What Are You Willing to Give Up to Have What You Want?

I have a question for you today:

'What are you willing to give up in order to have what you want?'

I remember years ago when I first went into business and people were talking about the willingness to sacrifice some things. I immediately felt that I don't want to sacrifice anything. I want to have it all. But the reality is that we can never have it all at once, all of the time.

As you grow your business, you do have to be willing to give up certain things. Right?

Let me give some examples because this is something we've been working with our clients on recently. Particularly at the beginning of the year. We've reviewed the previous year and said, "Let's look at what's working and what's not working. With those lessons learned, if you could do it over again, what would you not do? What would you do differently?"

What Are You Willing to Give Up?

For example, giving up trying to please everybody in your business. That's a great place to start. Perhaps you need to start setting clear boundaries with your clients. It could be your team members. Where are you willing to work with them? Where are you available to them, and where are you not willing to be available to them?

It's about giving up trying to please everybody and actually setting some new boundaries instead. Oftentimes, you'll find if you're a little bit shaky on your boundaries, it's going to be showing up in multiple areas. It never just shows up in one area. You'll find it with your clients, with your team, probably in your home life as well.

What are some of the other things you might need to be willing to give up?

Sometimes it's willing to give up in the short term to get what you want in the longer term.

Oftentimes, I see some clients as well coming into our programs and they've got really attached to the idea of work/life balance. They say: "I've gone into business for myself because I really want to have a sense of balance and freedom. But, I also want to grow my business, Vanessa, yet I'm not willing to carve out the time to be able to do it all."

Again, that's a great example.

In those early days, you're going to have to be willing to give up your idea of what balance looks like. Recreate it. Perhaps it actually does mean in those early days you've got to be prepared to work some long days. You've got to be prepared to work some weekends or even some evenings. You're going to have to cut into family time perhaps to go and attend events. To attend a conference, be at a networking event for a weekend.

What Are You Willing to Give Up in Order to Have What You Want?

We often talk about this in the context of constantly up-leveling your business. Right?

In order to get to that next level, we must be willing to let go of things at a lower level. Otherwise, it's impossible to grow. It's as if you're trying to get up here, and then you've constantly got all of this stuff down here that keeps pulling you back down again.

Are You Willing?

Sometimes it's about the willingness to give up certain clients. A willingness to give up a desire to serve everybody. And finally ready to declare who your ideal clients are.

Maybe you are willing to give up and stop drama and chaos in your business. Or all the confusion and overwhelm. You know that you need to start looking at being far more focused, systems approached, and a lot more objective in order to grow your business.

So, I really want you to ponder on that question: 'What are you willing to give up?'

It's a big question. It requires a lot of thoughtfulness. What are you willing to give up in order to have what you want?