No Pain, No Gain
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. No Pain, no gain. We’ve all heard it before. It’s still true.
Introduction
It’s nice to have all of our goals and achievement plans written down in one place. It was a lot of effort to get to this point. Now the hard work starts.
A word about sacrifice
Are you willing to make the sacrifice? Are you willing to make the sacrifice to achieve your dreams? A year from now, what do you wish you had done today? Because, make no mistake, it will require sacrifice.
There is a reason I use sports and military themes in attempting to motivate you to be successful. The reason is that both endeavors require hard work, often done in solitude and relying only on individual determination.
You can work hard and prepare for years, FOR YEARS, in anticipation of the opportunity that will open the door and propel you forward to high achievement. My daughter started playing softball just shy of her 5th birthday. Throughout her youth, as a pitcher, she was good, but just could not get the starting job. I told her, “Keep working hard, and one day, your opportunity will come.” Finally, in her senior year of high school, she won the starting job. All that effort for all those years was finally recognized, almost 13 years later.
But that’s not all. Because of her hard work and high performance, she was awarded a scholarship to play at a junior college. As a freshman, she set many school records, and the team advanced to place fifth in the country at the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Softball World Series.
As great as that was, here is the important thing. Her school had very high academic standards, even for student-athletes, which challenged her and prepared her for the future. That opportunity, in turn, led to walking on as a pitcher at Oklahoma State University, a Division One school and the pinnacle of non-professional sports. Reaching the top level in any endeavor takes sacrifice, often over many years.
If you are or have been an athlete, you know about the early morning workouts, school all day, afternoon workouts, and then homework. Maybe you’ve watched your kids work hard to be not only athletic but also academic successes. You see, achievement is hard, the payoff sweet.
Some of you were not alive in 1990, but I was. In 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected president and dramatically increased funding for the military. Recall that I joined the Air Force in 1979 and had a front-row seat to what I’m about to tell you. Throughout his 8 years in office, Reagan was a strong supporter of the military, a military depleted by years of neglect and underfunding.
In August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait with over 100,000 troops. America’s military had been essentially untested since an embarrassing withdrawal from Vietnam in March 1973. There was talk of Iraq’s battle-hardened military, having fought Iran for 8 years from 1980 through 1988. People said the US could not stand up to them. But stand up they did. On February 24, 1991, the US invaded Iraq, and in a short 100 hours, combat operations ceased, the Iraqi military was defeated, and Kuwait was liberated. You see, years of investment and training came to a head in a sudden moment, and the US was ready with a show of force and weapons no one could have imagined.
Are you willing to make the sacrifice? There is nothing more rewarding than working hard and achieving success in your chosen field. Like the feeling you have after a workout, that exhausted feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment.
One more thing
I’m not going to kid you. I always wanted to be in leadership positions. I enjoyed leading others, making decisions, being in meetings, and associating with other leaders. But there were difficult times when I wondered if it would not have been better to still be a mechanic on the midnight shift, where I could do my work, go home, and not worry about it anymore. I’ve worked more 12-hour shifts and Saturdays than I can count. It was hard. I made sacrifices. My family sacrificed. I don’t know anyone who has accomplished anything worthwhile who has not made sacrifices. I’ve found that the payoff is worth it. I’m guessing you will too.
I ask you, what is the option? Have you ever asked yourself the question “What if?” What if I did things differently? If I took a job that seemed easy? If I had said no to the hard rather than yes? You see, one of my biggest fears in life was that someday, I would get to a point, look back, and say “I wish I had…” More than anything else, I would say that I feared regret.
Oh, sure, there are things I wish I had done differently. I’ve made mistakes, suffered defeat, and setbacks. But on the whole, I’m very happy that I did the hard work, made the sacrifices, and will not have regret. If I’m really honest with you, I’ll admit there are a thing or two I wish I had done differently; we all have those, and those have left me with, just perhaps, a tinge of regret in a couple of areas. On the whole, on the big things, spending time to plan out the life I wanted and then executing the plan gave me a lot of satisfaction. I’m guessing it will for you too. Because if you were not of the same bent, you would not still be with me. You know I’m right.
Summary
I’ve said it before; I’ll say it again. It’s the hard that makes it great.
Don’t take your dreams to the graveyard.
Click on the link in Note 1 to see a great video that makes the point.
That’s all for this week!
PS
Check out the picture that accompanies this post. If you trade out the Army uniform for an Air Force one, that was me in June, 1979. No, not the drill sergeant on the left, the basic trainee on the right. I made the most difficult, yet most important decision in my life to join the Air Force, the hardest, yet most fulfilling, job I've ever had. It all began with basic training at Lackland AFB, TX. In the heat of a San Antonio summer.
And the reason that young basic trainee in the picture was me? You see, I had trouble learning to march. Well, it was not that I could not march, but that I was not coordinated enough, at least initially, to march in formation with the other 49 airmen without looking down at my feet to stay in step. As you can imagine, during basic training, that was a capital offense, one guaranteed to get you some personal attention, while the other 49 guys listened and were thankful it was you and not them. Sergeant Davis, a short little scrappy drill sergeant, kinda like a little pit bull that grabs your pants leg and won’t let go, stopped the flight in the middle of the road and came over to give me some “instruction” on how to march in formation. And he got in my face, sticking his Smokey the Bear hat under the bill of my cap, just like you see in the picture. At which point, he spoke at a volume so loud it was impossible not to hear him, asking all kinds of questions about my family lineage, my intelligence level, and questioning my reason for coming all the way to Texas from Virginia just to piss him off (In case you don’t know, he really did not want me to answer his questions. That would have made it worse, Oh, yea, it would have been really bad then). I’ll never forget the unique smell of coffee and tobacco on his breath. Yes, if you’ve ever experienced that, you know exactly what I mean.
Of course, I never looked down at my feet again, so I guess you could say he was effective…
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No Pain, No Gain
Afterburner Success Partners
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What’s in it for me?
If you want to get ahead in life, if you want to achieve your dreams and live your best life, you must take meaningful, deliberate action that follows a proven path. Getting ahead is about learning what to do and then doing it over time.
Call to Action
Just. Do. Something. Make a decision on what you want or need to do, define the path, and get after it. Do it today.
Recommended Resources
See notes below for either of my books.
Up Next
Enjoy the ride and be happy.
Notes
Please note that as an Amazon Affiliate, I may earn a small commission on the sale of any of these recommended resources.
Sacrifice to succeed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSXnZOB4Q9s
Achieve Your Dreams: A Complete Guide to Live Your Best Life, by David Giustozzi: https://amzn.to/3IxEFgy
Everyday Cooking for Everyday People Like Us, by David Giustozzi: https://amzn.to/437OhVQ