Have you sacrificed greatly to achieve something? Has someone told you once that everything good requires sacrifice? They lied (or were just mistaken).
Often our checklist to achieve something includes a sacrifice. The biggest sacrifices we tend to make are involve time and money - we never have enough we think. We may cut back to save our money and free up our time. Sometimes we give up things we know we'll regret later and lie to ourselves we will recover the time later.
In my 26 years of military service I witnessed and expressed many forms of sacrifice. The most terrible sacrifice I think service members make (besides death) is missing time with loved ones. The time to prepare for a deployment combined with the deployments themselves can rob years from time spent with family. It stinks. And I wish there were a better way.
A friend of mine lost several years' time with his family after several years of this type of sacrifice. Ultimately, his family was destroyed. He did not want or intend to see his family fall to pieces, but as he left the team all he could do was cry and express regret. This image is burned in my memory and I vowed to never put my family in a similar position.
I rested on a single verse to help guide me through many deployments and decisions about where to spend my time on active-duty. 3 John 2 is a prayer John makes for his friend Gaius' health, prosperity and soul. I 'operationalized' this verse in my life and prayed all would go well in my life even if I did not put in extra hours before a deployment. Or, if I missed time with my family. I had to trust God for all to go well in my life even though I did not have all the time I wanted to prepare for deployments and spend time with family.
This prayer worked. All my deployments were successful and my family is stronger than ever.
Before you decide you need to give up something, ask God to help you first. You will get what you need to do exactly what He designed you to do and you can trust Him to provide. You will not regret the decision to ask God for help!