How To Live An Extraordinary Life

Ways to Be Remarkable!

The first thing you have to decide is what that means for you specifically.

Living extraordinarily means something different to everyone. It’s a personal vision for you to imagine – and it takes consistent action to achieve.

What adds excitement and gives purpose to your life?

For some, living extraordinarily could mean traveling full time. For others, it could mean raising a family or quitting their job to pursue their passion.

But no matter how it manifests, living an extraordinary life comes down to harnessing your power and taking control of your direction.

If you’re ready to break out of the mold and blossom into something extraordinary, then keep reading.

Below I will teach you the daily actions, habits, and mindsets that will empower you to start living a truly extraordinary life.

What Does Living an Extraordinary Life Mean?

“Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another stepping stone to greatness.”

OPRAH WINFREY

 

Life is meant to be celebrated.

We only get one chance at life – but every day is a new chance to change direction and explore what’s possible.

This means going beyond what you ever imagined possible, embracing all the different facets and flavors of life, and reaping the joys of infinite possibilities.

When you push past the ordinary, you will encounter failures along the way.

Extraordinary people learn how to keep going

With support, and some of the tools in my article, you can rise up like a phoenix from the ashes and take control of your life – you are the creator after all.

If you need inspiration on how to live an extraordinary life, look at someone like Christian Picciolini, featured in Bruce Feiler’s book Life Is In the Transitions.

When Christian was 14, he had a chance encounter with Clark Martell, a neo-Nazi who converted Christian to his ideology, providing him with a sense of community and belonging that he desperately craved as a lonely teenager.

It wasn’t long before he became deeply involved in this hateful community. He formed a white-supremacist punk band, traveled overseas to perform at skinhead rallies, and became the international face of hatred and intolerance.

During this time Christian also ran a record shop. He was able to interact with customers of all colors, religions, and creeds, and slowly started to develop an understanding of people different from himself. His attitudes began to change – but slowly.

The real cathartic moment was the birth of his first child. He realized – while holding his son in his arms – that this defenseless, innocent human being could be manipulated, and that maybe he had been too.

He began to withdraw from the movement. His wife, frustrated that he was withdrawing too slowly, left him. For the next five years, he sank into a deep depression, drank heavily, and abused drugs.

Eventually, one of his friends pushed him to apply for a job at IBM. After getting the job he was able to reconcile parts of his past, confronting and apologizing to those he had wronged and hurt.

Christian went on to generate over a quarter of a billion dollars in revenue for IBM, married his supervisor, and eventually started his own record label.

He began talking publicly about his hateful past, and co-founded an organization called Life After Hate that helps former extremists find a path forward in life.

He understood that these people were looking for belonging and community, and built an organization that could provide both, and steer them away from violence.

Now that’s what I call extraordinary.

Remember that living extraordinarily is subjective – and there’s no time limit on transformation. 

Take some time to think about what lights you up and add more of it into your everyday life. With the right intentions, something as ordinary as a daily habit could transform into something extraordinary.

You’ve made the choice to learn how to live an extraordinary life – but now what?

To lead you in the right direction towards a life of excitement and purpose, I’ve put together these tips on how to infuse the remarkable into your everyday life.

These strategies are based on neuroscience and in-the-trenches experience in transformation — in my own life and hundreds of clients I’ve led or coached to radically shift towards extraordinary living.

1. Be Willing to Take Risks

People often hesitate when it comes to taking risks in life. But it’s important to remember that there is a huge difference between ordinary risks and calculated ones.

Taking a risk doesn’t always mean throwing away all caution, putting all of your eggs in one basket, and putting your life at the whim of the capricious winds of chance.

It does, however, mean stepping out of your comfort zone and into the unknown.

And here’s the secret – that’s where growth happens.

You won’t live an extraordinary life by living safely and predictably. At some point, especially to kickstart change, you will need to take a risk.

Achieving anything meaningful requires taking a chance; pursuing something knowing that there is a chance of failure. This is how dreams are accomplished.

2. Embrace Failure

Failure brings us one step closer to success. Not only that, it’s critical for success.

Without failure, there can be no learning. And without learning, there can be no growth.

The most successful people on the planet have failed not just once, but thousands of times. Their companies, wealth, relationships, and everything else are the products of excessive failure in the right direction.

But failure does not mean giving up. It means figuring out what doesn’t work and trying again. By applying this mindset to your own life, you can unlock the extraordinary potential hidden within through sheer willpower and effort.

As Samuel Beckett said, “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

3. Learn to Overcome Stress and Anxiety

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulates the functions of our internal organs and also controls our immune system. It has two parts – the sympathetic and parasympathetic.

When your sympathetic nervous system – which is responsible for managing stress – becomes overly dominant, your fight-or-flight mode is activated, putting your body in a stressful, high-alert state.

People who live extraordinary lives are often skilled at regulating their ANS and bringing themselves back to equilibrium.

One powerful tool for doing this is the use of controlled breathing. Since breathing is part of the process of the ANS, the right breathing techniques can actually bring it under control, and make you feel more relaxed, happier, and healthier.

In addition to breath control, cold exposure and meditation are two other additional tools that can help ground you, give you a sense of control, and give you mastery of your autonomic nervous system.

Living extraordinarily means learning to channel your energy and not being subject to your body’s stressor mechanisms. By learning how to control your ANS, you give yourself the freedom to turn your attention to more remarkable things.

4. Express Daily Gratitude

“To be content does not mean that you don’t desire more. It means you’re thankful for what you have and patient for what’s to come.”

