- What is instant gratification?
- Do you struggle with instant gratification?
- Why do you suffer from instant gratification?
- What can be done?
Instant gratification is the desire to experience pleasure or fulfillment now without any delay. It is the opposite of what we have been taught – that of trying hard to plan for the future. Therefore the term can be easily defined as the temptation, and resulting tendency to forego a future benefit in order to obtain a less rewarding but more immediate benefit. These sudden impulses can cause us to forfeit our long-term goals and their underlying future benefits in order satisfy our immediate desires which more often than not, are less rewarding in view of their more immediate benefits.
Saying no to instant rewards to save for a future financial goal is uncomfortable and the waiting time is sometimes, painful. Yet, brief, momentary, instant pleasures ultimately result in more long-term pain, missing what you could have actually achieved in the long term. Moreover, the more you take poor financial decisions, the harder it will take you to reach your intended future goal.
Satisfying immediate rewards do not only hinder you from accomplishing long-term goals and postpone long-term goals but most of the time, immediate rewards do not add value to your life as their good-feel factor is only momentarily and short-lived.
Delayed gratification is resisting the temptation of an immediate reward for a much better and longer future gain. Having a good well-thought budgetary plan together with some sacrifice and patience, you are capable to achieve your long-term financial goals, affordable by saving with underlying long-term benefits.
Understand instant gratification
Desired and ‘must-have’ items can motivate you strongly, often in a different direction at the expense of basic needs and at the expense of more rewarding long-term goals. Identifying instant gratification and admitting it will enable you to tackle it.
Identify the underlying motivations that lead to specific behaviour patterns.
Ask – Is your present behaviour the result of your upbringing, – an environment whereby any want was instantly fulfilled?
Needs and wants and your budget plans.
- Prioritise your needs that give you maximum satisfaction.
- Prioritise also your wants.
- Start to eliminate unnecessary expenditure.
- Track down expenditure.
- Think of how you can increase your disposable income and save for a future goal.
What are your financial goals?
Establish rewarding worthwhile financial goals. You surely want to delay instant pleasure for something more advantageous, beneficial, rewarding, useful and valuable because it means so much to you and your family. Motivations help you to tolerate the discomfort of delayed gratification while in the pursuit of lasting rewarding goals.
The skill of delayed gratification becomes better with the passage of time as it is based on experience and reflection on the past. It is not easy yet not impossible.
Failure is part of the learning process. Making mistakes is a normal part of life and you should not let failure lessen your motivation. Learning takes place when you acknowledge mistakes and you face up to them. The important thing is to get back on track ,ready to make the leap forward.
Determination, Readiness and Sacrifices pay off. Gradually, delayed gratification becomes your own skill.