Personal Development

Living Exceptionally: 7 Habits That Make A Difference

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Welcome, dear readers, to a journey of self-discovery and empowerment. In the hustle and bustle of life, it’s easy to lose sight of our true potential. In this blog post, we’ll delve into the realm of exceptional living, exploring eleven transformative habits that have the power to elevate your daily existence. Whether you’re seeking personal growth, professional success, or a deeper sense of fulfillment, these habits will guide you toward unlocking the extraordinary within.

1. Take your calendar to the next level

At one point or another, we have all used a planner of some kind. Few of us, however, are meticulous in our planning. And why should we? Isn’t it enough to mark down important appointments and events and maybe keep a to-do list on the side? You have managed to get it all done so far, why should you bother with scheduling all of your daily tasks into a calendar?

There are two benefits to keeping a calendar:

The first one is obvious. Detailed scheduling will prevent you from forgetting things. I don’t mean big or repetitive things like doctor appointments or a lecture. While keeping a calendar does help us remember those tasks, they are not usually the ones we forget anyway. The tasks we forget are the small and not-so-important ones. Little things, like watering your plants, cleaning the kitchen, doing a monthly review of your goals, cleaning your shoes, etc. How often have you found yourself remembering those little tasks at the end of the day, cursing that you forgot to do them again?
The second benefit is that scheduling tasks makes us accomplish more. How often during the day do you consider what to do next? Pretty often probably. Should I study this topic first or create some new flashcards? Maybe I should answer my emails now and write that blog post later. All these decisions make us lose valuable time. It also costs us more self-discipline to sit down and do an odious task if we could be doing it later. If you are someone who feels like the day doesn’t have enough hours, you should give Google Calendar or whatever calendar you use a chance.

I can already hear you thinking the same things I used to think: But I am really bad at predicting how long something will take. My schedule wouldn’t work anyway! And I want to be spontaneous at times or else I feel too restricted.

The simple solution for predicting the time it will take you to accomplish a task is: practice. The more often you try and gauge how long something takes, the better you’ll get at it. In addition to that, schedule buffer time before and after every single task. If something unexpected happens or if the previous task takes longer, then you’re still on schedule.

Should a task take less time than anticipated, fall back onto a default activity. That could be reading a book, meditating, or taking a walk. Just make sure that you don’t start scrolling through social media and then forget about the time.

2. Give yourself slightly stressful deadlines

Tasks take as long as the time you provide for them. If you start to write your essay a week before the deadline, chances are it will take you a couple of days to finish it. However, if you were to start it the day before the deadline, you’d most likely hustle until you have it finished within a day.

And yes, there is probably a difference in quality between those two essays. And all-nighters are of course not a permanent solution. However, this extreme example was only supposed to get the point across that work seems to expand to the amount of time we allow it to take.

The key is to find the sweet spot between giving yourself enough time to deliver quality work but not enough time that you are completely relaxed and perfectionistic.

Finding that sweet spot gets easier the more often you do a task. The first time you write an essay in a new subject, you’ll likely severely underestimate how long it is going to take. And that’s ok, you don’t need to be perfectly efficient in everything that you do. The important thing is that you’ll try to do better next time. That’s how you’ll live an exceptional life.

3. Spend at least as much time creating as consuming

If you want to live an exceptional life you have to make it a habit to always be creating things. As a podcaster or blogger, this can mean creating content, as a programmer it can be programming, as a lawyer it can be writing a compelling civil complaint, or if you want to earn a passive income it might be taking feet pics.

The point is that mindless consumption rarely brings us forward in life. Sure, everybody should’ve some relaxation in their day. And if for you that means Netflix, Instagram, or the cinema, then go for it!

However, you should ask yourself what you do more in your free time: Consuming or creating? If you get into the habit of spending more time creating than consuming, your life will elevate bit by bit without you even noticing it, at first.

4. Say Yes to Things that Scare You

I recently started working towards my second law degree and let me tell you everything about it is a step outside my comfort zone. (To give you a bit of background: To become a lawyer, judge, etc. in Germany, you need two degrees. The first one you get from University, the second one at the end of an apprenticeship, where you work with judges, prosecutors, and attorneys).

