Yesterday, after a very long day, I had finally gotten in my bed. I had finally gotten comfy. I had finally gotten warm…nothing could prepare me for what happened next…

Small backstory before the full story; one of the three jobs that I currently work is working on a couple of commercial turkey farms. I live with my brother-in-law and sister. He owns a turkey farm and his dad owns a turkey farm and I work on both here and there. Whenever they need help, I am there to assist in any way I can. If I am not working one of my other jobs, that is.

So, anyway, I am in bed about ready to fall asleep and I get a text from my brother-in-law:

As you can see, I said yes right away. That is simply because that is my personality. I am not always very good at helping others on my own initiative (though I’m working on this), but if anyone ever asks me for help, I will almost say yes. To a fault. I truly love being able to help people. Especially when they need it.

However, this is from an objective position. An outside looking in perspective. I promise you, the last thing I was thinking in that bed was “Gee, I’d sure like to go dump out some baby turkey’s right now. I’m not tired. I don’t need the sleep. It’s fine that I have to get up early.”

I did not want to go. I was beat. However, instead of letting my emotions of the moment control what I did, I was able to use an objective position of what I really wanted to make the final decision.

And I am so glad that I did. Even as I was helping I became energized. I was so happy to truly be in a place that was needed. I loved being able to create value for this man. When I got home (almost 1:00 am), I felt great. I did something that I truly loved doing. Never mind that it was at an inconvenient hour, I did something I truly loved. Why should I restrain that to a time?

I guess I explain this story as a lesson:

Don’t let your emotions control your ability to achieve your goals.

Figure out what you like. What you want to do. Go and do whatever you have to do to accomplish that. At points during this process, you are going to hit walls where you feel like this surely must not be what you actually want to do if you’re not dying to do it every hour of every day. Yes, sometimes your true aspirations change, but usually, we have little roadblocks in our way of seeing the true destination we’re going after.

Stay focused on long-term-gain, not on short-term-pleasure.

Master this, and you will be more productive and successful than almost any other person.