We all want shortcuts. No one naturally pursues discomfort. But pain is coming for us either way. Either pain of our choosing or pain of regret and disappointment for living less of a life than what's available to us.

Genuine personal satisfaction in your achievements requires stretching yourself, learning, trying, sometimes failing, and eventually overcoming the obstacles. Choose your pain and maximize the rewards in exchange.

Read on: blog.WednesdayWin.com​

Read time: 4 minutes

There is no satisfaction in achievement without effort.

Sometimes it will be difficult, frustrating, and require significant sacrifice. If you don't embrace that hardship, you aren't free from discomfort. Instead, regret or worse will bring its own form of pain and all without the benefit of the rewards.

How can we avoid that fate? Let's explore:

1. Discipline

The first pain we must choose is discipline.

The discipline of planning, building habits, delivering on promises, and keeping commitments is often unpleasant, but always essential. Without this, the other actions we take won't matter much.

But even when the task is unpleasant, know that it is part of your greater plan and an important step in the journey to your goals.

• Be thoughtful
• Plan carefully and adapt as conditions change
• Keep committments, recognize errors, and improve your strategies and approach over time
• Strive for small improvements every day

2. Time management

How do we really reveal what's important to us? How we spend our time.

Reduced to its essence, time management is the balance of what we must do and what we wish to do. Most people add a large third category by default: what we do when we aren't thinking at all.

Healthy time management strategies focus on what must be completed efficiently each day so we can optimize our opportunities for growth, learning, positive engagement with others, and the rest of our leisure.

There are many approaches that work, my favorite is built around the idea of the 12-Week Year which I detailed in this earlier note.

• Commit with care and then be ruthless about finishing the priority work
• Do the difficult tasks when planned
• Leave blocks of time to address the inevitable surprises
• Don't overload your schedule, but don't also skip any commitments once made

3. Create time by delegating

You aren't in this alone. Even if you are running a one-person company, you have resources that can complete tasks for you.

And, if you are leading a team or organization, you need to be relentless in delegating as much as possible. Focus on training others to execute instead of keeping those tasks to yourself.

Delegating is hard. No one will care as much as about your priorities as you do, but you can build a team's capabilities to deliver at the level you need. Trust your team and reinforce great results through public praise. Handle gaps through private instruction.

Communicate your mission and build a team that believes in the same priorities.

• Offload easily defined tasks to others
• Recognize the limits and value of your available time
• Focus your direct effort on the high leverage, high value tasks
• Delegate too soon–intentionally–and help your team rise to the occasion

4. Skill stacking

Investing in your future through lifelong learning is essential and can carry its own rewards.

Invest and build fresh skills in complementary areas to your current strengths. Keep on top of the key developments in your field. Don't lose hours watching random clips fed to you by an optimized engagement algorithm. Switch to content that informs, enables, and enriches instead.

Choose to stretch your mind and your abilities. I dive into the hows and whys of Skill Stacking in this earlier edition.

• Reaching the top 25% in each of two or more skills is much easier than the top 5% in one
• The world and your industry is constantly changing and you must change to meet the opportunity
• Learning encourages more learning; the challenge is reduced the more you meet it
• Invest in yourself and you'll not only reach success sooner, but will live richer in every phase of your life

5. Habits

The final pain you must embrace is to start and keep new positive habits.

The hardest trip to the gym is the first one. No alarm is more unwelcome than the first day you get up before 5AM. Starting your daily writing habit never looks more challenging than the first day staring at a blank screen.

Become a master of establishing positive habits and you will see your results soar.

I've shared a simple step-by-step of how to start this practice of creating new habits in this post.

• Forming positive habits is essential to sustained progress
• The start of any new habit is a heavy lift, but an essential skill for anyone committed to personal growth
• Choose wisely and then embrace the commitment fully
• Launching new positive habits is a powerful skill that supports every long-term goal you pursue

Action Summary

This is where it all comes together. Embrace the pain embedded in these actions and focus instead on your primary purpose. What do you really want to experience, reach, achieve, and live in your life? If that's what matters, how will you commit fully?

Choose wisely and avoid the disappointment of regret.

Embrace:

• Discipline
• Time management
• Delegation
• Skill stacking
• Habit building

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What do you think? What pain are you willing to accept to find your way to your success? Reply to this email and let me know.

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To your success,

Christopher

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P.S. Like this one? You'll probably want to check out this earlier Wednesday Win essay on the cycle of emotional change, too.

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