What Are You Willing To Sacrifice?
As I mentioned it a few times before, I work out to the videos of the Polish fitness trainer Ewa Chodakowska. She recently posted this thing on Facebook that made me think. People always say things like: “I wish I could live like that”, “I wish I could live in NY”, “I wish I could travel like you do”, “I wish I looked like you” (just to be clear – they’re not saying all these things about me). But then comes the question that not many people want to ask themselves, namely: “You want it? So what are you willing to sacrifice to get it…?”
Do you want to have a body like Ewa…? OK, so are you willing to get your ass up and work out at least 5 times a week and start eating healthy…? Do you want to live in NYC…? So, are you willing to give up your life in your country or a city and throw yourself into this jungle? No connections, no job, no privileges (quite the opposite), no family? Huh? Do you want to have this amount of money? So, are you willing to work your ass off, network, start from the bottom, work overtime, work shitty hours at jobs you don’t want to do…? Or maybe you want to be your own boss? OK, so, are you willing to get all the opportunities you see, hustle, live poorly for a while, save, don’t go out, work the whole day every day for at least a few years? If you are not willing to do that, please stop saying: “I wish”. Whenever I hear “I wish…”, my tension just goes up (or – to be honest – I want to throw up). Stop “wishing” and start doing. Those people you look up to are not different than you are. Yes, that’s right. You prefer to say: “But your will is stronger”, “But you’re born rich”, “But you had more money”, “But your start was different”, “But I’m not like that”, “But I can’t do that”. That’s all lies. Lies. Lies. Lies. Lies that you keep telling yourself in order to actually not do anything.
I just came back from California. That trip had been my dream for as long as I remember. It took me almost 4 years of living in the US to finally buy a ticket to LA. I bought it, after which my account showed $2 (I’m not kidding). For the next week, I had to be careful with my expenses (I had food, though). You can call me crazy or irresponsible, but this is what I just asked you – what are you willing to sacrifice…? No one bought this ticket for me, no one paid for my trip. I earned my dream and I made it happen. The sacrifices I had to make along the way were tremendous, and one day I will write a book about that, but as for now, I am proud of myself. I’m proud because first of all, I stopped saying: “I wish…”. I simply know that the only person who can make my wishes come true is me. And I am not different than anybody else in that respect; I can have whatever I want. And so do you. You can have whatever you want, but honey – you have to put in some work. You have to decide how badly you want something to happen. And don’t you dare say sentences like: “But he/ she…”. No, sweetie. They’re not different, they just chose different things. And you chose excuses. I’m so sick of people waiting for someone to give them what they want. Let me be a messenger of this golden truth: No one will give you anything, you have to give it to yourself. And the only reason you didn’t get what you wanted is not that other people have some exceptional abilities and skills – it’s the amount of work you put into getting it. When people say: “It used to be my dream, but it never came true” I always respond the same way: If it didn’t happen, it means it wasn’t your dream in a first place, because you didn’t want it badly enough.
