How to form an addiction to being exceptional

Hello, Gorgeous!

I want you to have all the success in the world when it comes to anything you think of doing. 

Sowing seeds of long term growth is the easy part. 

Deciding you want to be extraordinary is a starting point, but a lot of people never reach their destination. This is why a lot of the world never ends up as millionaires and are out of shape.

Dreams turn to dust and wondering what could have been, but I do not want this to be you. You can dream all day long and get absolutely nowhere. You can conjure incredible ideas, but save no one without execution. 

No matter how small the milestone or how far you shoot for the moon. 

Disclaimer: This is years of experience and hard learning condensed into one little post. A lot of this blog is. 

Here is how to be exceptional at everything you touch.

Dream B I G G E R. Take up space. Stop thinking so small in the first place. A lot of people stunt their growth by initially dreaming too small. You are allowed to want it all. The universe has no budget. 

This makes me think of ice skating. You can always tell who started skating as a child versus who learnt as an adult. The way someone holds their body and how they fall will tell you. 

When you are a child, you are not afraid of falling, so your body reacts differently on the ice and you always sustain this style of movement into your developed years. 

As an adult, you are so full of anxiety and fear of falling that you are extremely rigid and it shows through your lack of grace. Even with years of practice, you can still tell. 

Let loose. Do not be afraid to fall and get excited to play on the ice as a child would. 

Yes, you take baby steps when you start, but momentum actually builds fast. 

The hard part is maintaining inertia to see the goal through. 

Your life is a development that never ends. When you graduate school, your education should never be over. Why should your growth be? Because you started so you felt like you got a taste of success? You never even reached it. 

It is fun to be part of the Cool Club, but your membership fees are due. Every single day. 

How to get addicted to being exceptional 

Change your mindset to change your actions. Committing to actions changes your habits. Reconstructing your habits changes your lifestyle. Every breath affects the wind affects the storm. 

To do this, a lot of people tell you to rewire your mentality altogether. 

They are not wrong. But they need to get more specific to help you get there faster and better. 

The truth is you need to get addicted. 

Be obsessed with what you are doing and focus on the little tweaks with 110% focus. Those tweaks are everything. 

Habits aren’t nothing. They are tiny synchronicities that move the needle to align with your goal. 

Get good at cleaning up intentional and unintentional habits 

You want to build a habit of going to the gym? 

Set up your alarm clock to go. 

You want to create a habit of being ready for the gym on time? 

Set up your workout clothes and shoes before your alarm. 

You want to make a habit of having clean workout clothes for the gym?

Set up your laundry supplies to prepare your clothes. 

Each little step gets you closer to where you want to be, and you have to think 10 steps ahead on a regular basis. Intentional calculations are simply broken down habits. 

A lot of people have weird unintentional habits as 

• Blinking too much when hearing about a certain topic 
• Reacting too much 
• Having terrible posture 
• Excessive use of dysfluencies when speaking 
• Unintentionally saying dismissive words that turn people off 
• Cluttered thinking 

These are all easily fixable, yet people choose not to fix them, because they are either unaware, unintentional, or both. 

Create a habit of finding what you need to fix so you can be better next time. That is how you achieve proficiency cleaning up your habits so they are intentional. 

How to create an addiction 

In a past post, I mentioned how Michael Phelps stayed on track with his goals. Doing research for that post opened my eyes on how well he trained. I saw so many interviews on all the little things he did to outperform his yesterday. 

Every little thing in his day had to line up to progress. 

Meaning he 

• rearranged his entire schedule
• shaved every hair
• said no to junk food so easily he didn’t have to think about it
• went to sleep at a particular time 
• fought with his coach 
• talked with his loved ones intentionally in a brief period of the day 

If something didn’t push him closer to his goal, he ignored it completely. 

Olympians do not do more. They do less. 

The sacrifice of what he was NOT doing is what helped him simplify his life to focus on smoothly beating his record.

Streamlining + hard work = a lethal combination. 

It is the same as working smart and hard at the same time. You get further faster and accomplish more powerfully. Your strength is unmatched when you keep at your habits for years. 

In other words, Olympians create addictions to get to gold. We’ll touch on this deeper in a bit. First, we need to clarify addiction. 

Discipline vs. Addiction

Another word people interchange for addiction is discipline.

Discipline is only necessary if you do not like what you are doing. 

Addiction is where you CANNOT LIVE without what you are doing. 

If you love the result of what you are doing–you do not need discipline. 

At the end of the day, you need to create an addiction. 

These are the habits in your routine. But to create habits for a routine–you need systems. 

When your motivation is lost, you fall to your systems. 

Systems are simply habits in place that keep you afloat when your encouragement fails you. When your systems are strong, this is your default. How you function without thinking.  

Get so good at your routine it feels like breathing. The point of drills is to make the movement reflex. 

In fencing, when parrying (blocking), you are supposed to not think and simply defend yourself using automatic response. 

The same applies to EMTs resuscitating someone or soldiers in a war zone. Training kicks in, because if you think your body goes into shock and freezes. You end up not knowing what to do and panic.  

When you take the time to regularly practise making every second count, you win when saving a life, protecting yourself, or any commitment you are dedicated to. 

How to tweak your systems

Enjoy failing. This way you can truly master your weakness and strengthen where you are having issues. 

