Do we do just enough to get by, just enough to make the grade, or do we try to get as much out of everything we do as possible? I’ve seen a tendency these days of things getting done with a just enough mentality. You know what I mean.  Doing just enough to get by.  Maybe this is a result of trying to multi-task too much?  Maybe it’s childhood or societal influences.  I’m not sure what. but in this day doing something “just enough” is not good enough. Most importantly it leads to underachievement.

Underachievement
The under-achiever is the person who can achieve but is too wrapped up in other things to actually do it. How many times do you see gifted people who put off those things until tomorrow? Under achievers have little ambition. What they do have is gifts which to all intent and purpose stay unwrapped. It’s almost like being given the ability to walk and refusing to take that first step.

The under achiever will be known to say “I shall do that one day”, though rarely does. Often this is a sign of underlying problems or fear of failure, emanating from some experience of rejection of some kind, or can simply be laziness of character. The under achiever isn’t always to blame for their lack of achievement. Imagine an artist such as Monet being encouraged by his parents to give up art as a dream and to work in banking. Parental influence often means that children are discouraged from achieving in areas where they have natural talent, and then as they get older, choose to ignore those skills in favor of others, making them lazy at using the gifts they were given.

Avoidance of responsibility
How does this relate to laziness? What happens here is that underachievers tend to blame others for their shortcomings. They often blame lack of time, or responsibility and are seen to play the martyr and victim of circumstance. If they had more character, they can overcome this kind of laziness because what it puts their needs in life on the back burner, and hurl blame at those around them for not achieving.

In Conclusion

So I end this by saying…when we do just enough to get by…

  1. Who are we really shortchanging?
  2. Why do we shortchange ourselves so much all the time?