Sacrifice Today for Something Better Tomorrow – Delayed Gratification
Menanteau Serfontein – 10 February 2021
Brian Tracy says “The ability to discipline yourself to delay gratification in the short term, in order to enjoy greater rewards in the long term, is the indispensable prerequisite for success”.
This statement is confirmed by research findings indicating that people with the ability to “delay gratification” are more likely to succeed.
Delayed Gratification is the act of resisting an impulse to take an immediately available reward in return for obtaining a more-valued reward in the future.
It appears to me that the principle of “delayed gratification” (sacrifice today for something better tomorrow) is not as well supported as it should be. There seems to be an increasing desire for “instant gratification”, i.e. “I want it and I want it now” without realising that in most instances, most things in life that are truly worthwhile, usually require a great deal of sacrifice, discomfort and effort that take time to accomplish.
In virtually all spheres of life, including sports, business, academic studies, becoming successful in one’s career and reaching financial goals, most of the people who have achieved great success would confirm the fact that what they have achieved, had a lot to do with self-control, sustained effort, hard work and sacrifice (short-term as well as long-term). Sacrifice could take various forms, for example giving up one’s free time and “going the extra mile” by exerting extraordinary effort or spending long hours on a worthwhile result that is being pursued (at the expense of something else that would have provided greater momentary enjoyment), or forfeiting certain luxuries in the short term by resisting spending money on “nice to haves” or on things that you can’t really afford. The trap of instant gratification is also a threat to people who are prone to procrastination – they find all sorts of excuses for avoiding to deal with the important, more difficult tasks or issues. Instead, they spend most of their time on irrelevant matters or embark on activities that they view as more enjoyable than tackling the important matters that often have long-term implications. The reality is that there is no shortcut to success, unless an individual just happens to achieve something by chance or circumstance, which is a rare phenomenon.
Effective self-control is a key attribute to enable one to apply delayed gratification. In my article about Self-control and Self-restraint, it was pointed out that self-control is an essential ingredient for achieving success and for living a satisfying, meaningful and moral life. In addition, research has found that self-controlled individuals are less likely to make poor decisions that could have long-lasting consequences and by avoiding making poor decisions that would have a negative impact later in life. The famous Marshmallow Experiment is a classic example of the difference between people who prefer instant gratification and those who choose delayed gratification by sacrificing today for something better tomorrow. In the Marshmallow Test, children were given the option to have one marshmallow immediately, or if they wait for 15 minutes without eating the marshmallow in front of them, they would get two marshmallows.
A large percentage of people don’t support the concept of delayed gratification, because they rather subscribe to YOLO (You Only Live Once) which is a mantra to throw off self-restraint coupled with a philosophy of “let’s live for today and tomorrow will take care of itself”. This mantra is nothing new. Hedonistic philosophers taught ages ago that our life’s goal should be to minimize pain and maximize pleasure without regard for the future consequences of one’s decisions. Inherent in this approach, is an unwillingness to make the necessary short-term sacrifices required to achieve meaningful longer-term goals. Some people don’t believe that much sacrifice is necessary to fulfil big dreams and goals, because they believe that life is easy and that worthwhile goals can be reached quickly without much effort and sacrifice. Based on my own life experience and observations, the easy options hardly ever work. M. Scott Peck says “Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live.”
It is however recognised that we are all different and everyone is responsible for his/her own life choices and for the consequences of his/her choices. The choices people make are influenced by a wide variety of factors, including the way we grew up, our values and principles, worldview, inherent personality traits, aptitude, the extent to which we are driven to succeed and achieve, preferences regarding work-life balance, family circumstances, faith-based beliefs, etc. The aim here is merely to share my personal experience and observations and pointing out what inevitably tends to happen in practice when certain approaches, principles and mind-sets have been chosen and others discarded.
The findings of the studies conducted in the Marshmallow Experiment make it clear that if you want to succeed at something, you will need to find the ability at some point to be disciplined and take action on a sustained basis with the end goal in mind, instead of becoming distracted and doing what’s easy and convenient. Success in nearly every field requires you to avoid doing something easier in favour of doing something harder (“doing the work and putting in the reps“) in order to achieve a desirable longer term goal, i.e. delaying gratification.
A key take-away here is that even if you don’t believe that you’re good at delaying gratification, you can train yourself to become better at it simply by making a few small improvements. You can train your ability to delay gratification, just like we can train our muscles in the gym. You can do it in the same way, by promising yourself something small after having achieved whatever it is and then delivering on it. Keep doing it over and over again until your brain says, (1) yes, it’s worth it to wait and (2) yes, I have the capability to do this. Start with simple, small things – make your new habit “so easy, you can’t say no” and then doing it again tomorrow and the days to come until it becomes second nature. A tiny example that I have personally found works, is when you feel like having say coffee now, you consciously decide to postpone having it until you have finished a small task, i.e. rewarding yourself for finishing the task first. It is possible and you can do it! Try it!
If you are a parent, I encourage you to assist your children to actively develop effective and consistent delayed gratification with practical day-to-day child-appropriate situations such as “you may go and play outside after you have finished your homework“.
“Don’t give up what you want most for what you want now.” – Richard G. Scott
