No pain, no gain…right? So many entrepreneurs are convinced that suffering is the magic potion for unlocking achievement. But does it have to be? Today I share how I discovered that sacrifice is only ONE road to success, and how you can find the pleasurable path to your goals. When you locate that path of least resistance, you can actually achieve freedom faster *and* live your life more in the process. No sacrifice, suffering, or years of misery required!

See transcript below:

Steve Napolitan: Welcome to More Business More Life Daily. Today I want to talk about freedom. How we can succeed at having the dreams that we want without sacrifice. Yes, I said it, “How do we have what we want in our life without sacrifice,” many times before this, and see if this is true to you. It’s been told to me many times that we live in this thing of no pain, no gain, and many of us have believed this. I did too. That if it’s not painful, then we must not be gaining from it. Now I’ve found that I gain as much, if not more in some ways, when there isn’t pain. We can actually, this is one of our next core beliefs is that we can succeed in achieving our dreams without sacrifice. This sacrifice is a belief, because many of us think that if we’re sacrificing, then we’re going to get something from it, which is true.

I mean the reason that this has happened so long, you can gain. You learn a lot when it hurts. However, what I’ve found is … Let’s just take this to our body for a second. When we put our hand towards a fire, right, it’s hot. In fact, there might be so much heat that our hand jerks away before we even touch the fire. Hopefully, right? It’s like, “Whoo.” The body knows that can hurt us. If you touch the fire, it jerks away without you even thinking about it. You’ll just have a reaction. This is our nerve endings, right? What I’ve found as I’ve become and paid more attention to this, when I’m doing something and it doesn’t feel good, it’s my body telling me to move away. Now, I have to discern, and the way that I’ve done this is that when that doesn’t feel good, I have to check in.

Is it fear? Am I afraid of what’s happening? Because the fear, when we’re going towards something that we’ve never gone towards, which a lot of times I say, “Oftentimes success doesn’t always feel normal,” because normal is what we’re used to. It’s our comfort zone. As soon as you stretch towards what you want, then we start to feel uncomfortable. A lot of times that feeling causes us to move back to where we were because we’re feel like, “Oh, it doesn’t feel good. It must be wrong. It doesn’t feel right.” All of those things is just because it feels different. So we have to discern, am I afraid of where I’m going, or it’s something that I don’t know, or it’s unknown. A lot of times the fear comes from the unknown. If that’s there, then I move forward.

If I’m doing something and it’s miserable to me, I do not like it, it’s draining my energy, and/or I’m able to do it because I see where I want to go, but it is draining me, and I’m putting so much work, or it’s not working out, everything is difficult. It’s like when you try to travel somewhere, it’s like the flight got canceled, my bag got a lost, everything is showing up with adversity, it’s the universe or myself showing me, “Don’t go that way.” This has been proven to me now in over a decade from me becoming more aware of this. When I actually step back, reassess what’s going on, and make a new decision, because there’s many ways to get there.

What I want to be clear on, I don’t stop my dreams. I don’t stop where I want to go. I just change the path. It’s like if you’re driving on the road and the road ends up being condemned, there’s potholes, no one’s caring for the road, and you realize, “Oh my gosh, they’ve abandoned this road. They’ve built a new interstate. If we just move over to that road, then we can keep driving.” There’s many ways to get to your success. Be willing to shift. When things get adverse, when things are very challenged, it doesn’t mean press harder. Now, does it mean that if you do press harder you can get there? Absolutely. That’s why we believe in this.

What I want to be clear on, I don’t stop my dreams. I don’t stop where I want to go. I just change the path. It’s like if you’re driving on the road and the road ends up being condemned, there’s potholes, no one’s caring for the road, and you realize, “Oh my gosh, they’ve abandoned this road. They’ve built a new interstate. If we just move over to that road, then we can keep driving.” There’s many ways to get to your success. Be willing to shift. When things get adverse, when things are very challenged, it doesn’t mean press harder. Now, does it mean that if you do press harder you can get there? Absolutely. That’s why we believe in this.

To succeed without sacrifice means that we have to pause more. We have to look at where we’re going and find another path. Sometimes we can’t find the other path. We have to ask someone that’s already done it before, and then that speeds it up even more. So if you want to get somewhere, and you’re not sure how to get there, then find someone else that’s already been there. Find that path. Stop hurting yourself. When you find pain, number one, notice if it’s fear. If it is, then move forward because it’s just that you’re not aware of it, and it’s a new feeling. Then if it is something that doesn’t feel good, or has much adversity, find another path. These have changed my life, and I hope that it will for you.

Let me know if this has been useful for you. Put it in the message. Let me know how else I can help you. If you liked this video, please subscribe and support us in continuing to help as many people as we can. As always, remember, choose gratitude and create freedom. We’ll see you on the next episode.