Delayed gratification is the ability to resist immediate rewards in favor of more valuable long-term outcomes, requiring self-control and contributing to both personal and business success.

Primary Implication

Individuals and businesses with unsustainable debt typically get this way because they lack the discipline to delay gratification.  They allow their impulses to get it now, leading them to spend money on something they don’t really need or will want in the long term.  They sacrifice their tomorrow’s larger rewards because they must pay off yesterday’s impulses, robbing them of what could have been.  Protect for this by knowing what you want through SMART goals, targets, and standards.

Overview

Delayed Gratification is the discipline of resisting an impulse to take an immediately available reward in the hope of obtaining a higher-valued reward in the future. Science has proven that the ability to delay gratification is essential to long-term success, self-regulation, and self-control for individuals and higher profits with healthy cash reserves for businesses.

Most completed sales transactions have their origins in serving a need or satisfying a want.  A business will eventually fail when no one needs or wants what they do because they have insufficient sales to sustain business operations.  This is because every person has daily needs and wants they will seek to satisfy, with every business working to serve these needs and satisfy the wants.

Those who practice delayed gratification discipline themselves by thinking about their needs and wants in terms of long-term possibilities rather than short-term pleasures.  Delayed gratification is a conscious practice that helps people resist impulse-shaped decisions with a low long-term benefit by delaying the spending of time and money for the future prospect to realize a more desired long-term benefit.

The practice of delayed gratification has its roots in self-control in goal pursuit.  It is also used for personal and professional development and in overcoming addiction.  People who practice delayed gratification have the following qualities:

1. They are willing to work hard and sacrifice for something they want.
2. They will choose to do what’s best for themselves over time instead of giving into instant gratification in the moment.
3. They are willing to delay the impulse for something immediate in favor of a more gratifying reward that requires waiting.
4. They have the self-control to regulate behavior as they work to attain more desirable goals.
5. They will deliberately postpone an enjoyable activity to attain a larger goal.

Those who cultivate the ability to resist the need to experience immediate gratification are more likely to be successful in life and business because they aren’t wasting money and time on things of little value.