“Wish we could turn back time, to the good ol’ days,
When our momma sang us to sleep but now we’re stressed out.”
– Twenty One Pilots, Stressed Out

In preparation for starting at Turing in October, they are having the students take some online Ruby prep courses through a program called Tealeaf Academy. I started this a few weeks ago, right around the time I quit my job. One of the first things they had us do was watch a video introduction to the course. At one point the instructor asks [paraphrased],

“What are you going to sacrifice to take these courses? Time with your family? Time for your hobbies? Something else? Because if you’re going to devote the time you need to learn this new skill and change your life, you have to sacrifice something.”

That small moment, only about a minute in a sixty minute video, has stuck with me since then. He was right. In order to do all of this prep work, in order to participate fully at Turing, I’ve had to start sacrificing things.

I may have quit my job (the first sacrifice! though it wasn’t really a loss to me) but I’m actually busier than I was when I was still working. I’m now doing 8 – 10 hours of coding 6 days a week trying to finish my online nanodegree at Udacity and complete the prerequisite work for Turing. I’ve had to sacrifice my free time and time with my husband. I’ve had to sacrifice some of my exercising, because I simply can’t fit it into my day anymore. I’ve had to turn down going out to do things because we’re on a tight budget.

You aren’t going to get real change without sacrificing something. And in order to sacrifice, you have to determine what your priorities are. Anyone who has ever tried to lose a significant amount of weight can confirm this.

I am pretty good at prioritizing. I can look at all the things I have to (or want to) do today, this week, this month, this year and separate out what’s really important to me and what can be pushed aside. Sometimes it’s not so easy but that’s what journaling, talking, and making pros/cons lists are for. The important part is that you realize you must sacrifice something if you’re going to try to add something that either directly contradicts how you’ve been doing things or that requires a significant amount of time.

There are a lot of people who are terrible at prioritizing. I think of them as can’t-say-no people and they refuse to believe anything must be sacrificed. Now, sometimes this works. Sometimes. Most of the time you see people who become really, really stressed out because they are trying to fit so much into one day that it’s difficult to keep up with.

That’s where honesty with yourself comes into play. You have to know yourself well enough to be able to look at all that you want and to truthfully answer the question, “Can I really do all of this?”

I think that the majority of my friends are pretty honest with themselves, but I know quite a few that aren’t. If there’s one single thing I could wish upon everyone, it’s to be honest with themselves. Does anyone realize how much conflict is caused because people aren’t really honest with themselves? Because they can’t see who they really are, or more accurately, refuse to admit who they really are?

How can you move forward if you don’t know your own strengths and limitations?

Next time you’re thinking about making a change (and I don’t mean buying new sheets), make sure you look at everything else you’re already doing to figure out if anything needs to be cut. Figure out what you really want (not what anyone tells you to want), what you can honestly manage in any given day, and what needs to be sacrificed for the greater good of yourself.