A Little Bit Extra

What is the difference between a 4.0 GPA and a 3.9 GPA? Just a little bit. What's the difference between a perfect score of 300 in bowling and a less than perfect 299? Just 1 pin to remaining standing after the entire rest of the game full of perfect shots. Okay, last question... What's the difference between an extraordinary person and an ordinary person? That's right, just the little "extra."

There are so many people out there who for one reason or another just do the minimum that they need to do in order to get by in their job, their marriage or relationship, their friendships, their church, and any other aspect of a person's life you can think of. There are many reasons people put forth to try to justify this, but none of them are good enough as far as I'm concerned. This is because there are tons of people who have gone through horrible things and turned their lives around to become amazingly successful and good people. If they can do it, so can everyone else - especially if they haven't had anything terrible happen in their lives.

So now that we've gotten that out of the way, why are there so many people who want to be happy and successful but aren't? I think it's because of one of two reasons; either they haven't realized that all they need to do is a little bit more, a little bit extra than others do, or they haven't given themselves enough time to reap the rewards of their hard work. This second reason has to do with persistence, which I will talk about in a future blog. But the first reason is the more predominant one, and the easiest one to change. All you have to do in order to be successful is just a little bit more than everyone else does...just a little bit extra. That is all it takes to get better results than normal people do, and stand out in the crowd. (The being happy part takes a little more work and will be addressed in a different post as well.)

So what do you do with the different areas of your life? Do you do the minimum necessary to get by like so many others do? Do you do more than that, but still about the same amount as everyone else? Or do you do the same amount as everyone else, and then a little bit extra? If you answered yes to any of the questions above other than the last one, then I challenge you to change your ways. Do the little extra from now on. Your effectiveness will be multiplied, and you will have given yourself a boost to help you travel down the road of success even faster!