Common entrepreneur reflection: Were the sacrifices I made worth it?
Like many other entrepreneurs, I sacrificed a lot for my businesses.
Too much.
I have spent the last 10 years or so trying to make up for experiences I missed out on.
(There was a particular lapse in the years between 2005-2010.)
My husband is constantly surprised at the shows and movies I’ve never seen, my lack of travel, and the number of times I’ve said, “I don’t really remember that happening.”
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When I started my entrepreneurial journey in my early 20s, most of my friends were starting their careers, dating, and just learning to be on their own.
I realize now that what I sacrificed was more than missing out on happy hour with friends or time with my family during the holidays – I also sacrificed my youth.
Entrepreneurs Go in Knowing They Have to Sacrifice – Or Do We?
After coaching hundreds of entrepreneurs, not one has said that they didn’t realize they would have to sacrifice something. They knew they would miss out on paychecks, time with their kids, and lose countless hours of sleep.
Nearly every article about entrepreneur and business ownership mentions some of the sacrifices you can expect to make.
However, it’s the lesser-known or obvious sacrifices that really take their toll. Things like:
- Personal identity shift: Entrepreneurs become so entangled with their business that they have lost a sense of who they are outside of work.
- Delayed life milestones: Putting off marriage, having children, or other significant life events due to business demands.
- Loss of hobbies and passions: Neglecting activities that once brought joy and relaxation.
- Reduced spontaneity: Difficulty taking unplanned time off or being present in the moment.
- Cognitive bandwidth: Less mental space for learning new, non-business-related skills or pursuing intellectual interests.
- Decision fatigue: The constant need to make choices can lead to mental exhaustion and reduced decision-making quality in personal life.
- Privacy: Increased public scrutiny, especially in small communities or niche industries, or from your employees.
- Risk tolerance adjustment: Becoming overly cautious or risk-averse in personal life due to business stresses.
- Cultural disconnection: Falling out of touch with pop culture, current events, or societal trends due to intense focus on business.
- Ethical compromises: Making small compromises that can accumulate and affect personal values over time.
- Deeper relationships: Not having the time or missing out on experiences that deepen relationships with people in your life.
It’s the lesser-known or not obvious sacrifices that I believe lead to burnout because they affect the core of your well-being.
What No One Tells You (or Admits) About the Entrepreneurial Journey and Sacrifice
It sucks and can lead to a lot of resentment. (Resentment, by the way, is very stressful.)
Many successful (and unsuccessful) entrepreneurs are asked at some point if the sacrifices they made are worth it.
They (me included) often talk about the hardships they experienced but leave out how they really felt and possibly still feel. So, the audience is left believing that it all worked out in the end.
For most of us, success came at a painful cost that plagues us long after.
Since I don’t want to speak for others, I’ll give you an example from my own life.
I was such a people pleaser and perfectionist that I sacrificed my own needs and health to make others happy. Specifically, I:
- I missed a close friend’s wedding (that I was supposed to be a bridesmaid in!) because a client was running late. Instead of telling the client we needed to reschedule, I missed the wedding and spent years rebuilding trust with my friend.
- Instead of telling a client that I couldn’t meet their needs, I created a whole new line of business services that went against my business’s values, I knew nothing about, and were expensive. All to avoid saying no.
- Covering missed shifts by employees instead of figuring out a better plan that allowed me to work on business so that I could sustainably grow it.
I could provide you with so many more examples. What each of these examples have in common: the sacrifice leads to long-term consequences and a build up of negative feelings and resentment.
How Do You Know If a Sacrifice Is Worth It?
This question is usually asked too late, after a sacrifice has been made. In fact, it’s an impossible question to answer because you are going to be biased in your response. You’ve already invested time, money, energy, or missed out on an opportunity or event that can’t be recreated.
Instead, ask yourself:
- How did this decision align with my long-term personal and professional goals?
- How did this impact my relationships and overall life satisfaction?
- How can I measure my progress beyond just financial metrics?
Another strategy: create boundaries.
Part of the process of creating boundaries is getting clear on your values, priorities, and goals. You decide ahead of time how you will handle various situations and what you will accept from others.
Basically, you decide where it’s worth pushing yourself and what you are willing to miss out on.
Why this is important to the topic of sacrifices is that each time you make a sacrifice, you make a choice. Your choice can lead you down one of two mental paths.
One mental path is going through the same decision-making process time and time again, often leading to stressful thoughts and emotions. The other mental path is deciding ahead of time about how you will apply your values and priorities so that you are essentially deciding only a few times, which means you aren’t taking yourself on an emotional rollercoaster as often.
For example, you value your free time outside of business hours. Spending time with your family is a priority. So you create a boundary around working outside of business hours or weekends. If someone asks for a meeting after hours, most of the time you answer no – which is in line with your values and priorities. On the occasion that there is an emergency or special circumstance, will you make an exception.
Since you already know your answer, you save yourself the stress of emotional and psychological hardships – like feeling guilty or wondering if you made the “right” decision.
By creating boundaries ahead of time, you remove the emotional pressure likely affects your decision-making process and will continue to eat at you long afterward.
So, how will you know when a sacrifice you made was ‘worth it?’
