Winners Are The Ones Who Delay Gratification
How to achieve long-term success by resisting instant rewards
In the 21st century, instant gratification is ubiquitous.
Fancy a certain type of food? Just open a delivery app. Need a romantic expression in Italian? Open Google Translate. Looking for quick entertainment? The next imbecilic Youtube video is never more than a click away.
The possibilities to receive brief surges of joy and entertainment are endless.
These joys are, however, short and temporary. Worse still, instant gratification often precludes us from performing acts that lead to long-term satisfaction.
Your pizza delivery hinders your fitness diet — thwarting your looks and health in the long run.
Your quick translation prevents you from putting in the work to learn a new language properly.
And your Youtube spell leads to procrastination — impeding the growth of your business.
No matter the type of success, it is almost always the result of delayed gratification.
Jason Statham wouldn’t be jacked in his 50s if he had succumbed to every instant junk food craving in his 40s.
Jeff Bezos wouldn’t be a billionaire today if he had accepted quick payoff opportunities in the 90s.
And most top bloggers wouldn’t have millions of views today if they had quit writing in the early days of their career — when rewards were scarce.
Winners are the ones who delay gratification in favor of system building.
To achieve success in the long run, we need to overcome the lure of quick rewards.
Our bias toward instant gratification creates bad habits
Humans are wired to prioritize short-term enjoyment over long-term gains. Behavioral psychologists call this phenomenon “hyperbolic discounting.”
Even though most people consciously plan for the future, they make decisions that compromise this future — all in the name of quick rewards.
We favor the immediate taste of ice cream over our future fitness. We know that smoking causes long-term health issues. We do it anyway because we want to feel good in the present.
And finally, most of us spend bonuses and pay rises on cars, clothes, and other consumer goods. Instead of investing in our future financial freedom, we prefer short-term enjoyment through consumer goods.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with enjoying the present. As Marcus Aurelius once said: “each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already or is impossible to see.“
Nevertheless, always prioritizing the present will have a dual negative upshot.
On the one hand, you’ll develop bad habits.
Most unhealthy habits — such as over-eating and drugs — will provide joy in the present, but negative repercussions in the long run.
If you solely focus on the present, you ignore the long-term consequences of habits that engender quick rewards.
Secondly, by living only now, we allow ourselves to give in to cravings.
This attitude will hamper our self-control and discipline — leading to a chain reaction. We’ll stack one bad habit on top of another.
Betting on the future is the basis to build systems
“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” — Warren Buffett
Whether you’re building a business, looking to improve your body, or working toward a certain goal, you need systems. And the foundation for these systems is a bet on the future.
As an example, if you want to succeed as a blogger, you’ll need a lot of content, sharing, and search engine presence.
To achieve important milestones, you’ll have to write consistently — with no immediate return.
If you write three posts today with proper SEO, they might end up on Google’s page one in six months. After putting down roots on the top of Google, you can monetize them with ads and affiliate links.
Consequently, the benefits of today’s efforts only ensue six months from now.
Betting on an uncertain future doesn’t sound tempting, especially when you consider that you could watch a Netflix episode — providing instant gratification — instead of writing a blog post that will possibly pay off in six months.
How do we overcome this temptation?
The secret to long-lasting success is to build systems that automate themselves.
Gym worshippers will know that after years of consistent training, it will be much easier to motivate yourself.
The gym is now ingrained in your conscience. Working out doesn’t feel like an obligation anymore. It resembles a natural self-care habit. As such, it’s an automated process that’s part of your normal routine, just like brushing your teeth.
The same goes for content creators. If you want your online endeavor to succeed, you need to construct a system that will ensure regular output. Your content creation techniques need to automate themselves.
But even high-performing people sometimes lack motivation.
Sure, nobody is perfect, but these motivation-lacking days are exceptions. And you know what we say about exceptions.
The lesson here is the following: we need to bet on the future. Not to avoid present enjoyment, but to acquire the tools that help us build systems. And these systems will ensure big wins if you are patient.
“The last mile is always the least crowded”
If you want to build a strong case for betting on the future, look at the top dogs in your environment.
Because instant gratification usually prevails, not many people succeed in building the systems that create winners.
How many Youtubers keep producing videos for years without significant revenue? Most get tired after a year and return to a corporate job that offers instant rewards.
However, many of those who did not chase instant rewards five years ago now have millions of subscribers and make a good living.
Yes, many other factors come into play, but sheer perseverance is often worth much more than talent and creativity.
If you look at successful entrepreneurs, you can see a pattern: having an idea, building systems, persevering, and finally, becoming successful.
In most cases, instant gratification is not part of the equation.
Most of my fellow freelance writers spent years writing and blogging before scoring decent clients. I was no different.
Before earning my first 100 dollars as a freelance writer, I had written over 100 blog posts in one year. You can see that the hourly rate was appalling in those first twelve months. Today, I make a decent living through various online income streams.
Many of the people who started at the same time are not freelancers anymore.
Learn how to love delayed gratification
If you want to become successful in the long run, delayed gratification will be an essential part of the journey.
The more you accept it, the more you’ll be able to build systems, and the closer you’ll get to your goals.
How can we accept the idea of delayed rewards?
There are a few effective methods to appreciate delayed gratification.
First, you need to celebrate small wins.
Once you’ve developed systems that will yield rewards in the long haul, you’ll need to identify small milestones.
They might be minuscule, but they count.
As an example, if your goal is to make 10,000 dollars this year, you need to make 27.4 dollars a day. Consequently, every day you make 27.4 dollars or more is an achievement. Find ways to celebrate that achievement with specific rituals.
As an example, in 2018, I financed my first round-the-world trip through blog earnings.
At the start of 2017, I set up a savings account called “globetrotter’s fund.” I nourished that account regularly and ended up with over 7,000 dollars after twelve months. Every transfer — even a sum as little as 5 dollars — gave me a motivational boost.
Another crucial element is your mental drive. To develop acceptance for delayed gratification, you need a consistent impetus to continue building your systems.
This impetus is often a vision for your future self and a commitment to continuous improvement. Always remember why you started your endeavor.
If you can maintain a vision over long stretches, you’ll learn how to persevere with productive systems instead of seeking rapid rewards.
Summary and final thoughts
- Humans favor quick rewards over delayed gratification.
- Instant gratification leads to bad habits.
- Worse still, it prevents us from building productive systems that lead to long-term success.
- To ensure long-term success, we need to bet on the future.
- This bet on the future enables us to build systems that will help us achieve success in the long run.
- To become successful, we need to learn how to love delayed gratification by celebrating small wins, and by having a vision that serves as a mental impetus.
- To conclude, don’t let instant rewards or setbacks change your long-term course. Success and failure should be measured in the long run. Success is mostly the result of automated systems, not temporary hits or misses.