What are you willing to give up to succeed?

Read a lot about sacrifice, delayed gratification... not as easy as it sounds, especially in the early days from my experience.

When I started property investing in 2001 I asked myself many times, what the hell am I doing, my friends were having a wonderful time enjoying today while I was stressing over how I was going to finance for my next deal. Things got easier, but there were times I felt like selling up and just living in the moment like most people and investing was just too damn hard.
Glad I never gave up


What are you willing to give up permanently to succeed? or what have you given up permanently?
What are you willing to give up temporarily to succeed? or what have you given up temporarily?


MTR

 

in property investing?? LOL
How much?? maccas are you eating each day?

 

Success is such a conundrum. The scale is so wide and varied.
There are people who are not investors that are completely happy too. Why do you need to give up anything to be successful?

 

Actually @The Y-man has got a point. Junk food = feeling like crap = make worse decisions and less time (life) to enjoy any good decisions...

 

The questions are generic and not specific to property investing. The questions need to be answered by your criteria of success. Say my goal is to obtain a PHD. I would have to sacrifice something to get it.

What are you willing to give up permanently to succeed? or what have you given up permanently?
What are you willing to give up temporarily to succeed? or what have you given up temporarily?

What is your definition of success and what do you sacrifice to get it? Any sucess is a sacrifice. If my definition of sucess is to be a dole bludger then I would have to sacrifice my career to do that. If my definition of sucess was to be a top lawyer then I would have to sacrifice free time.

Personally, I have not had to sacrifice much but two big ones for me are time with family, because they live in Adelaide, Mebourne and Burleigh Heads I don't get to see them much. And overseas travel.

I have sacrificed these temporarily because of a diy renovation that has taken all my time and a build that has taken the rest of my time. Once everything is set up I plan to resume these.

 

My sacrifices tend to moreso be small things. I don't have the ability to have a "down day" or be grumpy at work. I have to stay away from the easy type of work and push my comfort zone into things that are new.

As a young person I hate the idea of renting or being in a financial rut. I lived with Mum and Dad for an extended period of time so I was able to have a very large deposit on my first home.

Living with M&D is not that easy and is socially looked down upon. But I did that and it has worked for me. Other strategies work for others.

 

Not much
I just live a normal life, don't waste too much money on ultra-luxury stuff
nor will I when I have money

I just enjoy life and make sure out going < incoming

 

I understand where you are coming from, and agree that at times sacrifices have to be made, re: family, work commitments etc. However, I don't believe any success is a sacrifice as you stated. Just my belief.

 

What type of success are you thinking of that requires no sacrifice? I can't think of any.

 

Poverty

 

True

 

Probably a matter of how the term 'sacrifice' is used.
In general I don't like the term sacrifice - this implies that it is of value and it hurts and it is in a way, against your will.
I don't 'sacrifice' money to get the food I want, it's simply what I will pay for the perceived value.
My term of success is to be happy - and usually the feeling of sacrificing anything deemed of value doesn't make me happy.

 

I was willing to give up on having a 6 pac due to the long hours working and studying. I reckon I've shortened my natural life expectancy due to the constant stress and lack of sleep. If I had my time again, probably wouldn't change anything except spend more time with family.

I have also gave up on using annual leaves for rest and instead used it to study and prepare for exams. The opportunity cost to this is the life knowledge and possible people I may have met during the trips. Going to start travelling abit more in the coming years as I also have my long service leave.

 

Fair enough. Maybe that's what TAJ is talking about too. Maybe "give up" would be a better term. If your definition of success is to be happy then you have probably given up some things that don't make you happy. I would call that sacrifice but you don't have to if that doesn't make you happy.

I understand your point though. I quit alcohol this year and I don't consider that a sacrifice because I never really enjoyed drinking.

Allow me to rephrase then: are there any examples of sucess that require a person to give up nothing? I can't think of any.

 

I think this is gold . Sometimes being happy is as easy as giving up on things that doesn't make you happy.

 

Didn't give up anything, just focused efforts on different things.
Although, because of this and the situation I put myself in, I could not just take time off anytime I wanted to like any employee can, via leave.
Only had public holidays and 2 weeks at Christmas off for most years of the last 10.
But all good now, today is my last day of contracted work for the rest of my life.

 

I thought long and hard before I made my list, some were taken (@kierank)....

I'll give up my good looks But not my health.
My free time but not family time.
My personable nature (so I can be grumpy more often)
My diet
Driving /my car - purely selfish

 

You did kind of give up holidays

Say I want to be fit and healthy. Actually, I do want to be fit an healthy. If I was a drinker, smoker and junk food eater then I would have a lot to give up to achieve my goal. Whether this is a sacrifice for me would depend on how much I value those things. Out of those I really only enjoy junk food (desserts) but they don't make me feel good.

Whether I am making sacrifices is debatable but I'm not going to achieve my goal of being fit and healthy without giving something up. It's simply not possible.