Happy Sunday Everyone:
Its January 5th, first Sunday Thoughts of 2025, better start off with a bang. Big plans for 2025, big goals, 1 year plan, 3-year plan, 5-year vision. Look back on 2024, what went right, what went wrong, what do we need to add, subtract, keep doing, learn. All those ideas, things, and questions are super important, but if you try to get the answers to all of them at once, it can be fairly daunting. When stuff is daunting a lot of people quickly go from motivated and inspired to overwhelmed and frozen. I’ve been a victim of overwhelm, most of you have too.
I was on a Stairmaster last week listening to some podcast and the guy started talking about “extraordinary”. By definition, according to Webster’s, it means “going beyond what is usual, regular, or customary”. Whereas ordinary is “of common quality of work, rank, or ability”. This guy started talking about the difference of doing one thing extra to go from ordinary to extra ordinary, or of course, extraordinary. I like comparing myself to words. Do I find my efforts “extraordinary”, no, i don’t, do I find them “ordinary”, no, I don’t, but when I think of doing things that are at the very least one more beyond what I’m currently doing, I can go from my own personal ordinary, to my own personal extra ordinary. If I challenge myself to think of this consistently, I will become extraordinary.
My guess is most people would like to have a better year ahead than they had previously, yet most people don’t allocate much time or energy into understanding how. If that’s the case with you, consider the concept of extra ordinary. Kim and I were talking about this last night, and she asked if I had an example. On my birthday, 8/14, I decided I was going to start doing 1 push up, and then growing it each day after, so 8/15 2 pushups, 8/16, 3 pushups. I asked a group of folks I work with if they wanted to do it with me, I believe there are 10 of us still doing it. Doing no pushups, is ordinary. Doing 1 push each day and growing the count, each subsequent day is extra ordinary. Today we’re on day 145 and we’ve done over 10,000 pushups since the start, when we’re done on day 365, we will have done over 57,000 pushups, and we’re all getting stronger than we’ve likely ever been. That is extraordinary, both in teamwork, and effort. Randomly I happen to email one of the gals just yesterday that I wouldn’t be doing this if we weren’t holding each other accountable (pretty cool).
Magic happens when purpose and process cross roads. The jedi mind tricks that take place between your ears when you remember the purpose (the why), you’re doing something, with the process (the consistency) of doing something; you will end up down the road extraordinarily better than where you started. A good use of time might be to think of a few things you’re currently doing that are ordinary, and what you need to do extra to get closer to the bigger word.
Why not have an extraordinary 2025!!