Are You Addicted to Being Average?
So you’re stuck.
Settled in to a career where you know you could be doing better, but you stay where you are because it’s comfortable. You put in so much time, but you don’t get rewarded for your efforts. In fact, your efforts are almost unseen. You feel bored at work because you settled for a job that didn’t challenge you enough. You ran into some troubled times and didn’t want to risk going through that again, so you stuck with a job you feel safer with. You made some sacrifices, but it was worth it because you’re getting by and managing with what you have. And that’s enough for you…
You are addicted to being average. When you get into the habit of your addiction, it’s hard to get out of it. You become comfortable and you remain settled in your average job while you let your hopes and ambitions become merely a dream. This ends here. Make those dreams your goals and complete them. It’s time for a challenge. Rise above your average life and start living to your fullest potential. Take that leap you’ve never had the guts to take. Break your addiction today and become exceptional.
Deborah Dubree is an expert at breaking away from average. She went from being a receptionist with just a high school diploma, to being CEO and owner of a successful construction company. Excelling in climbing the corporate ladder, she’s even written a book called AVERAGE IS AN ADDICTION, From Mediocre to Millions! aimed to help people get out of the lives they settled for. Deborah Dubree spoke with Women Who Run It’s editor-in-chief, Fiona Fine, and shared her secrets and advice. Steal her top five pieces of advice and break away from your own average!
1. Be Courageous and Gutsy
Dubree managed to work her way up to own a construction company, and now she runs a coaching business, as well as a regular talk show on Kwammie Lassider Sports Talk. How did she do that? As she puts it, “I bet on me.” Dubree credits her ability to ask, “Why not me?” instead of, “Why me?” The difference between these questions will give you the mindset for pushing yourself up the ladder. Believe in what you offer someone, instead of doubting why they would want to choose you. Stop worrying about what other people are thinking or saying about you and do things for yourself. Don’t doubt yourself. Just do it. “I said, ‘I’m doing this for me,’ and I went after it,” says Dubree.
2. It’s Not all About Qualifications Dubree says she sees people all around her who are intelligent and talented who remain stuck at their average jobs in their average lives. They reach excellence, briefly doing something great and worth the recognition, but then they come back down from it. She notices that they all take a familiar pattern, which always ends with them settling for the position they are currently in. They choose comfort instead of risk. Dubree didn’t have a degree or any technical training before she entered the construction business. But she had confidence, and she took the risk. While education is always a benefit, it’s not going to secure you anything. You could be smarter than a rocket scientist, and as educated as one, but if you never take a risk you’ll be addicted to average forever.
3. Find Your Self-Identity
Moving up the ladder is not entirely about your intelligence or talent. You need an edge. Dubree says, “We all have an edge, and the edge is really who we are. The problem being is that most people have forgotten who they are.” When you’re stuck at average, you lose track of who you are. Figure out what your edge is. Your edge is your leverage to get ahead in the world. Look at what areas in your life you can leverage and which areas need to be improved on to include leverage. Within your self-identity, you have an edge that will put you ahead of the others. Find it. Dubree named her coaching company “Clear Edge” because of this. She says it was the edge that moved her forward.
4. The Six A’s The six A’s are Dubree’s steps to take for the process of moving your life up the ladder. If it’s time for a change, follow these steps first. This is where she says you need to make a decision about where you are and where you want to be. If those two don’t match up, you need to break away from average.
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The first A is admitting what areas you’re average in.
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The second A is asking what you need to do to start breaking away from the average and how you need to be behaving, thinking, and feeling to achieve this. Changing your behaviour and your way of thinking is one of the most effective things you can do.
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The third A is to access your imagination. Open up your mind and see what you want to see. Create the end result you want in your imagination before you start, so you can visualize what you want it to look like.
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Then act in the real world to make it match up. This is the fourth A: action. Take action and start the steps to success. Take any action that has held you back in the past and act on it.
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The fifth A is assess. Take a look at what you’ve done so far and figure out what worked and what didn’t. You need to be doing more of what went well. The things that didn’t go so well need to be looked at and you need to figure out what you should be doing differently.
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The sixth and final A is to appreciate. Dubree says you need to step back and appreciate everything, even what didn’t work. If it went right, appreciate that it did. If it went wrong, appreciate that you had the opportunity to do so and you have the opportunity to make a difference.
5. Emotions as Signals
Emotions are always labeled as good or bad. But Dubree says, “emotions are not good or bad. Emotions are just signals.” And you can use emotions in a beneficial way when you’re moving up. “If you’re having a negative type of emotion,” says Dubree, “it’s a signal that you need to make a change.” Analyze what caused your emotion, whether it was negative or positive. You need to change what makes you feel bad. It sounds like a simple concept, but it’s important. Then, manipulate your brain into generating a positive emotion. This can be done through first deciding what state, mentally and physically, you would like to be in. Dubree says next you need to ask your mind a question, because your mind needs something to focus on so it doesn’t wander off into negative thought territory. Think, “What would it take for me to be at my best right now?” The answer your mind will come up with will encourage you. Dubree’s advice for this is, “the mind will give you negative responses if you ask it negatively.” So feed your mind positivity and you’ll power through all those stressful situations.
Don’t let your life fall through the cracks. Take control of your life and keep moving up. If you’re sick of being in an average life, rise above it and get to the place you want to be. Dubree did it, so you can too!
Lesley Cornelius
Lesley Cornelius lives in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. She is a graduate from Wilfrid Laurier University, with a double major in journalism and history. She writes for both publications at Goddess Connections, “Women Who Run It” and “How to Put the Fun Back Into Dating,” and is an expert on dating and relationships, health, fitness, and nutrition. Lesley writes novels in her spare time and hopes to one day become a successful author, writer, and journalist. For now, she enjoys exploring her interests, playing and watching ice hockey and living every day to its fullest potential. You can contact her at lesley.cornelius6@gmail.com.