 As a little boy growing up with my mother, I always heard her speak into me in Proverbs. One of the Proverbs I heard very often from my mother is, he who doesn't have a mother doesn't get wounds at the back. It's a Nigerian proverb that simply means that if you don't have someone to fight for you, don't challenge someone you know can beat you. My mother would also tell me, he who doesn't have anyone to revive him doesn't faint. Which means something like, if you don't have anyone to help you, you must be extremely serious with your life in Yoruba culture. So I grew up luckily seeing life from Proverbs perspective like the ones I shared with you above. I usually see life as a place where I would have to give every time I want to get. I always knew that nothing would come easily to me except I fought for them and that's why I sacrificed several years failing in the business world before I had my breakthrough. Now, as we enter a new year, I wish to share a few sacrifices I think you might consider making to get the best out of this year. If you're new here, don't forget to subscribe. 1. Invest 1000 hours on a skill Let's say you're aspiring to be a writer. Well, one of the best things you can do to achieve that goal is to write 2 hours every day for the next 12 months. I'm not suggesting that this is easy or that I can do it but if you invest 1-2 hours every day on a given skill, looking back at how much you've improved over one year will make you marvel at yourself. Now, let's say there's this important skill that's very much needed for your success. For example, let's say you're an entrepreneur and you seriously need to master the art of selling and marketing. Well, what about reading for 1 hour every day and try to sell something 3 hours a day? The more you practice anything, the better you become. You don't even need me to tell you that. 2. Fail more In the year 2007, I came across a book called Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins. One of the things that stays with me from that book is that if you want to succeed faster in life, you would have to increase your failing rates. I also read a book by John C. Maxwell around the same time, titled Failing Forward. Both books preach the same thing as regards failing. The faster you fail, the smarter you become and the smarter you become, the easier it is to succeed. This means that if you want to succeed fast, you must be willing to fail fast. Now, as we enter a new year, you would do well with your life if you decide to dare a few things you have been running away from because you don't want to fail. Yes, if you dare things in life, you'll make mistakes and even fail. But the beauty of it is that each mistake teaches you a lesson and makes you a smarter individual that as you become smarter, you know what works and what doesn't, which is how people succeed. 3. Wake up earlier The average time I had woken up in the last 11 months should be between 4.30 or 5.00 a.m., even though I work from home and have no boss to tell me when I must resume working. So, I found that waking up early makes me almost two times more productive. The reason for this is because when I resume my office early, I am able to focus on getting the work done without any distractions. Phones don't ring, nobody sends you a message and your kids aren't awake if you have kids. I also found that my brain works better in the morning. I have no scientific evidence for that, but that's my experience. So, if you can, I advise you to wake up a little earlier than you usually wake up every morning and invest such time into something productive. Read, think or work. 4. Sell your TV I don't mean you should sell your TV set. Literally, that's my way of saying the screen is dangerous. The TV sets of the 21st century are no longer in our living room. The real TV sets of this century are in our pockets and that's why it's even more dangerous. We go with it everywhere we go. It's called Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. It's called YouTube and Netflix. While none of these is essentially bad, they can easily get to our heads and become an addiction. As a productive being who sets goals and wants to achieve greatness in life, you really don't want to be addicted to anything except your life's mission. You don't want to spend 5 hours every day of your life on Instagram and another 3 hours on Facebook. You don't want to wake up on YouTube and sleep on Twitter. While I don't mean you should delete your social media presence, I honestly think that most of us have to rethink how we spend our time. If we don't often spend those hours to read good books, this singular sacrifice will change their lives in ways they can't believe. 5. Sleep More Now, you sure know that I don't know what I'm talking about. In this video, I earlier said that you should wake up early and now I'm saying that you should sleep more. How can you have your cake after you've eaten it? Well, here's what I do. I go to bed very early every day. My chances are that my phone is already on silence. I try to sleep very early so that I can get good numbers of hours to repair my body. I don't even know if that is the right way to say it, but you got my point. In my experience, sleeping between 9pm to 4am and 12am to 7am are never the same, even though both contain exact same hours. I feel well rested if I can make it to bed early and I am advocating that our body needs sleep and a good amount of it to function properly. In fact, I read somewhere that denying yourself a good amount of sleep can cut your life short by as much as one decade. That's scary and unwise. If we want to work hard to achieve more and end up cutting short our lives, we eventually won't have the breath needed to achieve what we ought to. I'm not advocating that you sleep 10 hours every night like Albert Einstein, but you sure need to prioritize sleep to be more productive in the day. Invest 1,000 hours in acquiring a skill and in the next 12 months you'll become a better person. Try things and fail fast. You'll be smarter and you'll be able to succeed faster. Wake up early. It helps you become more productive. Avoid time wasting activities, especially on social media. Sleep well. You can't go far without sleep. I hope this video helps someone. My name is Steve Courage. I'm an entrepreneur based in Lagos. If you wish to know more about me, see my ugly face or consume videos I specifically make for Africans, check the description box and join my new channel where I show my face and teach Africans how to build successful businesses. I love you.