We all know people for whom the above nickname would be an appropriate moniker. When we first meet them we see their talent and their skills, and we expect great things from them. But as we watch them age, for various reasons they just never live up to their initial promise. The good-looking athlete from high school who seems to have it all gets kicked off the team in college and ultimately drops out without a degree. The great student can’t get a job in their chosen field after graduation and takes a retail job “just for a while” – but 10 years later, they’re still in the same position.
Why do these promising, talented people end up in this position? Some of them are so far ahead of their peers from a young age that they breeze through school or athletics. Everything comes easy to them, so they never learn how to struggle through tough times. Then they finally reach a level – college tends to be a big one – where things aren’t so easy anymore, and their peers have started to catch up. When they begin to struggle they fall apart, because they don’t have the resources to handle failure.
I’ve also found that the more times you allow yourself to quit, the easier it becomes. Even the most driven person can adopt a defeatist attitude if they get knocked down enough times and stop picking themselves back up.
So how do you avoid becoming a Mister or Miss What-a-Shame? Here are my suggestions:
– Set the bar high for your goals. Within your larger goals, constantly set smaller, short-term goals to help you take steps in the right direction.
– Be patient. The time you spend “in the trenches” might seem like a waste of your talent in the moment, but you can learn valuable lessons about your field and about working with others.
– Don’t get complacent just because the job isn’t challenging. Go out and find ways to challenge yourself. Hold yourself accountable, even if no one else will. Does your boss have low expectations of you? Don’t be content just to meet them – strive to blow them out of the water. Even if your boss doesn’t notice or care, you will know if you are truly performing up to your potential.
– Don’t let others get in your way. I spent too many years of my life buying into the “dumb jock” stereotype because that is what society told me about guys who were good at sports. The only person who gets to decide who you are and what you can do is you.
Above all I would say: don’t give up. This is easy advice to dish out and tough advice to take, but let me tell you I am dishing it out from a place of long, hard-fought experience. I have been in commercial real estate for more than 30 (!) years. In that time I have seen some really big highs (the dot-com bubble, the early- to mid-2000s run-up in property values) and some terrible lows (the S&L crisis of the early- to mid-1990s, the 2008-2009 recession and its aftermath).
If you take nothing else away from today, hear this: the only thing that separates the vast majority of successful people from the “what-a-shames” is that they didn’t give up. Giving up guarantees failure. Pressing on at least provides a chance for things to get better.
Have a great weekend,
Ro