I’m a big believer in pursuing your dreams and making your life what you want it to be. As a child of the 90s, I was raised to believe I could become anything I set my mind to. That success and achievement were within my grasp if I only wanted it enough. At school and in the wider culture, I gobbled up messages that being “the best” or at least excelling in every endeavor was something worthy of praise and admiration. At church, I learned that everyone has a special calling and that God wanted me to do Big Things. At home, my parents encouraged me to play to my strengths and they celebrated my achievements with pride.
I figured out pretty quickly that it felt good to be good at things. Teachers, family members, and other adults liked that I was a rule follower, that I was friendly and polite, that I got good grades, and had “good friends.” I felt special. Exceptional even. I was an eldest daughter and a pastor’s kid, an early reader and not shy in front of a crowd. Being admired for being a high achiever was formative to my young identity and I didn’t want to tarnish that image by being mediocre or—God forbid—fail.
Millennials—those born roughly between 1981 and 1996—were raised on a steady diet of praise and and encouragement to do great things with our lives. Over and over we were told we were special, remarkable, and capable of anything. We were given participation trophies and sheltered from embarrassment or failure.
Apparently, in the 1990s there was a huge self-esteem movement, based on shoddy research that purported that instilling high self-esteem in kids would keep them out of trouble and help them achieve success in life. So parents and educators piled on the warm fuzzies and confidence-boosting praise, even if we were really truly average.
Sometimes I think about the early days of American Idol when we would laugh at the brave, but terrible singers who couldn’t carry a tune yet truly believed they could become a pop star. It wasn’t their fault. Their family and friends encouraged them to pursue their dreams and told them they could be a famous singer. It didn’t matter that they couldn’t sing on key or dance to a rhythm, they auditioned for a singing competition, live on national TV!
Somehow along the way, as our generation became young adults, suddenly all that praise and self-esteem building came back to bite us. Older generations were shocked at how self-absorbed and cocky we seemed to be. How dare we think so highly of ourselves, apparently. In May 2013, TIME Magazine’s cover story was “The Me-Me-Me Generation: Millennials are lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents.”
The article is actually much more nuanced and generous toward Millennials than the headline suggests, but the title certainly captures how the wider culture was feeling about us at the time.
We are more than a label, more than a stereotype. And yet, a lot of this rings true to me. I’m not sure what older generations expected. They really did urge us to strive for Great Things, to shy away from failure, and to believe we deserved a high quality of life.
The external pressure to be excellent has served me well, for the most part. It’s propelled me not to settle for less when it comes to academics, relationships, or my career.
But I’m beginning to rebel. (Finally, I get to have a rebellious phase!) It turns out, having a high achieving mindset has its drawbacks. Never settling for mediocre can breed discontent. It can lead to burnout. And it can limit full potential by shying away from things that take extra effort to learn.
Now, as we approach middle age, Millennials are leading the way to demand healthier work-life balance, equitable pay, and student loan forgiveness (for all those degrees we were pressured into getting at high-tuition universities, to achieve those Big Things, remember?) This is rooted in our deep belief that we deserve good things in life. Is that such a bad thing?
We’ve managed to move through the idealism of young adulthood where we pushed ourselves to find careers or callings that connected with our passions, into seasons of deep discontent that our expectations didn’t match reality—and then forward into a new idealism, one in which we are not willing to settle for a life revolving around work.
2020 was a turning point for many of us. When faced with an unknown, deadly disease, your priorities in life become more clear. When forced to stop many of the routines that shaped our lives, we were able to carve out new spaces for ourselves as full people, not just cogs in a capitalistic machine. (Or if we worked in “essential jobs” we learned just how far we would be pushed and exploited to serve the economy.) Now we’re starting to build that new normal everyone said would materialize. For many of us, that means rebelling against the pressure to be constantly productive. Our peers with popular social media platforms, podcasters, and authors are encouraging us to prioritize self-care, set boundaries, and slow our pace of life down.
It’s all very appealing. Like—finally, someone is giving us permission to stop striving for greatness and instead strive for peace and wholeness. One of my goals lately is to have more chill. To sit back and let other people be in charge and to remind myself that it’s okay if they don’t lead or complete the task in the way I would. Is this growth? I’m not sure, but I’m leaning into it.
It’s also delightfully fun to try new things that I have absolutely zero stake in. I took a watercolor painting class this fall and I really enjoyed learning something that was actually really hard. But it didn’t matter—there were no grades, no career defining moments in the balance, no people depending on me to carry them toward a shared goal. It’s the same with writing poetry, trying embroidery, experimenting with new recipes, and even writing this Substack. It’s all for fun. No pressure to turn it into a productive or lucrative side-hustle.
I’m not abandoning striving for excellence in the areas that matter most, but I am rebelling against the notion that one has to be all in on something in order to have a positive, life-giving experience or even to make an impact. My friend E said it so well in her interview the other day:
“One of my highest values now is I only do my piece of the work (the world can only be healed through interdependence and us all working together. I cannot shoulder it all.) and I do it only within the bounds of my ever-shifting capacity.”
My capacity ebbs and flows with the river that is my life. My interests may change. My standards for excellence or “good enough” change too, depending on the context. I’m not writing this to say everyone should give-up on their dreams or stop contributing whole-heartedly to the world…
But, if you’re a Millennial raised to strive for BIG and BEST or simply an overachiever, perfectionist, go-go-go kind of person like me, maybe you should stop trying so hard. Especially if you’re tired, burned out, jaded, or weary in any way. And let the people around you with different levels of capacity, different skills and interests, and different energy buoy you up.
In the meantime, while you're taking a break from trying so hard, you might find little pockets of opportunity to learn something new, with absolutely no pressure to excel. It’s okay to just be mediocre sometimes. (Just don’t try out for American Idol, okay?)
What do you think? Is aiming for mediocre a stretch goal for you too?
Thanks for reading,
—NK
Going Deeper
How the Self-Esteem Craze Took Over America: And why the hype was irresistible (The Cut)
Why Your Creativity Matters: with Elizabeth Gilbert (Kate Bowler’s Everything Happens podcast.)
Millennials: The Me Me Me Generation (TIME)
Millennials Want A Healthy Work-Life Balance. Here's What Bosses Can Do. (Forbes)
On living micro, making art, and seeing the world with fresh eyes: Ordinary Life Interview #1
As a parent of two millennials, guilty of the lathering on praise and encouragement, I worry a bit about my own kids’ epiphanies (when they come) that mediocre might be ok. Not because I disagree ( I love the way my friend’s daughter speaks of aspiring to a B+ life!). But because I worry if the epiphany might be preceded by disillusionment.