The Sacrifices of Chasing Big Goals

Having a goal does more than just give you direction, it also forces you to learn fundamental skills, habits and lessons required to excel in any area of life. 

But despite the good that chasing big goals brings, they also come with their fair share of sacrifices.

These sacrifices go beyond the obvious. Time, energy and sleep, to name a few, are not only sometimes a given, but also less common and ever-present than other forms of sacrifices that are barely spoken of.

When dedicating yourself to something, you can expect to lose time, maybe some sleep and a few family gatherings here and there, but it’s the sacrifices that you’re barely aware of that will catch you off guard and send you off a cliff.

It’s one thing for something to be affecting you, but it’s a whole other level to not even be aware of what’s happening.

This blog aims to act as that awareness, and to help steer you away from any cliffs.

If you’re chasing a big goal, you might run into one or more of the following:

Comfort

The first sacrifice you might experience without directly noticing is comfort.

Chasing goals is hard, that’s why they're goals. You set the target, and work towards it. If they were easy, you’d simply just go and achieve them.

But today, you’re probably accustomed to quite a lot of ease and comfort on a daily basis. Not only is your belly full, your water is hot, and the roof is above your head, but you also have a pocket full of endless dopamine and entertainment.

With a few clicks of a button, you could order anything to your front door, with next-day delivery, gamble, endlessly scroll and see more naked women than every king that has ever lived combined.

This is without mentioning the average diet, and the ease of access and expense of the world's tastiest foods.

Without even realising it, we’re all comfort addicts.

But when chasing goals, you’ll have to wake up early, work late, eat clean, be bored, tolerate rejection, experience failure, endure public embarrassment, all without reward, for a very long time.

Sacrificing comfort might be more obvious than what I’m making it out to be, but although we all understand the difficulty of achieving hard things, it's the comfort we sacrifice that's often overlooked.

Certainty

9-5s are safe, fitting in is safe, and following the rules is safe. But when chasing our goals, we leave the safety of these things behind.

When we decide to try and make someone of ourselves, we open a door of uncertainty and leave ourselves susceptible to things that not only frighten us, but things we can’t always control.

We could fail, find out we’re not good enough, lose money, and waste so much of our time and effort only for it to blow up in our face.

But here’s the catch: nothing is certain, and the safety of following the mean is only a delusion that guarantees the very thing we’re so afraid of: Failure.

By chasing something big, by definition, you’re no longer a part of the crowd. The simplest of improved choices turn so many heads, therefore, chasing your goals already makes you stand out, placing you directly in the limelight, far from the invisibility that being a member of the crowd grants.

If you have dreams you want to chase, expect the discomfort of venturing the unknown.

Identity

Chasing a goal means working towards becoming a new version of you, a version capable of doing the very thing you’re trying to do.

Becoming that version means adopting a new identity, which also means sacrificing an old one. And, sometimes, it means leaving behind an identity we’ve had for as long as we can remember.

An identity is more than merely how we see ourselves, it’s actually who we are. Therefore, sacrificing an identity quite literally means leaving ourselves behind, and with this comes an unfathomable amount of challenge.

You’ll battle with old temptations, reactions, feelings, thoughts and challenges. 

If you’re not aware of the rocky battle of shifting identities, it’ll feel as though no matter what you do, you just can’t seem to reach the next level.

It can feel like 2 steps forward, 5 steps back, and the only thing that can alleviate some of this tension is simply being aware of what’s happening. (and committing, if you’re clinging to old ways).

When you know the fight is with the version of yourself that you no longer want to be, it resets expectations and grants a little more patience.

Ego

Being average yet having potential can sometimes be sexy, but when you decide to take action towards a goal, you quickly face reality.

Being at the top of a very small ladder can make us feel like a winner, but when we elevate our sights, we make that ladder ten times the size, and place ourselves right at the very bottom of it.

With this, reality hits and gives our ego a right hook to the face. 

Suddenly, we’re no longer the person who COULD do something great, and become someone who IS very bad.

Of course, this is all temporary, but the ego doesn’t care, as all it’s focused on is surviving the attack of reality.

By resetting our position on a ladder, we actively reset our ego, sacrificing who we thought we were, and staring who we actually are directly in the eye. 

A humbling, yet very necessary sacrifice that's required when chasing goals.