Take the day off from striving and struggling for success – and have a wonderfully average day instead…
“Happiness and a meaningful life come from making differences. But this is the most important rule to follow: always make the differences you can make, not the differences you would prefer to make but can’t.” – Lyndon Duke
I was talking to my friend and mentor Steve Chandler once when he said to me “have an average day!” A bit taken aback, I asked him what he meant. After all, isn’t the idea to have “great” days, or even “exceptional” ones?
He then told me the story of one of his mentors, a man named Lyndon Duke who studied something called “the linguistics of suicide”. After receiving a doctorate from two separate universities, Duke began analyzing suicide notes to look for linguistic clues which could be used to predict and prevent suicidal behavior in teenagers.
What he learned was startling – that the enemy of happiness was what he called “the curse of exceptionality”. In a world where everyone is trying to be exceptional, two things happen. The first is that nearly everyone fails, because by definition if too many people become exceptional, the exceptional becomes commonplace. The second is that those few who do succeed feel even more isolated and estranged from their peers than before.
Consequently you have a few people feeling envied, misunderstood and alone and tens of thousands of others feeling like failures for not being “______ enough” – “good enough”, “special enough”, “rich enough” or even “happy enough.”
When I was in the midst of the thickest cloud of my own suicidal thoughts at university, I remember wishing I could run away from my Presidential Scholarship and hide, perhaps changing my name to “Bob” and taking a job at pumping gas at a full-service station somewhere in the midwest. Only in my fantasy, sooner or later people would start to notice that there was something special about me. They would begin driving miles out of their way to have their cars filled up by “Bob the service guy” and exchange a few words with him, leaving the station oddly uplifted and with a renewed sense of optimism and purpose.
Before long, someone would discover how exceptional I was and I would have to run away from their expectations all over again. I was, to my way of thinking, doomed to succeed.
Delusions of grandeur? Quite possibly. Depressed, hopeless and miserable? Absolutely!
One of Lyndon Duke’s major breakthroughs came when he was dealing with his own unhappiness and heard the sound of a neighbor singing while mowing his lawn. He realized then that’s what was missing from his life – the simple pleasures of an average life.
The very next weekend, he went to visit his son who was struggling to excel in his first term at university. He sat him down and told him about his revised expectations for him:
“I expect you to be a straight “C” student, young man,” Duke said. “I want you to complete your unremarkable academic career, meet an ordinary young woman and if you choose to, get married and live a completely average life!”
His son, of course, thought Dad had finally flipped, but did take the pressure off himself to be quite so “exceptional”. A month later he phoned his father to apologize. He had gotten “A”s on all his exams, but it was OK because he had only done an “average” amount of studying.
And this is the paradoxical promise of the “average day” philosophy – the cumulative effect of a series of average days spent doing an average amount of what one loves and wants to do is actually quite extraordinary!
Let’s put this thought together with another one of Duke’s discoveries – that many of the young people he studied felt as though their lives had no meaning and made no difference to the world or anyone in it. As a practical philosopher, he realized that the meaning of our lives actually *comes* from the differences we make with them. And that those differences need not be huge to be profound in their impact on both ourselves and others.
When we combine those two ideas we have what may well be the ultimate goal for a happy and productive life:
To be an average, happy person making a bit of a positive difference
and having a happy, average day.
In doing this, you create the kind of “exceptionality” that can be shared by everyone.
Have fun, learn heaps, and have an average day!
PS. Try the experiment!
Michael Neill is an internationally renowned success coach and the best-selling author of You Can Have What You Want, Feel Happy Now! and the Effortless Success audio program. He has spent the past 20 years as a coach, adviser, friend, mentor and creative spark plug to celebrities, CEO’s, royalty, and people who want to get more out of their lives. His books have been translated into 8 languages, and his public talks and seminars have been well received at the United Nations and on five continents around the world. 
Loved this! It made me laugh out loud, which is a very important part of my day–I can’t go a day without laughter.
I have a friend who does not realize that she does make a difference and is constantly fretting over what she should be ‘doing’. I believe I need to share this ‘Rule’ with her.
I love your common sense approach in a time when common sense seems to be in short supply.
When I started reading this, I was taken back. What is this guy talking about??? But as I read I realized just how much of my life I spent trying to be someone I was not. I was diagnosed with Re-currant Major Depressive Disorder in my mid 20′s. I spent the first part of my life trying to excel at school and in my jobs. I was living to please those around me. After many years of therapy, some hard life lessons and some time in a hospital, I changed my way of thinking.
I now live to make myself happy. If I make others happy along the way I consider that an extra bonus. I like getting bonuses like that. But the stress in my life has dropped to almost nothing. I had to learn that to truly be happy and FREE, I had to put myself and my feelings first.
