Happy Tuesday!

I've been thinking about the Law of Cause and Effect recently:

Every effect has a specific and predictable cause.

In other words: All successes come with at least one price tag.

If you can anticipate most of your prices before you commit to an endeavor, you can:

Make an informed decision about whether you're willing to pay the price
Reduce overwhelm by breaking things down into tractable milestones
Reduce chances of being "blindsided"

One problem, though.

Some prices are better hidden than others, tripping us up after we've committed to an opportunity.

👀 Visible Price Tags

The most visible costs of any endeavor are time and money.

You can estimate your expenses for tuition, board, and day-to-day living before going to university.

You can find out what working hours are truly like at a company—by asking those who have worked there.

If you don't agree with these prices, you can comfortably reject the opportunity before you've committed to it.

🌚 Hidden Price Tags

Since these price tags are hidden, we often think they don't exist.

Until, of course, we encounter them—after we've made our decision and committed to something.

By then, we might feel too invested—time, money, and effort-wise—to quit or pivot, even when there are greater benefits to doing so.

🪫 Energetic Price Tags

Cooking was physically and emotionally draining when I was learning how to cook.

It didn't cost me "just" 3 hours. I had to make sure that:

I portioned enough ingredients and washed them properly
I didn't cut myself (since I was still new with handling knives)
I didn't overcook my food to the point of setting off the smoke alarm

Since I harbored so much caution and worry when cooking, those 3 hours sucked all of my energy. I usually couldn't focus on difficult tasks afterward.

Likewise, many opportunities have a lot of invisible energetic price tags.

The job-seeking process is straightforward:

Resume
Technical questions (for the tech industry)
Several rounds of interviews
An offer (hopefully)

But practicing for technical questions and facing rejection after rejection can be immensely draining for some people.

Becoming a content creator sounds great in theory, until you realize:

It involves a lot of self-learning, experimentation, and a hundred other tiny things to take care of.
↑ This can be exhausting for someone who prefers predictable or routine work.

📉 The Good News: Prices can drop

Energetic price tags depend on:

Your skill level for the opportunity
Your mindset and beliefs around the process

After 2 years of practice, I've gotten the hang of cooking.

I've gotten better at handling knives.
I've created simple recipes to execute mindlessly.
I view cooking as a way to nourish myself in a world of oily, salty, sugary takeouts.

As such, I no longer feel as drained after I cook. I even have the energy to listen to podcasts while cooking.

Likewise, if you invest the time and effort now to improve your interviewing skills, preparing for each interview will feel more and more effortless.

If you frame each rejection as:

an elimination of unsuitable/misaligned opportunities
an opportunity to improve on your skills

and not as a measure of your inherent worth, you might even be thankful for the rejection.

Those positive feelings make all the difference.

💭 Attentional Price Tags

You pay energetic prices as you engage in the activity.

You pay attentional prices after you've engaged in the activity.

For example, you might not be working overtime, but you think about work after work.

Ideally, you'd do this out of passion for your work. Not fear or worry.

However, even if it's done out of passion, the preoccupation steals your ability to be present in the moment.

Apart from distraction, you might also have feelings of disconnectedness in your relationships. This damages your relationships and your focus on other endeavors.

😐 The prices won't drop

Attentional price tags can be difficult to handle.

Thinking about work after work might be required for you to succeed in your role.

As such, setting boundaries to stay present in the moment comes at the cost of progress.

You'll have to decide whether this is a price you want to pay.

⚠️ You can't anticipate every cost

You can't anticipate every future event.

As such, you can't anticipate every cost associated with an opportunity.

A crisis might happen, stealing more time, money, energy, and attention than you anticipated.

When something like this happens, I like to ask myself:

Am I willing to pay these prices?
Why or why not?

If the answer is no—or I'm unsure—I probe further to decide if I should quit.

If the answer is yes, then my next steps are easy. As one of my earliest mentors like to say about success:

Pay the price today so that you can pay any price tomorrow.
— Grant Cardone