Sacrifices and Choices That Changed My Life Before I Turned 16 Years Old

Every single day, since the age of 11, I have lived my life making sacrifices and choices. Initially, I made these sacrifices and choices subconsciously and only in my recent years have I learnt the value of the sacrifices and choices I made prior. I have since learnt to make these conscious sacrifices and choices a part of every single day, to ensure I am always consciously learning, understanding and evolving.

I think, only now looking back, do I understand the value of decisions I made as a young boy. Below, I have listed all the memorable sacrifices and choices that I made growing up, which have contributed to the person I am today. It may be important to note that I do not have any regrets, and do not live in the past; each decision I made was important for the growth and development of myself in bringing me to where I am today.

Pivotal Sacrifices and Choices I made before I turned 16:

(Please note, these events are not in sequential order)

• I started working at Hintlesham Hotel at the age of 15, cleaning plates, knives and forks, vacuuming grand halls, carrying lunches and dinners and assisting guests to bedrooms. At this point in my life, this choice was not necessarily mine as I felt it was imperative for me to start earning my own money and not relying on my parents. This taught me the value of working for someone else, doing the basic and not very fun work, but equipping myself with the skills I needed to become a hustler and hard worker.
• Being physically, verbally and emotionally bullied all the way through primary school and choosing to forgive those bullies. I am now great friends with some of them today as I understood they were only lashing out due to personal reasons. This has taught me the value of change and the beauty that people can outgrow old habits and become changed people.
• Sacrificing weekends to go to the rugby field and practice to become a better athlete. I would spend most days either running, swimming or cycling, to ensure I was the fittest player the team had seen. It turns out that this would later assist me in life when I received two rugby scholarships to a private school and university.
• Sacrificing personal time to clean cars and make pocket money for myself. A friend and I would ride around with buckets and sponges and ask people if they needed to have their cars cleaned for a tenner (10 pounds). This grew into a small business where we made some really good money and we were able to stay out of trouble. I appreciated that money requires dedication and hard work. In most cases, it will also require a partner or a team.
• Sacrificing further time to work for a company that requires the delivery of catalogues to the public, collection of catalogues, review of any potential orders, to finally filling orders and delivering those orders to customers. This was a repetitive cycle but taught me a lot about the supply chain. I understood the value of sacrificing my time to get on my bicycle and deliver catalogues, acquire orders, make deliveries and operate my own small business.
• As a young boy and being an anxious and fear driven kid, I became very overweight due to excessive eating. I chose to put my health last, which contributed to the bullying, and later, my experience with anorexia. I sacrificed my life, for the benefit of a short-term gain. I understood that food is a weapon and needs to be handled with care. I now enjoy eating healthily, while learning to cook different meals.
• Choosing to take a risk and import Ralph Lauren cardigans to see if a friend and I could start a small online clothing business. This became a failed clothing import business, which resulted in a great lesson of sacrifice and overcoming challenges. I understood that you cannot just make money from anything. Some things will work, some things will not. Failure is now a driving force for my persistence.
• Sacrificing my own experiences and missing school trips to save my parents money. This taught me the value of empathy, understanding and putting myself second to those closest to me. I consciously chose my parents before me, to ensure they could continue with as little pressure as possible. I saved my parents money, eased their financial situation and have contributed to a more fruitful life for them. I have learnt the value of money.
• Choosing to be healthy for myself, to eliminate the bullying. I did this by eating only healthy food for around 3 years as a young teenager. However, this choice came with a sacrifice and it soon escalated into anorexia. In the process, I began to lose multiple friends who tried to help me because I refused to hear them. This was one of the darkest parts in my life, but taught me the importance of myself, health and those around me. I now value my health and find balance in what I eat. I am neither fat, nor thin, but healthy.
• Choosing to be a "bad boy" and sacrificing grades in order to perceive an image that was no good. Thankfully, this was only a short period in my schooling career where I was completely lost. For some reason, I found enjoyment in disrupting classes and I became close with the students who were failing. I sacrificed my education, but learnt the value of focus and discipline. I now excel in academics and received and academic scholarship at GIBS Business School.
• Choosing to experiment with multiple drugs because I was curious and thought it was the cool thing to do. In the process, I potentially sacrificed my life for the benefit of a short stint of fun and gave into peer pressure of drug use. This was a lesson for me as I learnt the value of self-control, the importance of my own decision making and peer pressure.
• Sacrificing break and lunches to gym, while my friends were on the playground. This taught me the value of focus, drive and being goal driven. I was able to consistently believe in my objectives, without the eternal influences around me. I was driven by being overweight and wanting to change and driven by the goal of not wanting to be bullied. I became healthy; the bullying stopped.
• Finally, at the age of 16, I sacrificed my family, friends, home and life and chose to leave the United Kingdom and live with my family in Johannesburg, South Africa. This was the greatest lesson of them all as it taught me to make decisions for myself, no matter how hard and painful. It taught me to be independent and a dream chaser, letting nothing and nobody stop me from getting what I want. To date, this has been the most profound experience which has taught me the value of taking ownership of my own life, sacrificing the good for the unknown, learning to embrace the darkness and learning to befriend fear.

I lived my entire childhood making sacrifices and choices and I would not ask it to be any different. I do not live in the past, nor do I live in regret, but I use the past as a guide for my decision making, my emotions and my intuition. I trust that these experiences have helped me develop a strong understanding of myself and the world around me. I was able to challenge myself at such a young age by giving myself difficult problems to solve, choices to make and sacrifices to understand. From this, I learnt more about myself and the importance of these experiences.

“In the end that was the choice you made, and it doesn't matter how hard it was to make it. It matters that you did.”

If you have found this article interesting thus far, you may also like to read a few other articles of mine:

How I Created a Test to Further Enhance My Mind and Focus (pt.1)

Owning our Shadow Self: Unlocking Innovation, Creativity & Intuition

Cognitive Biases that are Warping Our Perception of Reality

Emotional Intelligence, The 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) & Technical Assimilation

How To Be Fearless in Your Pursuit to Find Your Hustle

How to Operate in a World of Resistance & Obstacles

M?ind Shift

Mental Toughness | David Goggins

How Minimalism is Improving My Life