Delaying pleasures for my greater good!
“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.”
― Brian Tracy
When you identify the importance of your values and goals, you’re unstoppable in all areas of your life. Developing a plan of setting goals and crushing them, once these goals are accomplished you will then in turn reward yourself. This is where delayed pleasure comes in, the old me would have gone on a vacation without second guessing my finances, however the pandemic taught me a good lesson in delayed gratification seeing the world lockdown gave me a chance to self reflect on my habits and actions. I started enjoying the simple things in life.
When there are no vision (hence me having a vision board) you lack directions. I learn to celebrate reaching goal in an affordable way, doing this I was able to pay off debts and saving more. I am more aware of my spending habits and big ticketed items are budgeted for.
What is delayed gratification? The act of resisting an impulse, in hopes of obtaining a more-valued reward in the future. This is basically saying wait to get what you want, resisting instant pleasure versus a more valuable meaningful future satisfaction.
Instant gratification can come in all forms, whether it is buying your favourite dessert twice a week when technically you can only afford it once a month. Buying the latest designer bag when your closet is overflowing with every colour while putting debt repayment on the back burner, binge watching Netflix instead of writing an article (trust me I know this one too well). This is when you’ll indulge in delayed gratification to get things organized and stay on track.
You have to be vigilant and aware as it creeps up on you without warning, training my brain was the ultimate test to adapt to given situations when temptations were strong, keeping track of progress and journaling all the tests I passed kept me motivated.
This article is for people who want to get their lives together and need encouragement to take…
