Have you ever taken a good long hard look at your life and wished that something was different? Whether you want to be thinner, fitter, richer, less tired, in a happier relationship, have children, go on holiday or finally take the plunge and start your own business - it doesn’t really matter what you want to change, what matters is how committed you are to making it happen. But what are you prepared to sacrifice to achieve your goal?
What are you prepared to sacrifice to achieve your goal?
99% of people are happy to just WANT to change. It is a rare person that will actually take action and take the right steps to bring about the change that they talk about. The decision to change is a really important step in the beginning, but don’t choose desire over action. Just wanting to change is never enough.
If it was easy to get the result that you are looking for then let’s face it, you’d probably already have it. Nothing worth having is ever easy in my opinion, you have to work for it. There are different levels of effort required, depending on what your desired outcome is but in all honesty anything worth having is worth working hard for.
Just wanting something to change is not enough to make it happen. I’m sure we all want to win the lottery every week, but in reality how is that working out for you? Wanting more money, a smaller waist, to be able to run 10K in less than an hour are all great goals and I’m not here to tell you that you can’t have them - just that you’re going to need to put in the time and effort to get them.
You must have heard the saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I really like this quote because I think that so many of us can relate to it. We set ourselves goals and decide what we want to achieve but we are held back from making the changes that we need in order to get there.
So next time you decide you want to lose weight, earn more money, or run more quickly - ask yourself how important that goal is to you and what you are prepared to change to achieve it. I like to journal with a pen and paper and make a list of all of the things that you will receive when you achieve that goal and then list the changes that you’ll need to make to get there. It may be that you decide that the pain of change is not worth the end results, and this gives you the opportunity to revise your goal.
And this is OK, you don’t have to stick with a goal once you’ve set it if it turns out it’s not the right goal for you. Just be very aware of the end benefits of achieving your goal and what you will have to sacrifice to get there.
It can be really hard to make huge changes overnight so be kind to yourself if you set yourself gradual changes to make you are more likely to keep going with them. If you decide to change everything one day and shake up all of your routines and actions, this is going to be a lot harder to stick with.
So if you want to launch that new product then don’t decide that you will have it designed and launched and profitable within a month while at the same time carrying on with your existing business and family commitments. Take it slowly. Gradually work up to where you want to be, reward yourself when you do everything you planned to and refocus and recommit to your goal and your willingness to change on the inevitable days when you don’t get done what you intended to.
Remember, changing who you are and what you think and do is difficult. You should be proud of yourself for every small win and not beat yourself up over the losses. Focus on the benefits of your new goal, keep showing up and taking action and you’ll get there much faster than you thought possible.
The Sacrifice Audit: A Brutally Honest Weekly Check That Changes Behaviour
Most goal-setting advice tells you to write down what you want. Very little of it tells you to sit down every single week and write down what you gave up, what you avoided giving up, and what that cost you. I started doing a "sacrifice audit" every Sunday evening about three years ago, and the results surprised me. Within the first month, I spotted that I was consistently protecting my Friday afternoons from any difficult work, telling myself I deserved a lighter end to the week. That one pattern was quietly eating roughly six hours of productive time every fortnight. Naming it on paper was enough to make me stop doing it.
The audit takes about twelve minutes. You answer four questions in a notebook, not a phone app, because the physical act of writing slows you down enough to be honest. The questions are: What did I say I would sacrifice this week to move towards my goal? What did I sacrifice? Where did I protect my comfort instead? And what is that comfort costing me at a monthly rate? That last question is the one people find uncomfortable, because it forces you to translate vague avoidance into a concrete number. If your goal is to grow a business and you avoided three sales calls this week, estimate the revenue those calls might have produced. Put a figure on it. Seeing "I chose Netflix over a potential 400 pounds of new business" written in your own handwriting is a different kind of motivation to anything a motivational quote can offer.
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What I have found over time is that most people are not sacrificing the wrong things, they are sacrificing nothing at all while believing they are working hard. There is a significant difference between being busy and making real sacrifices. Busy means full days. Sacrifice means choosing the harder option when the easier one was available. When I was building my social media consultancy, the sacrifice that moved the needle was not working longer hours, it was stopping every piece of work that felt comfortable but was not directly bringing in clients or building my profile. I cut services I enjoyed delivering because they were low margin and low visibility. That felt like a real loss, and it should have, because it was one.
- Write the audit by hand, not on a screen
- Assign a pound figure to each avoided sacrifice
- Review three months of audits together every quarter to spot persistent patterns
- Be specific: "I avoided difficult conversations" is not useful, "I postponed the pricing conversation with Client X for the fourth week running" is
The quarterly review is where the real value sits. After three months of weekly audits, you will almost certainly find two or three recurring sacrifices you keep promising yourself and keep avoiding. Those are not laziness problems, they are usually fear problems wearing the costume of busyness. Identifying them by name, with evidence stretching back twelve weeks, makes it very hard to keep pretending they are not there. One of mine, which took me an embarrassingly long time to admit on paper, was consistently under-pricing my speaking work because I was anxious about being turned down at a higher rate. The audit made that pattern undeniable, and naming it was the thing that finally pushed me to change it.
The short version: Every meaningful goal comes with a price tag, and the real question is not whether you want the reward but whether you are willing to pay the cost. Success demands trade-offs, and being honest with yourself about what you are prepared to give up, whether that is time, comfort, money, or certain relationships, is the foundation of any plan that works.
Frequently asked questions
Why is sacrifice such an important part of goal setting?
Because resources like time, energy, and focus are finite. Every choice to pursue one goal is a choice to deprioritize something else, and acknowledging that reality upfront stops you from setting goals that look good on paper but fall apart the moment real life gets in the way.
How do you figure out what you are willing to sacrifice?
Start by listing what the goal will require on a daily and weekly basis, then hold that list up against your current commitments and values. If the cost conflicts with something you are not prepared to give up, you either need to adjust the goal, adjust the timeline, or be honest that this particular goal is not the right one for you right now.
What happens if you set a goal without thinking about the sacrifices involved?
You are likely to quit when the discomfort hits, because the discomfort will feel like a surprise rather than an expected and accepted part of the process. Clarity about cost builds the mental resilience that keeps you moving forward.
Can sacrifice ever go too far when chasing a goal?
Absolutely. If pursuing a goal consistently costs you your health, your core relationships, or your sense of self, it is worth stopping to ask whether the outcome still justifies the price. Ambition is valuable, but sustainable progress matters more than a single win that leaves you worse off overall.
