How to Practice Delayed Gratification

What is Delayed Gratification?

To put it simple, delaying gratification is the act of withholding an immediate (and tempting) pleasure in the hope of getting a more-valued reward in the future. This ability has a direct connection to long-term goals and self-control. There exist many studies that empirically confirm a correlation between being able to delaying gratification and success in life or health (for instance, obesity in preadolescence: here).

The Infamous Marshmallow Test

One of the most well-known experiments in this context is the Marshmallow Test. Walter Mischel and his colleagues designed an experiment, in which four-year-old children were asked to either choose between a low-value treat, such as one marshmallow, or a higher-valued treat, such as two marshmallows.

If a child prefers the more-valued treat, it gets to know that in order to obtain the treat it must wait until the supervising person returns. However, the child is also able to ask for return, in which case it will immediately get the low-valued treat.

I think you can see the connection to the definition of delayed gratification as stated above 😉 Only the children who are willing to wait are rewarded with a higher-valued treat, but the impatient children will also get a treat immediately.

Children who could wait the longest showed more social and academic success later in life than their peers. They also had less problem behavior in school and were less likely to consume any drugs.

Can Delaying Gratification be Practiced?

Fortunately, delaying gratification can indeed be improved through practice! We often refer to “being disciplined” in such situations, where delayed gratification would be the more technical term. However, it will take time to build, which is why you need to put in work constantly.

The starting point is your mindset. Giving up immediate pleasure is NOT taking anything away from you. After all, the goal is to increase rewards and pleasure in life. It just will not happen now, but a tiny bit later in life. So, try to see it as your goal to maximize pleasure and rewards in life. To do so, you need to withhold the temptation of an immediate reward and be more self-disciplined.

Mini Guide “How to Practice Delayed Gratification”

Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live.

M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth

Step 1: Prepare your mind and convince yourself that it is worth it

As mentioned before, you first need to prepare your mind and get the feeling that delaying gratification regularly will improve your life. The easiest way to go about it is to (1) think of a situation, where delaying gratification really helped or (2) try an experiment yourself and see if you can get good results:

1. Situation: maybe you studied hard in school for a test and got a good grade instead of going out with your friends. How was this feeling? Try to remember the situation as vividly as possible. Maybe even write the situation down so you are really convinced that this is a good thing.
2. Experiment: I would do a four-day fast, cut down on any bad food, only limiting myself to the basics. Then, after four days, I would get a nice meal and see what has improved after these four days. Maybe I lost some weight, the nice meal tastes fantastic, or I can think more clearly due to cutting back on bad nutrition.

Step 2: Identify areas you want to improve

Start with only one or two areas. For this, you need to have the end-goal (the more-valued reward) in mind. If there is no reward, there is no need to delay any gratification. Start asking the question: “Is delaying gratification worth it for my current goal (or larger vision in life) and is immediate pleasure holding me back?” If you can answer the question positively, delaying gratification is worth it.

For instance, I was practicing for an upcoming half-marathon and my energy levels were really low. I was already going for a jog five days a week and really thought to myself “It’s no problem if I skip today, I do already enough. I can sit on the couch today”. However, I immediately put on my shows and ran a 21k round anyway. I knew that this was sunday, my long-run day, and if I would skip it, I would miss out on one of the most important runs of my training schedule. Maybe it didn’t help physically and recovery could have been better, I was afraid that it would affect me mentally. I could sit on the couch after the run, with a smile on my face, knowing that I did everything I could to finish it strong.

Step 3: Actually delay gratification and implement a feedback loop

Delaying gratification is just a tool. If a situation comes up that you identified beforehand, just say to yourself: “Not today. I can give in tomorrow, but today I will delay gratification”. You have to trick your mind in believing you that a great reward is around the corner. The next day, you will do it again. The goal is to see how far you can get. But remember: you set your finish line in the previous step, so do it only as long as it is profitable.

Every week or so, journal about your success and the see if delaying gratification was beneficial for you (hopefully it was). This will either reinforce your believe in the practice of self-discipline (and make you stronger), or it allows you to correct course and identify other areas that could be more important.

Final Thoughts

Delaying gratification is the theme of this blog and one of the greatest tools for building strong self-discipline. I am by no means perfect, but I try to apply it whenever I can.

A few words of warning: Clearly, it can be very difficult depending on the area and your story with it. The goal is not to get discouraged, even if there is sometimes the realization that the higher-valued reward was not really worth it. This is all part of the way when building strong self-discipline. Be kind to yourself and try to measure your accomplishments as a whole. Even if you did not improve in one area, it is unlikely that you didn’t improve at all! Life is just a journey, so try to be curious and see difficulties as they are: nice learning experiences.