The things you most want aren’t easy to get; otherwise you would already have them. We are faced with the daunting fact that in an effort to pursue our goals, to ultimately make our lives better, we must first endure and sacrifice.
You could minimize your efforts now, which would offer momentary comfort but leave you ill suited to achieve in the future, or you could maximize your effort now and create an ideal future.
“I bought a nightclub without really understanding what I was getting into,” says Dean Maples. “My partners were convinced it should be renovated before we opened, and suddenly my costs had tripled.
“Then we opened, and for a year the crowds were so small I could have fit them in my living room,” he says with some exaggeration.
His experts told him it was time for a new name, a new theme, and new management. But that would mean shutting the place down and spending even more money. “We’d already endured and sacrificed, and there was nothing to be gained by giving up now.”
Today, the Pacifica club opens to massive crowds and generates big profits. “You can’t create something like this overnight,” Dean says with relief and pride.
Among managers in upper-level positions, 84 percent report having had to deal with a “period of discomfort” in their lives. Some took career risks, worked long hours, or acquired new skills, but they saw the sacrifice as necessary to pursue employment, promotion, and success.
Atkinson 1999