TONY GASKINS

 

As with everything in life, being thankful for even the simplest things is incredibly important. Expressing gratitude for what you already have opens the door to endless opportunities for growth and abundance.

No matter where you are on this path we call life, expressing daily gratitude for what you already have while simultaneously striving for more of what you desire is one of the key elements when it comes to living an extraordinary life.

Gratitude encourages you to move from a place of lack to a place of plenty.

This type of thinking actually modifies the chemistry in your brain and causes physiological changes in your body that affect you on a cellular level. This in turn promotes a greater sense of well-being and fulfillment.

You take advantage of this by practicing gratitude exercises so that you are constantly reminded of and grateful for all of the good things in your life.

After all, if you aren’t grateful for what life is currently offering you, how can you expect to receive more?

Celebrate the small wins along the way and make ‘thank you’ your daily mantra.

5. Live a Life Without Limits

“If you can’t get a miracle, become one.”

NICK VUJICIC

 

Have you ever limited what you do in life because you’re scared of what others may think?

This type of limited thinking is common, and it will hold you back from unlocking your life’s extraordinary potential.

But you can never let anyone else’s expectations limit your choices.

You have to learn to overcome or ignore them to achieve true freedom when pursuing your dreams and long-term goals.

To put this into context, if you are surrounding yourself with people who ‘think small’ or feel satisfied with just breezing by in life, then why not choose to be extraordinary and push the boundaries?

Aim high. Anything worth having doesn’t come easy. Even if no one else believes in you, learn how to believe in yourself – and that is the most powerful belief of all.

So go after that six-figure goal. Run that marathon. Become that person who makes a change for the greater good—because you can!

6. Embrace the Present Moment

Knowing how to harness the present moment is critical for not missing out on everything that’s happening in your life – both the good and bad.

This means being aware of even the more banal moments during your day. Whether that’s your journaling in the morning, setting aside time to read, or exercising before work.

Life is made up of little moments, often repetitive, that happen day in and day out.

You can’t wait for moments of peak excitement before you decide to pay attention. By that point, most of your life will have passed you by.

Extraordinary lives are composed of the same building blocks as ordinary ones, and they share just as many mundane moments.

When you harness the power of the present moment in your everyday life, you can stimulate an extraordinary essence and catapult yourself towards a life worth living.

7. Nurture Your Creative Nature 

Embrace the fact that you are, by nature, a creative being.

Nurturing creativity allows you to become the artist of your life. The canvas is blank, and your choices paint the way.

No matter what your skills and strengths, cultivating creativity to boost your imagination will, in turn, lead you towards the extraordinary.

Why not try to add a creative spark to all aspects of life? Take up a drawing class, write a story or practice singing. Creativity can inspire joy that you didn’t realize was possible before.

You are the creator of your life, the main character of your story.

At the end of the day, it’s up to you to make changes that will lead to the extraordinary. To harness the power of your creativity to create a life worth living. To make your own destiny on your own terms.

8. Compete With Yourself, Not Others

Comparing yourself to others who are more successful at this point in life will do nothing but make you feel awful.

You don’t know their background, their starting point, the help they got along the way, or a multitude of other factors that could have influenced their path in life.

Choose to go the extra mile in all that you do, and always thrive to be a better person than who you were yesterday.

Consider being simply 1% better than you were yesterday. It doesn’t sound like much. Now extrapolate that. Do it consistently for a week. That’s 7%. Now a month. That’s 30%. Now a year. You get the picture.

Just remember that your only competition is yourself. If each day you’re a better version of yourself than yesterday—you’re winning.

9. Define Your Own Metrics For Success

What does success look like to you?

There is no one objective way to measure success. Like the concept of the extraordinary, the definition of success differs for everyone.

You might feel successful when you reach a milestone in your career. For others, it might be falling in love and starting a family.

It’s up to you to define what success means so that you can begin to move in that direction.

Think about what truly matters to you, and what makes you excited and passionate. Try to imagine what achievement would bring immense joy and satisfaction to your life, then begin to orient yourself towards it.

Success is not instant

It’s often a slow process, full of many courageous acts, that requires constant and consistent questioning and effort to achieve.

Often there is no end point. Success is as much as the journey itself as the destination.

10. Trust Your Own Inner Guidance

We are all blessed with the gift of our very own personal inner guidance system— the relationship between the head, heart, and gut.

You can receive all the advice in the world, even from some of the wisest souls you may know.

But, when it really comes down to it, and you want to live an extraordinary life, only you will know what to do to get there.

The reason for this isn’t just spiritual in nature – it’s also backed by science.

Studies suggest that there is a complex relationship between the head, heart, and the gut that guides a lot of unconscious decision-making.

That’s why we talk about “trusting our gut instinct”, “following our heart”, and “using our heads.”

We rely on a combination of cognition, emotion, and intuition when deciding on a course of action. Recognizing this somatic decision-making apparatus and understanding how it works is a powerful tool you can leverage in situations of uncertainty.

By tapping into your intuition and trusting your gut, you can avoid bad decisions and simultaneously guide yourself to great places.

11. Make Use of Rituals and Habits 

James Clear shared some powerful and pragmatic tips on how to be productive in his best-selling book ‘Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results”.

In this life-changing book, Clear explores the fundamentals of habits and how forming them can transcend a ‘normal’ life into something extraordinary.

It’s less about making fundamental shifts in your life, and more about making small, consistent adjustments and reaping the benefits as you live your life.

It’s the same with your life. It can be almost impossible to make a titanic shift and fundamentally and immediately change your life. But with small adjustments to your daily habits, you can dramatically alter the trajectory of your destiny.

So start today and begin the transformation of your life from ordinary to extraordinary!

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