Did you know that going the extra mile is what makes the difference between someone who achieves their goals consistently and those who spend their lives and careers merely following. So why don’t more people go the extra mile and what does the extra mile look like?.
Over the last two weeks I’ve been travelling across Europe and the US and I have literally gone the extra mile. This amount of travelling has been tiring and at times exhausting – especially my whistle stop trip to San Francisco for three days to attend the annual conference of the International Association of Horse Assisted Educators. Has it been inconvenient? Hell yes, but it has also been so rewarding. In San Francisco I was honoured to be able to spend time with the incredible Barbara Rector, who I regard as the pioneer of Horse Assisted Education, as well as other industry trail blazers. It was great to learn from them and have them share their wisdom with us. For me I know that the trip to San Francisco with all the new connections I met and the wisdom I learned will help make an incredible difference to how I achieve my goals over the next year.
During my recent Musketeer Academy I also got to experience the power of going the extra mile in the form of conscious training. We often think that in order to improve in a discipline – whether that is a sport or business – you need to practice, practice, practice. Well nothing can be further from the truth because if we just practice, practice, practice without getting any feedback on how we are performing, it is easy to start developing bad habits. This is why we need to engage in conscious training where we are receiving feedback on how we are doing and so we can re-calibrate our performance and make changes.
It was my Musketeer Sword Master, Jared Kirby, that shared this wisdom with me and on reflection I realize how correct he is. When I was learning the art of fencing it was relatively easy to keep practicing the moves, but unless I really slowed down and actually consciously thought about each movement step by step and engaged in perfect practice I was in fact just going through the motions and not actually training the skills required. Conscious training required us all going the extra mile.
Oftentimes however we don’t go the extra mile because going the extra mile can be inconvenient. It can be exhausting training at fencing for three hours a day just simply to improve a single move and yet I know when I made that commitment of training slow and getting every detail perfect, that in the end the results would be amazing. And they were. Over seven days by slow consistent training and going the extra mile I honed enough skill to be able to participate in a sword fight and storm French castles.
In business going the extra mile involves ensuring we deliver amazing value to our clients. It means exceeding customer expectations and wowing them with great service. Because when we go the extra mile and deliver great value our clients appreciate it and our more likely to want to work with us again and therefore help us achieve our goals and create success.
So are you prepared to go the extra mile to achieve your goals, or are you merely happy to follow others?. Are you prepared to engage in conscious training to improve and get regular feedback so that you can develop, or are you happy going through life just practicing, and missing those nuances that make all the difference? If you are ready to go the extra mile then you need a coach and mentor that can give you quality feedback on how you are performing, so lets connect and explore if I am the right coach for you.
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
