Sometimes an adequate job is good enough. For some people, being adequate is equivalent to failure. Their goal is excellence in everything, with pressure and burnout resulting. Many voices clamor for excellence - John Gardner, Tom Peters, etc. To many people, excellence is a standard close to perfection.
Voices clamoring for excellence leave many people feeling driven and becoming slaves to excellence.
They leave others feeling defeated and burned out. Everything cannot be done with excellence. It just isn't possible to be a superachiever in every area of your life or in every area of mentoring. But you can learn to make wise choices, set realistic goals, and be a good, effective mentor. One that does not burnout.