In my job you hear a lot about what people desire. What they want but don’t have yet. Most people know exactly what that is. Health, wealth, balance, weight loss, more free time, more muscle tone, a better relationship with food, increased fitness, higher strength. It’s easy to know what you want, what’s harder to know is what you’re willing to sacrifice to get it.
In my opinion, this is such an important question when it comes to goal setting. Almost everything we have comes at a price, sometimes literally and sometimes figuratively.
You want to increase your fitness? Are you willing to sacrifice the time? What about the money for a gym membership? What about more money for a trainer?
You want to increase your wealth? Are you willing to sacrifice the effort it will take to earn more? What about the things you like to buy but don’t need? What about the extra time you have on weekends?
You want to lose some weight? Are you willing to sacrifice those Friday night wines? What about those Saturday morning sleep ins? What about the chocolate that’s sitting in the fridge?
When setting goals and focusing on desires, it’s imperative you’re clear on what you’re willing to sacrifice in order to get them. Without this clarity, you can be left in this never ending cycle of not achieving your goals and not knowing why.
When you clarify what you are and aren’t willing to sacrifice it forces you to accept that sometimes these things can exclude each other.
For example, it’s pretty unreasonable to think you can lose weight if you’re not willing to sacrifice time towards exercise or desserts every night of the week.
Likewise, you wouldn’t expect to build wealth if you weren’t willing to sacrifice spending sprees or free time.
For everything we want in life, sacrifices are made. Sometimes those sacrifices are so meaningless to us that we don’t even realise we’ve made them. This happens when the reward is much greater than the sacrifice.
People that sacrifice sleep ins to go to the gym don’t have more ‘will power’ than those that don’t, it’s just that the rewards they get for doing so are simply much greater than the sacrifice of getting up.
What we’re willing to sacrifice will depict whether we do or don’t achieve our goals.
So if there’s something you’ve been after for a while now and haven’t yet achieved, maybe it’s time to ask yourself,
What are you willing to sacrifice?
Jx