Sure, writing exams has always been stressful too. But at least you are used to that kind of stress since you’ve started school. But now, I am confronted with having to deal with freaking long court files, writing verdicts, leading a court trial, and doing other kinds of public speaking. So yes, MAJOR step outside my comfort zone!

But, as a result of having been pushed beyond comfort for a couple of months now, I feel like I have grown at an IMMENSE pace. Things that would have scared me half a year ago feel doable now.

My comfort zone has expanded because I said yes to the opportunities that scared me, even though I didn’t have to. There were multiple times I could have chosen an easier task but I knew that I would benefit more from doing the harder one, so went with that.

Saying yes to things that scare you is the best way to elevate your life at an incredible speed. Scared of starting a podcast? Do it anyway! Scared of investing your money? Do research and start small but get started!

5. Do one thing at a time as a rule; Multitask as an exception

As we have already established, leading an exceptional life means being efficient with how you use your time. Multitasking can be a great help for that. You can listen to a podcast while cooking, watch the news while working out, or meditate during your red light therapy.

However, it’s important to realize that multitasking is only beneficial if one of the tasks is a passive one. The brain can’t do two highly demanding tasks at the same time. For example, if you are doing something and someone asks you a difficult question you automatically stop moving to answer that question.

That’s why multitasking shouldn’t be the rule but the exception.

Stop skipping back and forth between tasks. Don’t do a little bit of your homework here and a few flashcards there. You will get so much faster done if do one task at a time. And take it a step further than that. Do the different questions or exercises in your homework in exactly the order they are presented. You have to solve them all anyway. So do them in order because way too often there is a reason for that order and you are only going to make your life harder by ignoring it.

6. Be intentional about everything that you do

Most people are intentional about their good habits. In other words, they know exactly why they are doing a certain habit and they intentionally make time for this habit.

But what about all the other things in life that don’t qualify as a good habit? Do you ever spend time thinking about what it means for your future if you spend an hour on social media if you stay awake past your bedtime, or if you drive instead of walking?

I know this sounds silly. Driving instead of walking once isn’t going to ruin your life and neither is scrolling through social media. But the thing is, you are most likely not just doing it once or twice. Have you ever considered what impact these seemingly unimportant daily actions can compound to? Have you ever wondered if that is the kind of person you want to be?

It is incredibly difficult to be intentional about everything that you do. In fact, it’s highly impractical to question every little daily action.

Instead, keep your eyes and ears open. Every time you come across someone doing something differently compared to you, spend some time and reconsider. Why are you doing things a certain way? Could you do it differently? How would it impact your life in a few years from now if you do it one way or another?

If make it a habit to be this intentional about everything that you do, you will soon find a big difference in the quality of your life.

7. Have multifaceted goals

Short periods of hyper-focus on work or school can be necessary during finals time or the launch of a new product.

But this sort of hyper-focus is not a healthy mindset to maintain. There is more to life than work. You need to be on top of all of life’s areas to live exceptionally. All areas of life influence each other. If your health is in a pit, you won’t be able to perform well at work. If your career is at a low, you won’t have the financial means to make healthy living an easy choice.

Another reason for multifaceted goals is that your work won’t always go well. Everything in life comes in seasons. Every high will have a low eventually. And in those moments you will be so very grateful that you have other things going for you.

So, let’s do a quick check-in:

Look at your calendar. What tasks have you got scheduled and in what area of life do they fall?
Think back on your manifestations. What do you try to manifest most often?
Break up your week into three areas: Sleep, Work, and Free time. Do you spend significantly more time in one of those areas?

As we wrap up this exploration of exceptional living, remember that small changes in daily habits can lead to remarkable transformations over time. Embrace the journey, savor the growth, and let these habits be your companions on the path to a more exceptional life. Share these insights with others, for in uplifting each other, we collectively contribute to a world where everyone has the tools to live exceptionally.

Cheers to a life filled with purpose, joy, and the continuous pursuit of greatness!