The more difficult the task, the greater the investment

The more difficult the task, the greater the investment required. One of the things that people don’t often seem to tell you, is that the greater the dream, the greater the sacrifice.

For me personally, I was so infatuated by the dream that was inspired within me, that I didn’t really give a second thought to what it might cost. I immediately knew that I would do anything, that I would pay any price — and I clearly meant those words considering I am still here 14 years later — but I often wonder whether I would have agreed as quickly if I had known.

Yeah, probably.

I would have been more afraid though, that is for sure.

Big Dreams, and Bigger Sacrifices

The greater the dream, the more time, energy, focus, and will that will be required. But on a deeper level, the more that it will cost you.

I don’t mean this only in the sense of sacrifices, time, or energy. I mean it as a part of you. You will have to dig deeper within yourself to find what you need to complete your task. It is for this reason that greater tasks also require greater focus as well. There are many projects so large, extensive, challenging, and complicated that it might not be possible if you are divided in multiple directions.

Gradual Accumulation vs Intense Focus

For many years, I have rigidly divided my long work day into different types of work. This design was guided by the philosophy that daily learning, practicing, training, and experience accumulates over time. If you are consistent, even a couple hours a day will add up in time, and in this way you can reach a high-level of quality gradually over time.

While I believe that this theory is fundamentally sound, in my experience it does not always work for everything.

We make greater progress on difficult things when we devote more time and energy to something — more of ourselves really. Not just time and effort, but the intangibles. The difference that real presence makes. That willpower, determination, intense engagement, and all-consuming focus can make in the result. The difference that genuinely caring about something can make once you make it personal.

The more of ourselves that we devote to something, the more of our attention, the faster our progress can be. I often wonder if someone like Albert Einstein didn’t have that instinct to stay with problems longer (as indicated by one of his famous quotes) if he would have been able to achieve his ground-breaking discoveries.

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” — Albert Einstein

It is for this reason that I believe that the more difficult the task, the greater the investment that is required of us. If there are things in our lives that we are continually struggling with, problems that persist, projects that remain unresolved, perhaps the solution is simply a matter of will. Making up our mind to focus on that one thing until with single-minded intensity, focus, and determination until we achieve it.

I know from my experience that there are a number of things that I was only able to figure out once I applied myself to the task more deeply than I had ever done before — maybe more deeply than I have ever applied myself. From that same perspective, I also know that there are things that I can achieve once I am able to set aside the time to devote myself to with that same intensity, but simply haven’t … yet.