“You must give up the way it is… to have it the way you want it.”

In digging through inspirational quotes for a special promo project, I came across this quote, which really resonated with the way I see life, and have seen it over the years. I touched on this idea in my Transitions, Passions and Sacrifices blog post, but I wanted to expand a little and make it a bit more applicable to your lives.

It’s so true that there is a lot of sacrifice to do what you love and get paid for it ultimately. It’s something I’ve lived by most of my adult life. I think we’ve come to know a generation of people that are starting to value free time, enjoyment of life and loving what they do as SUCCESS as opposed to money. Don’t get me wrong, we all need money to live and to live decently to whatever your standard of living may be, but our new definition of “success” changes that ball game drastically. If you really want to do what you love and make a decent living that takes a lot of time, hard work, and sacrifice to get to a stable point.

What does that mean? We all know it takes money to live, but how much? I’ve always seen the end goal of “Success” being achieved by putting the right puzzle pieces together. Some people have greater responsibilities than others at the time of their decision to pursuing their passion, so the puzzle pieces are different for everyone. Some people live in bigger, more expensive cities than others. Some have relationships and families. Some have full time jobs where the salary is great with consistent/stable pay and they’re used to that standard of living. Obviously there are more, but if you have an ultimate goal of doing what you love, it’s about moving the puzzle pieces around and cutting things/overhead that need to be cut in order to create more time and/or money that can be invested back into your business of creativity.

To me it has always meant making those small decisions to save money, and the sacrifices of taking the jobs that aren’t that creative for a higher pay/less time ratio. Success for me is defined by working a job I love, enjoying life(the biggest idea I took home with me from my living stint in Paris), having great people around me, and making enough money for a decent living. To get to that point means to design your lifestyle to get there. What have I sacrificed along the way? Money, stability, relationships, eating out, loads of possessions, etc. What have I received? Much more free time to enjoy life, and pursue my passion of a career, travel, etc.

I recently read a book called the 4-hour work week which, in my opinion, some of the ideas in the book are a bit extreme, but the basic idea is great. I recommend it: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/ I talk often about branding and design, and this book is about applying those concepts to your life –  Designing a lifestyle that in the end brings you happiness and fulfillment.

It ultimately comes down to “how bad do you WANT this version of success?” How bad you WANT it will dictate how much you will sacrifice to get there. How much will you give up? If you’re working a full time job with great steady pay but you hate it, are you willing to give that up along with the financial stability that goes with it to give you the free time to create a business of your passion? The amount of work it takes to get to that position is a hefty amount and you got to WANT it enough to be motivated to hustle for it.

Food for thought.