Avoiding Instant Gratification
In one way or another, almost everything I've done wrong in my life has been the result of giving in to the urge for instant gratification. The "I want it now" syndrome has caused me more grief than anything else I can think of. Extra pounds, debt, failed relationships….all revolve around our desire to give in to our id—the selfish, childish part of our personality that thinks only of our own pleasure and ignores the more rational, moral, logical superego.
Perhaps you've noticed a similar trend in your life. Have you ever chosen to go to a party instead of completing a work assignment that was due the next day? Too much of that and before you know it you get fired from your job. Have you ever bought something on credit because you couldn't wait long enough to pay cash? Too much of that and before you know it you're in debt up to your eyeballs and the bulk of your paycheck is spent paying the interest on your loans. Have you ever eaten something you knew you shouldn't have eaten, because you couldn't bare to deny yourself the pleasure? Too much of that and before you know it you're overweight.
I once heard "shortcut" described as the longest distance between two points. That's a great way to describe instant gratification. It's a lot harder to lose weight than it is to gain it. It's a lot harder to make up for something you've done wrong, than never to have done it in the first place. But despite the suffering that is bound to come from it, the urge to gratify an immediate desire is often so strong that we tend to forget the pain it will cause us in the end. We insist on eating our favorite foods today, even though we know we'll have to spend the rest of our lives on a diet. We insist on living in our dream house today, even though we know it will cost us three times what it's worth in interest. We insist on goofing off today, even though we know we're sentencing ourselves to working that much harder tomorrow. There are a number of issues rolled up in this strange, self-destructive behavior: procrastination, impatience, immaturity. But all of these are merely symptoms of the same affliction: the urge toward instant gratification.
If from time to time you find yourself struggling with life, if you're someone who is looking for a way to improve the odds of your own success, if you realize that what you've been doing all these years isn't working and it's time to try something else, then one of the most powerful changes you can make in your life is right under your nose: learn how to delay gratification. Think about it. How would your life change for the better if you no longer gave in to all those short term temptations that you know full well will kill your long term success? What would it be like for you to become the kind of person who automatically chooses to do today what you know will be good for you tomorrow?
It’s human nature to want to enjoy ourselves today, instead of waiting until tomorrow. And nobody becomes rich, famous, thin, or successful by trying to overcome human nature. The trick is to use that nature to your advantage. If it's true that you're programmed to enjoy yourself today, why not learn that one of the most enjoyable things you can do is to delay gratification?
Here's How
Positivism.
Instead of focusing on what you're giving up ("But I want that chocolate sundae"), focus on what you're getting ("I’ll look better and feel better than I have in years"). You're still focused on the thrill, just as you are when you're pursuing instant gratification, but when you delay gratification you get to redefine what that thrill is. You get to choose your thrill. You allow yourself to enjoy the delay even more than you enjoy the indulgence. You allow yourself to enjoy the process of getting what you want, instead of insisting on always having what you want. Once you do that, you open yourself to a lifetime of the kind of habits that will bring you anything you want. Once you focus on enjoying the process, today, of obtaining what you want tomorrow, you'll find yourself on top of the world both today and tomorrow
Preference Questions .
Preference questions help you replace the urge to do something counterproductive with the urge to do something productive. For example, think of something you have an urge to do right now, but you know it wouldn't be good for you. (Overeating a fattening meal). Call that your immediate desire. Then think of a goal or an objective you have that will be better served if you can avoid the urge to give in to this immediate desire (Losing weight). Call that goal your ultimate desire. Now all you have to do is to switch the two in your mind, so that your ultimate desire has a greater sense of immediacy than does your immediate desire. Suppose your ultimate desire is to lose 30 pounds in six months, but your immediate desire is to inhale a gooey, delicious hot fudge sundae that is melting in front of your eyes. You can worry about losing weight some other time, but that hot fudge sundae is right here, right now, and it looks awesome. You can reach out and touch it, and smell it, and, heaven help you, you can taste it. Chances are you'll be inclined to satisfy your immediate craving at the expense of your ultimate goal. But what if you thought of the sundae as something you could worry about "some other time," and you thought of your ideal weight as something you want to have and right now?
You can make this switch simply by asking yourself a preference question like this one: If I had a magic wand, would I be at my ideal weight right now---today---or would I choose to have a hot fudge sundae instead?” Notice that you aren't asking yourself if you would like to reach your ideal weight some time in the future. You aren't asking yourself if you want to be thin next summer, or next Christmas, or next year. Instead, you're asking yourself if you want to be thin right now. Under these circumstances, if you choose the sundae, you might as well give up on the idea of losing weight. You have no intention of following through with it, so why waste the time? If today you don't prefer being thin to eating a hot fudge sundae, when will you?
But if you choose being thin instead of eating that sundae, then you're on the right track. You've made an important decision. You've decided that, at this moment, being thin is more important than eating a hot fudge sundae. You have turned your ultimate desire (being thin) into an immediate desire, and you've given yourself the leverage you need to replace the urge to do something wrong with the urge to do something right. In both cases, you are acting on an urge, but you've allowed yourself the luxury of choosing which kind of urge is more important to you.
Procrastination
The next step is to turn the urge for that hot fudge sundae into something you can put off indefinitely. And you already know how. You've spent your entire life learning how to procrastinate---why not put it to good use? Whenever you're tempted to do something now that will set you back later, just put it off. Don't deny it. Don't forbid it. Don't beat yourself up. Just procrastinate.
The beauty of procrastination is that there is nothing to resist. There is nothing to rebel against. Instead of saying, "No", you're just saying, "Later". When "later" comes, the urge may have passed. If not, just put it off again. Keep putting it off, and "later" will never come.
Never underestimate the power of procrastination. You can turn your life around with this single skill, a skill that most of us consider to be a bad habit. Use this skill to distance yourself from whatever it would be better to avoid, and you will find it easier than you can imagine to beat the urge for instant gratification.
Perspective
The most powerful tool I know to make the change from instant gratification to delayed gratification is simply to change your perspective. Instead of saying "It won't hurt if I eat this hot fudge sundae today because I'll work it off tomorrow," tell yourself, "Today I want to eat right, because I can gorge myself tomorrow." Instead of saying "I can afford to goof off today, because I have the rest of my life to make up for it", turn the thought around and say "I want to make the most of today, because I have the rest of my life to goof off." Instead of telling yourself "I want to buy this big screen TV today because it costs only $100 a month for the next five years", say "I want to put $100 in the bank each month, earning interest, so that I can buy a big screen TV as soon as possible."
Once you change the way you look at the world, you'll find it that much easier to delay the gratification of those desires that make it hard to live in the world, and to gratify instead those desires that will make your life everything you've ever dreamed it could be
Thanks to www.swatfitness.com for this information!