5 Great Reasons To Go The Extra Mile

Yesterday, I wrote that I was intending to do my Certificate IV in Web Design, a 12-month course, in just 6 months, with a combination of getting credit for my Cert III and taking some extra classes. Today, I'm going to explain why, and why going the extra mile is a good thing in the field of personal development.

1. It keeps it interesting.

One thing I noticed about the pace of TAFE was that it was so SLOW. It was so slow that I got bored, and actually didn't do as much work as I should have, and had to catch up in the end. Taking some extra classes should break up that monotony, by keeping it at a faster pace. I would hate to live a boring life, so I take pains to make my life more interesting. I'm almost never bored, because I keep thinking of ways to make my days more interesting and exciting.

2. Challenges are good.

If you don't challenge yourself, you aren't likely to do too well in the field of personal growth at first. The more you challenge yourself and triumph, the more you condition yourself to continue trying even when it's difficult. The challenge doesn't necessarily have to be in the category of personal growth. When's the last time you deliberately took on a task you didn't have to, purely for the challenge of it? I could name loads of challenges I make myself do.

• I challenge myself with video games. I take on difficult games, like I Wanna Be The Guy, or tackle other games on a harder difficulty setting, like Sonny 2. In Fire Emblem, I refuse to use certain tactics that take advantage of the AI's shortcomings, because I want to fight like I would fight a real opponent, not a programmed machine.
• I challenge myself with 30 day trials. I probably don't need to name these.
• I challenge myself to come up with new topics for blogging, and not rehash ideas from other sites.
• I challenge myself to come up with original decklists for Magic: The Gathering, and original openings for Chess.

The phrase 'But that's too easy!' comes from my mouth often. Yes, I COULD choose the easy route: but that simply isn't challenging enough to excite me.

3 . It improves your skills.

If you're taking on more challenging material and more challenging tasks than your peers, you'll accelerate faster, and learn more. I learn more about blogging good posts by thinking up original material than I would rehashing old stuff. Now if only I could apply those skills to generating TRAFFIC. Now there's a challenge!

4. It improves your productivity.

Put it this way: if I do something in 6 months that takes someone else 12 months, you're twice as productive. What are you gonna do with that extra 6 months? Find another challenge! There are lots of challenges out there. I might find another Cert IV to do, something that will help me achieve my goals. Life has so much stuff to do, you'll never be able to do it all.

5. You'll experience more.

By challenging myself to do more stuff, and do stuff quicker, I simply get MORE out of life. I experience more things, have more fun and move faster than most. Packing your day full of enjoyable challenges is far more fun than watching TV for 12 hours. Challenges are interactive: they get you to think and have fun and be active. Think of one of the most fun days you've ever had. Were you sitting on the couch watching TV? No: you were almost certainly doing lots of stuff, having fun, having lots of energy and interacting with lots of different experiences in the one day. It's the kind of day you slip into bed with a smile on your face at the end of no matter how tired you are.

Now what if every day could be a miniature verison of that? What if every day, you could experience new things and have lots of fun? Why wouldn't you do it? Some people might think that trying to do a qualification faster is sucking the fun out of life, but to me, it's MORE fun. I'm gonna have trouble finding a job though. A regular old boring job just won't suit me:)

So don't settle for a normal day when you could have an extraordinary day. Don't settle for a regular life: order a double! Enjoy it while you're here. If you only get X years, you may as well put more into them. If you can get 18 months worth of stuff done every year, it's like living to be 120. Of course, if you don't like life, I wouldn't recommend it. For those people I'd also recommend the post How To Be Happy.

Until next time, may you see the challenges in everyday life. (I was going to write "Until next time, may you go the extra mile." but that was too easy, so I made myself think of something a bit more challenging!)