Your success is ultimately rewarding on many levels, from your personal life to your financial status. But you will have to give up some things to get there, and that’s never an easy task.
Check out the following eight things that successful people commonly had to give up at one point to make their dreams and goals a reality.
1. Say Goodbye To Time
There’s only 24 hours in a day, so for success, it’s about how you use your hours. Most people don’t really have enough time, so the key here is to use what time you have more wisely. When you sacrifice time, you’re giving priority to one task over another, and it’s the tasks you decide to complete that lead you to success or lack thereof.
Make yourself a to-do list for each day, and don’t stray from it. Make sure your list is full of tasks that help you work toward your bigger goals. If you can, delegate or give less important tasks to someone else so that your focus remains on what matters the most.
Set your own deadlines and stop procrastinating. If you do end up putting something off, however, don’t beat yourself up over it. Wishing you had more time to do something and being negative is a waste of time in itself. You’re much better off being positive and deciding how you can use the time you have left in the most productive way. If you don’t make better use of your available time by getting the little things done, you’ll never be able to complete your bigger tasks.
2. There Is Less Stability
Generally, if you’re following a dream, you’re probably giving up stability at one point. Many now-successful people did things like work multiple low-wage jobs or even live out of a car at some phases in their lives. Simply put, going after your dreams may make your life a roller-coaster at different times, with the associated highs and lows. It’s how you handle the highs, and especially the lows, that determine how well you’ll ride these waves out.
Acknowledge that you may have to give up stability eventually to truly achieve your goals. You need to make peace with this fact before it happens; otherwise, you’ll never allow yourself to take the risks you need to in order to make your life better. Missing opportunities out of fear happens all too often to people, and for you to be successful, you need to make sure you’re ready to walk through any open door, no matter what the risks are.
3. Your Personal Life May Suffer
With your time and focus elsewhere, it’s entirely possible you’ll put a strain on your relationships with family and friends when you’re working toward your ultimate goals. Those outings with friends fall by the wayside when you’ve got deadlines to meet or meetings to attend. Your partner and even your children get the short end of the stick sometimes because you’re busy working on something else that just has to get done.
You have to work your personal life around your working one, so make peace with the idea that sometimes, you’ll have to say, “No” or spend less time with loved ones and friends than you want to. This isn’t about being neglectful of the people you care about but about compromising in a way that is best for you.
4. You’ll Lose Sleep
You’ve probably already had nights where you were just ready to work after everyone has gone to bed, and that’s more than okay. If you’ve got things you have to do, it’s perfectly normal to lose a few hours of sleep to do them and stay on target. Your goals won’t accomplish themselves, and sometimes you’ve just got to be ready to exchange those extra hours of sleep for work to stay on top of your life and work toward your goals.
The only warning here is that you can’t sacrifice sleep every single night. Eventually, you’ll end up burned out, and the quality of work you’re doing will suffer. Learn your own limits when you’re skipping sleep to get things finished.
5. Your Health Might Take A Hit
It’s all too easy to start neglecting your mind and body when you’re completely focused on your goals. You may eat less healthily, grabbing food on the go, exercise less or maybe not at all, and you even may put your mental and emotional health in jeopardy. While this is clearly not ideal, it’s only temporary on your road to success.
You still have to pay attention to your body enough to know when it’s being overworked. While neglecting some part of your life in order to focus on others will happen, you can’t let it go on forever, as you’ll have some major regrets over it in the future.
6. Quiet Times Are Fleeting
On your path to success, it’s likely you’ll find yourself rushing everywhere in order to fit everything you need to in. While the loss of simple quiet times won’t last forever, it is something that you will have to deal with for now. Prepare yourself by accepting this loss gracefully, without stressing yourself out unnecessarily. Look to the future when you’re in the present to help keep your stress level at bay.
7. Your Sanity’s For Sale
On the days that are rough, when you’re feeling tired, stressed and overworked, you may really question whether this is all worth it. This is true even if you know for sure that it is. Working toward your biggest goals just isn’t meant to be easy. Your future aspirations are what test and challenge you, and they also help you realize how badly you want to achieve them.
Your loved ones may think you’re off the wall for working as hard as you do, but you must do the right thing for yourself. Do take breaks and relax when you know you have to, but remember that in the craziest times, you are another step closer to achieving your dreams.
8. Your Immediate Desires Take A Backseat
Your immediate desires probably get in your way each day, and you don’t even realize it. Those 20 minutes spent checking social media or playing a favorite game is lost when they could have been spent on your more important tasks. You must decide between your desires at the moment and the things that will drive you down the road to success.
No one really wants to sacrifice time, their personal life, stability, sleep, sanity, health and fitness, and it’s definitely difficult to do those things. But chances are you’ll have to sacrifice all of those things at one point in your life to be successful. Remember that it’s only temporary to keep yourself motivated, and that what you let go of today to be successful tomorrow will definitely be worth it in the end.