Life is grand and I now love living it. I no longer hide in my room feeling low self esteem, I am out and about living life. Exploring different things that make me happy. Learning Reiki is a wonderful bonus to keeping myself on a positive and stress free path.
Wonderful article. I wish I read it 20 years ago. Thank you
LOL! I moved to Martha’s Vineyard in 1981 to write. In order to be reasonable and not to spook myself, as well as to avoid some of my usual grandiosity, I told people I was working on the Mediocre American Novel.
Well, I haven’t finished it. But I’m taking a month off work soon, and maybe it is really the best mediocre time I have.
Thanks for making me smile :-)
Your reminder came just on time, since now I’m struggling really hard to get what I want.
I have forgotten to take life easy.
Lots of love
Charo
Oh yes. Average dopes not mean boring or mediocre. Average means a division of a total by the number of units in the total. If you are aware of the quality of effort you put into every hour of every day and are always thinking excellence you will burst from striving and not be true to yourself.
If you look on the average day as being one that has added to the sum of good days and you have made an honest effort to do your stuff well then ayour average will be fine!!
This is brilliant Michael! You are a genuis & a gift to us all. We all seem so driven these days in our quest to achieve, achieve, achieve, manifest our goals & be wonderful at all times. It’s great to have goals, etc., but “have an average day” reminded me to take a deep breath, let go, relax, and enjoy the present moment.
Thank you & blessings
I just forward this article to all of my Art Student who I lecture not to be an average ! shara
FANTASTIC! X
Thats my first time listening to your show Michael . I met you at the London I can do it Week end where I actually apologised to you because I didnt know who “you” were. In my eyes You were just an “average” person ! I didnt know until the p r lady came over , looked a bit strangely at me and tried to usher you away ! Thank you for ignoring her and giving me the time an average fellow human being deserves . . .
Prompted by your engaging gentle manner I bought your book and c d set and I am happy to report that your average work of excellence has inspired me to move forward in my own average coaching career through which I help change the lives (or not ) of the odd average passer by . thank you Michael Deirdre from Ireland Stepping Stones
This is the most challenging mission for me. I love to be outstanding, exceptional, larger than life. After all how else to be on stage, as a coach, a speaker, someone who stands out by nature? Who is here to empower you to create your dreams?!
I will admit that the concept has more depth than I could grasp right away. It’s one of those articles you can easily read, nod and walk past. At least I can. After all it’s about average and that doesn’t really apply to me. I can’t be average even if I tried! Are you kidding me? I was born to be great!
After a few years of coming across the concept, I started using it and for a day or 2 I can do it. I started introducing my clients to it. And they benefit from it. My actors got jobs that way, got through high pressure performances with their soul and ego intact (try that, double whammy!) and they just start to relax.
And then my coach challenged ME on this again. Oh dear, I realize there is another level to this I had missed. My language gives me away. I said: ok I’ll be exceptionally average today! Of course I am joking but to every joke there is truth. So I’ve set myself the ultimate challenge (ahhh I did it again!) Revision.
I am going to commit to 5 weeks of averaging. So I’ll do some exercise, serve my clients, call new people and take average care of my life.
It’s a challenge for me who wants it great on a daily basis (and is not too far off at times)
But then again, my coach (Rich Litvin- who’s not exactly an average coach but has grasped the concept really well!!) said: Evelyne you’re one always up for a challenge, right?
This is a wonderful initiative and a piece of advice that I should have absorbed immediately upon receiving your email. Not doing so caused some damage, but at least I was able to derive some lessons.
Full story here: http://www.reply-mc.com/2010/06/28/some-mails-are-better-never-sent-part-2/
Best regards,
Luc Galoppin
This to me was a very interesting thought.
Being a mother of a teenager who actually did end their life I often had the thought of how blessed we are when we have an ordinary day. I long for the day when I just went to work and my son just went to school and we came home in the late afternoon and ate together and said ordinary things to each other, enjoyed each other’s company.
Much like your thought of being average, we take it for granted and don’t value the average or ordinary. Instead of wanting more, being satisfied. Sometimes being ordinary, average and satisfied are belssings. May I add, Have an Ordinary Day, It is a blessing we often overlook. Thanks for the article, loved it!
Wow – I have a huge grin on my face – A trusted friend sent me this and when I started to read this I thought she had gone mad –
I encourge everyone to read it all.
Now I can see why she sent this too me! – Knowing me so well and seeing that I was trying too hard to be Exceptional…….
Thank you – I have taken the challenge to be truly ‘average’…… :)
Feeling very Free and Average..
Nice one Neil. You never fail to hit the spot for me. Thank you.
This is a great story Michael and puts a new focus on living an EXTRAordinary life. Thank you!