Delayed Gratification: A Distant Memory

Being able to delay gratification is a great habit to be able to develop in your life and it's one that is sorely lacking in our society today. Our society is built around an endless supply of consumption and while consumption itself is not inherently bad or evil, doing it blindly without any pause or consideration might easily enable some bad habits in our lives.

For example, if we never exercise any delayed gratification over things that we want to eat, then we will always be stuffing our face with whatever treat comes to mind, as soon as we think the thought that we want and have to have it. And if we are always in the habit of spending our money, without any consideration for the future and long-term goals, then we can't expect to find ourselves in a positive financial situation down the road.

When we are able to delay gratification then we can do things like save-up for a car that we want and pay cash for it instead of financing it and paying thousands of dollars more than it was originally worth because of the long-term interest. Money is said to be one of the major reasons that couples divorce or split-up and it's also a major reason for many arguments between family members.

People buying things on credit that they cannot afford is why millions of people are stressed-out and experiencing anxiety over their money troubles.

When we start practicing delayed gratification then it might be something that we can try that is new in the way of changing our approach to life and trying to get different results in the way of positive finances. But putting things off that we want is hard, if it were easy then everyone would be doing it. Some people have a more difficult time with impatience than others and they are going to really feel a struggle in putting off getting what they want in the moment.

Like with anything that we want to get better at, delaying gratification takes practice and the more that we do it then essentially the easier it is going to become for us to do it. I have found that one of the things that helps to keep me on track is remembering my goals and trying to remember not to give up what I want in the future for what I want now.

Delaying gratification enables us to experiencing long-term satisfaction in our life and can arguably bring us a higher standard of living in the long-run.

Delaying gratification requires discipline and self-control.

And some might say that without pain and struggle, there can be no growth. It's also been said that delaying gratification and putting off what we want now is one of the hardest things to do. Having the ability to resist temptation and exercise self-control is important for many different areas in our lives. Exercising this habit in our lives then can only benefit us in the long-term and help us to achieve what we want in our lives.