Self improvement industry is a multi million dollar industry, with hundreds of thousands of books and YouTube channels, trying to decipher the important attributes through which one can succeed in life. If you are like me, then chances are that every now and then you would have got overwhelmed by the huge gamut of traits you need to develop in order to succeed in life, and so you give up hope altogether. In this post, we turn back to the findings of what’s called the Marshmallow Experiment, to learn about the most important quality you need to succeed in life. We also discuss tools that you can use to develop this quality.
The Marshmallow Experiment
As part of the experiment, conducted by psychologist Walter Mischel, each of the kids were called separately into an empty room and were given a marshmallow (a tasty American sweet). The researcher first distracts each of the kids with some mundane gossip. After some time, he tells the child that he was going to leave the room for ten minutes and that if the child did not eat the marshmallow while he was away, then they would be rewarded with a second marshmallow. However, if the child decided to eat the first one before the researcher came back, then they would not get a second marshmallow.
So basically the children had to decide for themselves whether they wanted to eat a marshmallow now or to fight the urge for some time in order to be rewarded with a seconded marshmallow.
Marshmallow experiment as the predictor for success in life
Kids who ate marshmallows right away were present oriented, in other words they all inclined towards instant gratification. Whereas, kids who resisted temptation of eating marshmallows right away were future oriented and were ready to delay gratification, in order to reap greater rewards in the future.
Walter Mischel followed up on the lives of all these kids 14 years later. He interviewed the kids, their parents, got their school records and found that their was enormous difference between kids who gave in to the temptation and the kids who didn’t.
As teenagers, the kids who delayed gratification scored 250 points higher in SAT than the the kids who resorted to instant gratification. These group of kids were reported to work well under pressure. were self-reliant and confident. Whereas the kids who were inclined towards instant gratification were reported to be over-reactive and frustrated. They were also reported to be indecisive and more envious of others.
Therefore it’s safe to say that the most important trait that determines you quality of life is: Delayed Gratification.
Problem with Instant Gratification
Although people pursue it through different means but ultimately all we are chasing in life is happiness. So one might argue, what’s the harm in sources of instant gratification such as doing drugs, having alcohol, watching porn, etc. After all, these also bring us happiness, easily and instantly ?
The answer is that, these sources of instant gratification, screw up the internal reward system of our brain. So if we over indulge in sources that bring us instant pleasure, then we are wiring up our brain for rewards without much efforts. No problem till now!
However, the biggest problem with sources of instant pleasure is that, with each successive indulgence, our brain releases less and less reward for the same amount of simulation. Therefore, in order to feel the same amount of pleasure, a person needs to intake more of these sources of instant gratification. So a person who does Cocaine, needs to have it in greater amounts on each subsequent use, for her to feel the same amount of high. That’s how people get addicted to porn, drugs, alcohol, etc.
How to develop the quality of Delayed Gratification
Now that we know that the quality of delayed gratification, helps you live a fulfilling life, the question arises : how to develop this quality. The good news is that the quality of delayed gratification is like a muscle, the more you practice it, the more adept you become at exercising it in various areas of your life. We all practice delayed gratification on some level. e.g : we brush our teeth daily, so that our oral health can stay intact in the long run. All we need is to strengthen our ability to practice delayed gratification.
Here are few tips on how to improve the quality of exercising delayed gratification :
1. Wisdom from Geeta: Replace the negative thoughts and actions by positive one.
2.The one percent rule : Focus on small but consistent improvements and don’t mind failures along the way.
3. Distance/Distract yourself by focusing on something else.
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