Somewhere along the line in my journey to solvency I made a profound, life-changing discovery. I learned that I could replace my fear of deprivation with the joy of sacrifice. I learned to harness my powerful emotions and make them my ally, not my enemy. I purposely set out to embrace sacrifice and reject all feelings of deprivation.

Sacrifice or deprivation

Sacrifice means to give up something of value for the sake of something else that is more important or more worthy. Deprivation means to have a possession or enjoyment taken away. Once I learned the startling difference between the two concepts I understood immediately why meaningful change kept eluding me.

Sacrifice. It's a beautiful concept. Sacrifice involves purpose. Sacrifice acknowledges a goal that is more worthy and of greater value than the sacrifice itself. There's no deprivation involved, simply a choice to give up something of lesser value right now to have or achieve something far more worthy in the future. Sacrifice focuses on a goal. Deprivation focuses on poor me. Sacrifice lifts my head and lets me see the big picture. Deprivation turns my eyes inward so I see nothing but myself.

The practice of sacrificing in the context of changing one's financial condition is an art form that requires commitment and a lot of practice.

The key is to identify your more worthy goal. Without a very clear purpose your sacrifice will be nothing more than deprivation. You'll be tempted to quit before you even get started. You need a worthy cause on which to focus.

Perhaps your worthy cause is to get out of debt once and for all, or take a once-in-a-lifetime family vacation. Maybe your noble purpose is to save for college or invest for your retirement.

Let's use the example that you're committed to be debt-free three years from now and to that end you are willing to make the necessary sacrifices. Just saying you're going to be debt-free is nice but you need more than that. You need a specific strategy that outlines exactly how you are going to reach your goal. We call that a Rapid Debt-Repayment Plan (see CM, Apr. '03, page 4-5).

You'll need to establish bench marks so that you can measure your progress and look back to see how far you've come. Focusing on the worthy cause and visualizing its importance and value is the way to combine the economic and emotional sides of financial change. Living each day with the goal in mind and practicing how you'll feel when that final debt is finally wiped out is the way to control your emotions.

I'm not suggesting that sacrifice will not be significant or at times painful. But when you choose to focus on the more worthy goal, sacrifice becomes tolerable. With practice you will see the connection between a small sacrifice and the great reward. You won't be as tempted to quit the way you would if you were trying to survive deprivation.