Sacrifice: The Surest Way to a Life and Body You Can Be Proud Of

It isn’t cool today to talk about sacrifice. We live in a society (at least here in the Developed World) that seems to value only convenience and comfort.

But you’re not going to develop a kick arse life and body without sacrifice.

My condo looks toward the Navy Base where the SEALs train. This evening I stood on my balcony and watched breakout; the start of dreaded Hell Week for First Phase trainees. For over 30 minutes the SEAL trainees scrambled through smoke, water, automatic gunfire, concussion grenades and flares. These trainees wanted to be there. Oh, I know many of them would’ve preferred a nice warm bed and dry clothes at this point but in the bigger scheme of things this was the best place on earth. This was the place that lay between them and their dream.

It takes sacrifice to succeed. These men showed it tonight.

Not all of us are faced with sacrifice like this, but in so many other ways, our inability to face and deal with short-term pain prevents us from achieving our goals.

We make excuses for not sacrificing time to workout. We feel uncomfortable saying no to our buddies when they go out for drinks every week. When we do get into the gym, we take the comfortable way out and stop a set short because we’re starting to feel some ‘pain’.

In the larger scope of our lives our inability to delay gratification leads us down a path of higher debt and credit card balances, fat, out of shape bodies, and hobbies and dreams never worked toward.

In the meantime there are Americans in harms way to protect our right to be safe, warm and free (not to mention alive) here at home and we can’t even manage to go one minute without a Venti triple mocha without bitching? We stuff our faces with fast food then complain about being fat?

Lets get one thing straight.

You’re out of shape because of you. It isn’t a disease. You don’t have fat genes. It’s because up to now you’ve been lazy and haven’t faced a bit of sacrifice to change things. When it got uncomfortable you went right back to your old ways. The average person lasts 2 weeks on a diet. All those New Years fitness resolutions? Down the drain after a week, 2 at the most. We convince ourselves we don’t have what it takes, stuff another glazed donut down our throat sit back and watch some inane ‘reality’ show.

Well I’m going to let you in on a secret. YOU DO HAVE WHAT IT TAKES. You’ve simply decided otherwise.

That changes right now. You can literally change your entire life experience if you willingly embrace your fears and a little sacrifice every day. Give up 1 coffee, put the savings aside and see what happens, in a week, a month, even a year. Decide to workout every day, even if only 20 minutes. Give up, cut back, add a new discipline, do something that feels uncomfortable. This doesn’t have to seem like you’re cutting an arm off. A little bit of sacrifice consistently over a period of time adds up to a lot. And as you exercise the mental discipline to do this, your ability to face challenge will also get stronger and you’ll be able to make larger changes. The effects of discipline are cumulative, adding up over days, months and years.

Do it, now. Unleash Your Inner Hero.

Strength and Honor!