![Change Your Game by Starting a New One [Day 29 - 30 Days to Changing Your Game]](http://escaping-mediocrity.com/wp-content/plugins/ttftitles/cache/dabecaf1000834756e90ae9ec2d0bc65.png){kind=small}
This is Day 29 of 30 Days to Changing Your Game. Yesterday Calvin Lee showed us that being a “big deal” is really about “the little things”. Chris Garrett’s post today is PERFECT as we begin wrapping up 30 Days. Now that we’ve worked so hard on changing our game, it’s time to start a new one. Go get’em tigers!!
Change Your Game by Starting a New One
by Chris Garrett (@chrisgarrett)
Most of us are playing someone else’s game, and that means you will be forever playing catchup.
When you play someone else’s game you have to play by their rules, and those rules can change at any time. The house always wins.
- Your parents gave you one game (“work hard, be obedient, respect your elders – even when that is wrong”)
- School gave you another game (“sit down, shut up, do as you are told, stop being creative, repeat after me”)
- Friends tell you to play their game (“if you are different we will pick on you until you conform”)
- Bosses and colleagues have their entirely different games (“we don’t care about your ideas, morals, or values, do as you are told or else”)
No matter how well you do at playing these games, you will never be satisfied, fulfilled or reach your full potential that way.![chrisgarrett3 300x185 Change Your Game by Starting a New One [Day 29 30 Days to Changing Your Game]](http://escaping-mediocrity.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/chrisgarrett3.jpg "chrisgarrett")
The only way to win is to make your own game, play by your own rules, and forget about the nay-sayers and amateur umpires who say that is “cheating”.
My career started at age 15. Rather than do the “right” thing and continue my education, I dropped out of school. School for me was a daily nightmare, so even if financially I could have considered continuing, I didn’t have the motivation anyway. My game was not conventional, I have had to put up with a lot of stick over my lack of qualifications, but I survived and learned a lot more than university could have taught me.
Then back in 2005 I decided to quit my cushy, easy job in a tough financial climate. I had taken all I could take in the advertising/marketing agency world and decided to strike out on my own. Most people thought this was the “wrong” move, especially as most agencies were either not profitable, were laying off staff, or were closing down. Why give up a “good” job working for blue chip clients to go solo, working for startups and small companies?
Fact is, I was working in an environment I didn’t like, working on projects where I wasn’t learning anything, mostly doing work I didn’t want to do. It hasn’t exactly been a perfectly smooth ride but I would never eagerly go back to that life again.
In both of these moves I have taken what other people would have you believe is “accepting mediocrity”, but I knew the move was “escaping mediocrity”! Bigger is not always better, and you do not have to agree with how others score their lives.
Choose what will make you fulfilled, even if society sees you as “playing small”. Your game doesn’t need to be Olympic scale. One of my friends, Sue, writes about lighthouses . My friend Yoav decided his game was going to be the create the world’s best PDF to Excel software tool . They are fulfilled and successful at what they CHOOSE to do.
Decide now what your game is and go for it!
- Ignore the critics who just want to keep the status quo
- Doing things that scare you is a GOOD thing, it shows you are testing your comfort zones
- Never be afraid of looking foolish, it stops you doing things that could be a lot of fun
- If you are not growing, evolving, changing and experiencing then you are dying.
- Take regular actions towards your goals and keep going!
![244689610 f6c1e51517 m 150x150 Change Your Game by Starting a New One [Day 29 30 Days to Changing Your Game]](http://escaping-mediocrity.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/244689610_f6c1e51517_m.jpg "244689610_f6c1e51517_m")
Chris Garrettis a professional blogger, Internet Marketing Consultant, new media industry commentator, writer, coach, speaker, trainer and web geek. He was also a founding member of Performancing. You might know him from his past writing for such sites as ASPToday, ASPAlliance, Threadwatch, or more recently, ProBlogger, The Blog Herald, FreelanceSwitch, Cogniview, and CopyBlogger.
Chris also writes for several company blogs on a freelance basis.
You can hire Chris to help grow your company by connecting with your customers through the internet, just use the contact form to discuss.
In 1994 Chris first became addicted to the Internet. Since then he has helped thousands of individuals, non-profits, small businesses and blue chips make the most of the web. In 2005 Chris founded a company to help businesses achieve more with Online Media called OMIQ.
Chris consults, trains and speaks about internet marketing, blogging and new media at events such as the Successful Outstanding Bloggers conference in Chicago, Affiliate Expo, WordCamp, the Netherlands Social Media Congres and the Institute of Fundraising.
Popularity: 43% [?]
No related posts.