When playing a piano piece, there will be a few measures you struggle through. You do not go back to the beginning, struggle through that troubled part again and keep on playing the rest. You work on the difficult measures that you are struggling with.

Practise the sh*t out of those few bars you are having a challenging time with. Really nail it. Then go back and let the piece flow together to the point of muscle memory.

It is going to take a lot of time, but each little tweak makes a world of difference. This way your natural instincts become outstanding as a baseline. 

This applies to simple duties as:

• Putting the dishes away quickly and efficiently 
• Saying fewer words with more value
• Making others feel comfortable as fast as possible with every interaction
• Teaching a technique well
• Putting your makeup, hair, and outfit together when in a rush 
• Meal prepping delicious, healthy, and nourishing food 

The list goes on.

You strengthen your routine in magnitudes.

What to do when you drop the ball, create motivation with this reset.

At times, I realise how mediocre I become at an operation I used to excel at. This could be catching myself forgetting words in a different language that I put so much energy into learning. 

I simply go back to the drawing board to pick myself up. Similar to how you go through your closet to remind yourself of the beautiful clothes you have, it inspires you to create new outfits for the same monotonous event. You bring the spark, because you feel good about yourself again. 

It can look like creating a new moodboard or list of goals for the month taking you closer to the dreams you have been working on. You are making the distance of your milestones fall closer to you and changing your reality. 

Other moments might be decluttering your devices and cleaning your home to have a clear head of judgement again. The refresh comes from making where you are located on the path to success obvious, so you can start back up again.  

Forget your feelings and do the thing anyway. 

I am a huge believer in discipline. It has gotten me far in a shorter amount of time by similar drowning out the noise. 

Noise can be 

• You not wanting to get up in the morning
• Having to be nice to that annoying boss or coworker
• You not being in the mood, because your favourite song wasn’t played

Your feelings have no place here. What I do to readjust from this thinking of not being in the mood is to remind myself how lucky I am in the first place to be in this position. 

I am not too tired to go to work. I am lucky to have a job. I remember how hard it was to find a role I did not dread and made decent money to have a steadily nice lifestyle. Put on some Beyonce and hype yourself up. 

You are not like the rest. Double down on what you are doing to reach your goal.

Any movement is progress. 

Keep going and you will be where you want to be, but the point is to KEEP GOING. No matter what. 

Starting over with a reset might suck, because you dropped the ball. Life is going to life, babe. But only you can advocate for yourself. You can read my words all you want, but what actually gets you somewhere is doing the thing. Start again. 

This is your reminder to stay on track, because you did not get this far simply to get this far. You have 1,001 things you want to do one goal at a time, so keep moving forward with this one to get to the next. 

The downside nobody talks about with addiction

Becoming obsessed with your goals and getting the most out of a remarkable life has a drawback. I am not sure I would call this a disadvantage, but a lot of Olympians have a hard time retiring.

They are so addicted to their sport that lifestyle changes psychologically affect them dramatically.

What research shows (not anecdotes)

Studies of elite and Olympic athletes consistently find that:

• Around ~15–25% experience significant adjustment difficulties after retirement (loss of identity, depression, anxiety, or distress)
• Overall rates of psychological distress are often similar to the general population, but certain subgroups are at higher risk (injury, chronic pain, low support, concussion history)
• Many athletes report a loss of identity, purpose, and structure, which are the biggest psychological challenges

So it’s not that “most fall apart,” but a meaningful minority struggle a lot, especially right after retirement.

Citations: Study 1 | Study 2 | Study 3 

How to avoid an identity crisis with a life shift

Weird things happen in life, such as a breakup, loss of a job, or relocation. I had to deal with all of these and know exactly how to handle this with a recovery that includes grace. 

Build a second identity while you’re still in building mode

The biggest protective factor is having something that exists alongside your goal, not after it. It may seem counterproductive when wanting to focus, but you still want to have a balanced life. 

Examples:

• Studying (even part-time – I like to study chess, languages, and martial arts)
• Spending quality time with loved ones
• Finding at least one hobby you devote your time to to shut your mind off (cooking, enjoying the outdoors, painting, reading, etc.)

Psychologically, this prevents identity foreclosure when I am an [insert goal here] becomes your entire self-concept. 

Separate ‘who I am’ from ‘what I do’

Elite athletes / doers who struggle after retirement often have:

“If I’m not working towards something, I’m nothing.”

Healthier framing:

• “I am someone who competes” (not only that)
• “Sport is one expression of me, not my definition”

This sounds simple, but it’s a major predictor of post-goal mental health outcomes in psychology research.

Switch your addiction

Transitioning into a new lifestyle is going to be a change you will never forget. Do the exact same things mentioned in this post but with alterations that support your new lifestyle as much as possible. 

Make it easy by modifying your adjustments until it suits the new you. 

It’s embarrassing not to keep moving.

You are always evolving to become better each time. To the point that you want to be blown away with what would seem to normally be years of accomplishments in little time. 

Keep refining. Keep adjusting. Keep returning to work.

Because the real addiction is not perfection—it is progress.

And once you taste that, you don’t go back.

If you’re ready to stop dreaming and start actually becoming exceptional in everything you do, join TheItGirlSchool.com and learn how to build the habits, systems, and mindset that turn potential into identity. This is where you stop starting over—and start leveling up for real.