What are you prepared to sacrifice to achieve your goal?

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.

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 of. 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.