The little extra:
I was reading the book called, "The compound effect" and the author was talking about the extra effort you need to make to progress on something. For example, everyone works for themselves and completes their own work, but you will only accelerate your progress when you go ahead and help others succeed. In order to succeed yourself you have to make sure others succeed also with your work. This blog is going to talk about going the extra mile. What is it we mean by going the extra mile? It simply means doing more than what is required. In real life, what it means is delivering more than expected at work, offering help even when it's not asked for, or just doing something with extra attention to detail or enthusiasm. We want to go above and beyond in each and every aspect of life in order to accelerate the growth that you want in life. I'll try to factor in real life examples where you can go above and beyond. If you simply brainstorm, we have 3-4 major parts in our lives: Our career/work, our personal life(that includes fitness, hobbies and self-care) and our relationships. In each and every area of our lives we can go above and beyond. Let's dive deeper into each of the aspects:
Work:
This is probably the easiest to think about. When you are working beyond your responsibilities that is going above and beyond. Let's say you are trying to work on a project, and you are given the role of a software developer only and you only develop stuff that's asked out of you, and you complete that part. Once you complete that part you move on to the other part at your work, however, what it means by going above and beyond is to help your colleagues figure out certain things. Completing things before time by staying late at work. Although I don't encourage staying late at work every day but when you have a deadline nearby or if there's an important launch go above and beyond and work harder on those days. Rest of the days you can keep a balance. If you are a software engineer and you are not responsible for getting the feedback of your product, try to get feedback of your product from a customer. Make sure that whatever it is that you do, the work quality is top notch. Make things work at work. Wow, that's a nice pun. Try to analyse the root cause of everything that happens. Go above and beyond to learn something new for your work. For example, if you are a software engineer and you don't know docker well enough, try and understand docker. Go with the trial and error method but learn docker by sitting a bit late.
Relationships:
This is also a bit obvious. But someone is going through a tough time in their lives, stand up for them and help them with the best intention. Sometimes the help is not received back but help them as much as possible. If you know someone needs something as a gift, try to understand that and get a gift for that person. Do something that's thoughtful for your partner, do something that helps the other person in their lives. There are many other basic factors that you need to do like active listening, giving emotional support to people, anticipating the needs of the other person, spend quality time, etc. But going above and beyond means to surprise them with a new gift or help them where they least expect it.
Now, let's dive into the quotes that I found online.
This is an interesting take. In order to create a WOW moment, which means do something a little unconventional and innovative. You must do something that's above and beyond of what's expected. And whatever you do must have an emotional impact on the receiver. In order to truly leave an emotional experience, creating a personalized experience is very important. For an example, if you want to say thank you to someone, you can create a personalised thank you note for the other person for thanking them on exactly the things you are grateful for. Or maybe if someone has said that he/she loves cheesecakes, randomly just get cheesecakes for him/her. Or maybe plan a trip with someone who's told you his/her favourite destinations to visit.
I would be repeating myself if I say that in every area of your life you need to think what's the extra mile. In studies, it can be doing the extra reading or the extra revision, at work it might be about initiating some projects, coordinating with your team members and helping them apart from just doing your work. So, you need to figure out what's that extra mile for you. For an example, if you are at the gym, doing your workout, doing that extra rep or working for that extra 15-20 minutes more is the extra mile. So, you can define the extra mile that you can do in all of these areas but remember it's all about the extra mile so please do focus on that.
What I like doing by design is that I decide on one area, for example, work. The extra mile there can be helping out my teammates and doing my job done. Making my manager's life a bit easier and working hard towards my goals. So, there are things in my life that I can do and that will make my manager's life easier.
If relationship is your goal, select where you need to focus when it comes to going that extra mile. Whether it's giving a surprising gift, a compliment without any more thought or anything else that you wish to do.
Anyways this might be a very simple blog, but at this moment, I feel like it's just more important to have an action oriented at the end because there's not much to expand the idea that you need to go the extra mile.
Action steps:
Relationships && friendships: Offer emotional support or actively listen(without judgement) to someone who you think needs listening. Gift someone something unexpectedly. Give unexpected compliments: Share a specific thing you admire about them, whether it’s a talent, their kindness, or how they handle challenges. A sincere compliment can brighten anyone’s day.
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