7 Sacrifices Successful Entrepreneurs Make to Succeed

You can’t have success without sacrifice;

If it was easy enough to become one of the greats without making sacrifices, every tom, dick and harry would skate by through life putting in the bare minimum, and still living they’re dreams. They wouldn’t have earned it.

Every successful entrepreneur has made sacrifices in order to build themselves great wealth and success. But they won’t just make one. They’ll make several in order to maximize their entrepreneurial growth.

7 Sacrifices Successful Entrepreneurs Make to Succeed

Here are 7 of those sacrifices successful entrepreneurs make:

 

1. Security

If you’re planning on ‘starting from the bottom’, in the business world so to speak, then your job security is a sacrifice you need to think about making.

The only way you gain job security in the first place is by dedicating the majority of your time each day working for someone else. Starting a business at the same time can be incredibly tough, and in many circumstances almost impossible.

So you need to sacrifice the security in order to work towards bigger things. It’s both a difficult risk and sacrifice since income will be tight, but you’ve got to be willing to give up the good in order to shoot for the great!

 

2. Free Time

There comes a point in every entrepreneurs life time where they can slow down on the hours they’re putting in and begin to gain back their free time.

But to begin with, and certainly for a long period of time, they’ll sacrifice their free time to spend more hours working and building something they can truly be proud of.

All that time you’d normally spend watching T.V, chilling and doing unproductive activities will need to be sacrificed, and extra sickening work ethic needs to be put in.

As soon as you step into the wide world of business, the level of competition hits an all time high and becomes a major factor in determining your success.

If more hours put into a business correlates with larger progress made, and every other entrepreneur is working 15 hour days, does that make your situation different to the rest? They’re your competition. Stay on their level, otherwise you won’t survive.

 

3. Money

Mark Cuban once said that people who start businesses on loans are fools, and I agree with him to a certain extent.

Obtaining a loan for a startup gives you a little more financial stability in the short term, and that cash isn’t something that you personally have to sacrifice, not all in one go anyway.

Loans aside, you’ll have to sacrifice a lot of money to start a business. both in the short term and long term. Be prepared to sacrifice your hard earned savings in order to build a company that has a chance of surviving at least one year. Don’t skimp on the cost!

 

4. Sleep

Sleep gets mentioned in almost one third of every blog post to do with success and entrepreneurship, and it’s certainly a subheading I’ve used 3 or 4 times before.

Have you noticed? That’s because it maps in to so many different topics covered in the areas of entrepreneurship, self development, health and success.

In this instance, it’s quite simple: The right amount of sleep leaves you with more hours in the day to get things done and prep yourself for the day, yet it won’t leave you feeling fatigued and without the energy to do anything.

It’s never about sacrificing huge chunks of sleep every night; just sacrificing what you can do without in order to gain a few hours in your day. Anymore and it won’t be worth it because you’ll lack energy.

Sleep is a sacrifice successful entrepreneurs make because they know they don’t necessarily need it, and it unlocks more hours in the day for them to crack on with work, or potentially gain back a little free time sacrificed in point 2.

Meditation, exercise and preparation for the day are 3 things that entrepreneurs will spend their time doing when they awake earlier in the morning, and it’s definitely worth the sacrifice.

 

5. Possessions

There’s two different aspects of this point that I’d like to talk about. The first is that if you’re struggling to come up with the money needed for your startup, the ‘go to’ source of funds before getting a business loan, would be to sell any possessions that you don’t need.

Most of us have small fortunes spread across our homes in the form of unused, unwanted and unneeded belongings. It’s time to sell those possessions.

However, other than pawning stuff in order to gain cash for your startup, the other way to look at this is that a lot of money will be tied up in the business, and potentially a small portion of your monthly income will also be re-invested.

Therefore, you can’t afford to be blowing all your cash on luxurious items that you simply don’t need right now. You can do without them for now.

 

6. Comfort

Comfort’s the last thing you’re going to have on the path to success as an entrepreneur. You’ve got to get up early, work hard and dedicate yourself entirely, so comfort isn’t exactly something you should be expecting.

You won’t be comfortable, not for a long while. Try and get into a new routine of doing things that push you out of your comfort zone. That require discipline and perseverance. If you can get used to this, sooner than later, your definition of comfortable will shift for the better.

 

7. Social Life

The last sacrifice on this list, is your social life. If entrepreneurs need to work more hours in order to make a name for themselves, then their social life gets withered. You Shouldn’t completely sacrifice your social life.

That’s not good for anyone, and there’s absolutely no fun in life if you cut yourself off from everyone else.

Although, if you plan on making great progress as a businessman, perhaps cut down on the hours you spend at the pub every week. Now’s the time to become a little more selective with your social life.

 

Summary

Here’s a quick recap of the 7 sacrifices entrepreneurs make to succeed:

1. Security
2. Money
3. Free Time
4. Sleep
5. Possessions
6. Comfort
7. Social Life

Diamu Blog Team