The difference between living an ordinary life and an extraordinary one is really quite simply found in the "extra" part of the word extraordinary. While many of us long to live extraordinary lives, we don't always have the motivation, willingness or grit to put in the "extra" part that is required. Below are three simple tips to begin doing the extra stuff required in order to live the extraordinary life you've always wanted:
1) Step outside of your comfort zone
This isn't a major epiphany or groundbreaking self-help strategy, however stepping outside of your comfort zone is the most important component of going beyond your ordinary. It is wonderfully warm, comfy and cozy within the walls of our personal comfort zones that contain all we know and who we have been. The tradeoff for the comfort and security of predictability is that our lives remain just that -- predictable. Nothing above and beyond the ordinary will occur in this place. By going outside of your comfort zone, you create extra space that contains fresh, fertile soil in which something more than the ordinary can take root and grow.
2) Go just one step beyond the point where you would typically stop
There is great power held within just one single solitary step past our usual stopping point. When you encounter an obstacle, challenge or barrier, hunker down and take that extra step. By pushing through your ordinary boundaries of surrender with just one extra step, you are puncturing through the wall of your ordinary way of being and have instead moved into your extraordinary way of being. This in turn takes you to a place you have never been before. Some might even say that this is where all the magic happens.
3) Don't let logic or reason stop you from taking action
Logic and reason are essential faculties of the human brain and this by no means is an invitation to totally throw them to the wind and abandon them completely. What this does mean is that your model of logic and patterns of reasoning have been built within the zone of all you know and who you have been. By design, they will keep you in the comfort zone of ordinary. If you feel called to take action or experience an intuitive pull that defies logic and reason, don't let your usual way of thinking and being get in the way. People who live extraordinary lives do so by going beyond the ordinary logic and reason that would typically halt them. They understand all of rationale behind why not to take action, but they do it anyway. They do the extra.