Reaching Higher Goals By Being Anti Complacent

April, 2021

You’re working on a project, but as you work, you hit a roadblock. What do you do? Most people either give up or settle with what they have. This is being complacent. By settling with what you’ve already achieved, you will become mediocre.

If you’re anti-complacent and refuse to settle, and you keep working until it is finished, you achieve greatness. And if this becomes your standard, you’ll achieve greatness time and time again.

What is Being Complacent

According to google, complacency is “a feeling of smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one’s achievements.” In other words, it’s content or happy with where you are and not wanting to keep going.

For example, if you play an instrument, you’re trying to get a song up to 200 bpm, but your struggling to keep up. After a few attempts, you decide you’d be happy if you reach 150 bpm. When you reach it a few attempts later, you’re satisfied, you’re happy with your achievements, even though you wanted to reach 200 bpm at the start. You are complacent. To be anti-complacent is when you reach 150 bpm, you keep playing and keep trying to bring it up to 200 bpm.

Why Shouldn’t You Be Complacent?

By being complacent and settling with your achievements, you are becoming average. If you are constantly settling with what you’ve done, you can’t ever achieve anything above the average.

By being anti-complacent, you’ll achieve greater and greater things. When you hit any roadblock, whatever you're working on doesn’t suddenly stop. You don’t settle with what you’ve done so far. You figure out what’s stopping you, and you fix it.

How to go About Being Anti-Complacent

Stop settling with your achievements. I got my black belt in martial arts when I was 9, am I done with martial arts? No, I’m starting another one this summer. I haven’t settled with that achievement.

I’ve reached 8th place in a game jam. Was I happy with that? Of course, I was! I was proud of myself for a bit, but I’m not done. I haven’t settled with that achievement.

Whenever you achieve something, feel a bit of pride, feel happy for yourself, you did this. Then ask: now what? What are you going to do next?

Be Careful Though

Make sure you’re anti-complacent about the right things. If you decide to be anti-complacent about everything, you’ll end up wasting a lot of your time.

A good way to tell if you’re wasting your time on something is to ask why you are doing it. Does the amount of time you are spending on it make sense? For example, Game Development. Why am I doing game development? I’m just making games. It doesn’t really have an impact on anything. So why am I doing it?

First off, it brings me joy. I enjoy working on games. I think it’s fun. Second, I’m learning to code, and I’m still getting better every time I sit down to work on my games. Lastly, it’s compounding. I’m not going to regret having made a few games when I’m older. I’m not spending a ridiculous amount of time on this either. It’s not my highest priority.

Something that wouldn’t make sense would be playing guitar for 6 hours a day. Sure I enjoy playing guitar, but it’s just a fun activity. I would be wasting my time if I spend more than 45 minutes a day playing. It simply doesn’t align with my goals to play more.

If you want to achieve great things in your life, you need to start being anti-complacent about the important things you do. Stop settling for mediocrity as soon as things get hard. And you’ll achieve greatness, time and time over.