How to drop mediocrity? || Acharya Prashant, Sir J.J. College, Mumbai (2022)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...   Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books? Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?... ~~~~~  Video Information: 7.12.22, Sir J.J. College, Mumbai  Context: ~ How to not be mediocre? ~ How to feel contended? ~ How to stay motivated on a project?  ~ How to be extraordinary? ~ Is it good to be competitive? ~ How can I become the best in everything I do? ~ How to win in every competition? ~ How important is it to choose right target?  Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00Hello, good afternoon, sir. My name is Neil Oswal. I'm a second year architecture student.

00:12My question to you is, how do you overcome the fear of mediocrity? How do you not feel

00:19less? It's not about self doubt, but it is about always to do better. How do you feel

00:23content with your work and motivated to do better, even if you do not feel that way?

00:31Explain your question. For example, if I'm working on something on a project and it is,

00:39I have put my all efforts, but it is not that good. And I know that because I've seen other

00:44people's work and I just feel that I am amongst all the normal people in class. I'm not special.

00:52So how do you deal with that? Your responsibility is to be better than yourself. You are not

01:04to calibrate yourself against other people. Please, please get this right. Because you

01:14all are young and competitive. You have to ask yourself how better I am compared to what

01:24I was yesterday. You are on your own individual journey. It is not possible or wise to compare

01:39yourself against others. You have to ask yourself, I started from this particular point. Yesterday,

01:51I was at this particular level. Where am I today? That has to be the consideration. Playing against

02:00yourself, being your own best self. That's what all wisdom, all bravery is about being your own

02:12best self. The battle that you fight is not so much against others. Complete the statement now.

02:30The battle that each of one fights or rather must fight is not so much against others. That

02:38battle has to be primarily against yourself. How am I and how far have I come? Where did I start

02:53from? I have said that repeatedly. And that's coming from first-hand experience. At IIT, I had

03:06a long opportunity of four years to interact with an entire spectrum of students from across the

03:16country. Not only my batch, but also senior batches and the succeeding batches. I have

03:29seen people with All India rank 5, 10, 15, which is considered very prestigious. I have also seen

03:38people who barely made the cutoff. So ranks 2,000 or something. Obviously today they have more than

03:5410,000 or 15,000 seats. At that time it was hardly 2,000 or 2,500 seats. The worth of a student,

04:06I clearly saw was not determined so much by the rank he or she got. The worth was

04:22determined by the background that person came from. What were the odds? What did you fight

04:31against? Somebody coming from Bihar or Odisha, that too a small town background, from an

04:46economically underprivileged family and yet somehow securing admission to the IIT was

04:56actually a far worthier candidate than someone from an affluent Delhi family having all the

05:08facilities, all the money, all the coaching, all the comforts. What is it that you are fighting

05:18against? That's what matters. I cannot compare a fellow from a remote interior Bihar village

05:32to a youngster from South Delhi. South Delhi is rich, plush, powerful, much like South Bombay

05:55probably. So where are you coming from? You are coming from your own background. Ask yourself,

06:07how much have I improved? And be on an endless journey of improvement. No quantum of improvement

06:20is sufficient. And we should not miss when we are talking of improvement, something more

06:27important than improvement. Improvement in the right direction. You must choose the right goal,

06:38the right target and then keep improving towards it constantly. It's as simple as that.

06:46Is it clarifying? Yes. Does something remain? You may counter question. Thank you. And what

07:01I'm saying is not something you can convince all others with. Because that's the way the world is.

07:11They'll benchmark you against the others. They'll say you have, if we talk of academics, they'll say

07:18you have 68%, the other one has 82%. So they'll declare you a mediocre one. But you should not

07:25take their words to heart. You should know where that 68 is coming from. Your responsibility does

07:33not lie in matching the one with 82. Your responsibility lies in converting the 68 to 72.

07:4468 converted to 72, 68 improved to 72 is as important as or probably more respectable than

07:56somebody who was at 82 and remains at 82. If I have to rank two performers, one who was at 82

08:10and stagnated at 82 and someone who was at 68 and has improved to 72, you know the one I'll pick.

08:21The latter one.

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