Delayed Gratification - The Quality of Self Discipline

If we are given a choice between receiving $1,000 right now or $4,000 ten years from now, which would we pick? Most of us would pick up $1000. It is human tendency to consume immediately. We cannot wait. It is in our genes. Our ancestors who were living in caves had no option with them other than to consume immediately what was available. There was no way in which they could preserve food for consuming later. The tendency was to immediately consume. This quality or tendency to consume immediately has been passed on by these ancestors to us. We can say the inability to resist the temptation of a smaller immediate reward in lieu of receiving a larger reward at a later date is in our genes.

All of us know it is very difficult to put off immediate pleasure. We always face this dilemma in our daily lives. There are many things we would rather do than doing those things that are important. You may have started an online business and are developing the website contents for it. But you would prefer to watch the world cup football match on the television. Watching the world cup football is a more pleasant and enjoyable experience than completing the web content development. The question arises why should you do the content development for the website instead of watching the football match. That is because you know developing the website content will increase your passive income and it will be a regular income enabling you to go on vacations, lead a more satisfying life. By delaying the gratification of watching the football match you will gain financial independence and probably lead a more happy and contented life. You should not procrastinate. Work now and rest later. If you sacrifice now you can gain more later.

So how do we work out to delay gratification? How can we overcome the urge for instant gratification? We have to be disciplined. Discipline has to be learnt. You have to cultivate the habit of being disciplined. Discipline is training yourself to act in accordance with rules. Say, you have a task to complete. If you are disciplined, you will set a target date, make plan to complete the task on the target date. More than everything elsel you will stick to the schedule and will not procrastinate. This is discplined behaviour. Once you make this a regular routine and practise it in your life, you will observe that things begin to work like a well oiled machinery. You will find that you have enough liesure time to pursue more fruitful activities. Not only that, it also has an effect on your health. If you are not disciplined then you may miss out on the target dates for completing your tasks, the pending tasks will slowly begin to accumulate, you will be confused and a stage will be reached where you will find yourself overwhelmed and helpless. This situation will lead to lot of pressure and stress. You health may also deteriorate due to stress. It has been found that more number of people are sufferring from high blood pressure on account of stress.

It becomes easy to delay gratification if we think and imagine how we would feel if we achieve our goals. Think of the benefits you would get. Simultaneously also think of the disappointment if you do not complete the task. In this way we will find it easy to first complete the tasks in front of us.

Delaying gratification applies not only to your work. There are many areas in your daily life where you can apply it. For example you can curb the urge to order food from the fast food joint and instead cook healthy food at home. You save money and it is healthy to cook food at home to eat.

Cultivate the habit of saving first and then using the money to buy things that you want. If you want to buy a Canon SLR digital camera then don't rush to the camera store and use your credit card to buy it. Delay your gratification by first saving the money required and then buy the camera. You can make a savings plan. If the camera costs $250 and you can save $50 per month then plan to save $250 in 5 months and then buy the camera. In this way you will realise the value of the camera more and take care of it better. These are a few examples of how you can benefit from delayed gratification. Like this you can think of many more instances. Delaying gratification is the most important thing to do if you want to accumulate wealth. It is integral because to have wealth our resources must exceed our needs. And without control our desires and our needs will exceed our resources.

All those who have achieved what they wanted in life have struggled hard and always focussed on their goal. You cannot achieve anything without hard work and a disciplined life. If you look at it, you will realise that delaying gratification makes you a more stronger person, a person who is more satisfied with life, you don't get into a debt trap, overall you will find you are leading a happy and contented life. In the long run this will lead you to form a strong character, improve your self confidence, self-esteem and self-respect. It strengthen you will power. This is a skill which you will have to acquire first if you want to build wealth.

Aesop once told a fable about a farmer who had a goose that laid golden eggs. At first, the farmer was amazed and glad for his good fortune, but before long, he became greedy. He was no longer satisfied with getting just one golden egg each day, he wanted all the golden eggs immediately! He cut off the goose’s head and reached down inside the animal to find the cache of golden eggs. But to his great disappointment, he found that there were no golden eggs stored inside the goose. Even worse, he had destroyed his ability to create the golden eggs when he killed the goose. The moral of the story is "Shortcuts and instant gratification will not help you lead a contended happy life. It is only hardwork and disciplied lifestyle which pays in the long run."