How to Challenge Yourself to Learn Your Capability for Excellence
25 different challenges to improve your personal and professional life
Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. — Joshua J. Marine
When we get a new job, move to a new city, or do anything else novel, we have a flurry of excitement. There’s so much to do! So much to learn! So many new and interesting ways we can screw things up!
But soon, we achieve competence in our new job. We can find our favorite locations in our new city, and have made some friends. We become complacent.
Can we restore that excitement and productivity, without uprooting ourselves? Is it possible to do more, without taking on too much?
The answer is, “Yes!”
A new job or move to a new city is an externally-imposed challenge. But you can create your own internally-imposed challenges. Those force you to do more than you normally would, or do different things than ordinary.
The trick is not to challenge yourself to do something you’re likely to fail at.
For example, I recently challenged myself to write 30 articles in 30 days. Since I’d been writing 4 or 5 articles a week, it was a bit of a…
