label you so that they can file you in a nice little box that fits their view of the world

Everyone wants you to be normal. Because if you are normal then you are not being the best that you can be.

And this is what this site is all about, helping you escape the Conspiracy Of Mediocrity, helping you be the best that you can be.