Designing Your Life

Success Through Delayed Satisfaction

// December 8th, 2008 // Personal Development

Your chances of success are based on your tolerance for delaying your satisfaction. Consider if you want to buy a new car. First you must save the money and this requires you to sacrifice other spending in order to save. The other purchases make you happy. You might want to purchase a cup of coffee, a small item, new hat or more. These purchases provide immediate satisfaction because these often aren’t planned purchases. In order for you to have that car you must tolerate not having that immediate satisfaction, instead you have to delay it until you purchase the car. The car will be satisfying to buy far more than a cup of coffee, but it doesn’t feel so satisfying until you are able to purchase it.


This same thing happens in other areas of life. You have the option of writing a paper. This paper isn’t fun to write and it will most likely consume a large amount of time. You have another option to sit back and check your Facebook or Twitter account. This isn’t exciting, but it is feels better than writing the paper. The chances of you succeeding at writing the paper will be based on your ability to abstain from other activities that divert your attention. Again, you will have more satisfaction when you finish the paper, but it requires work while checking Facebook provides immediate satisfaction without work.

You can change this behavior though.

Focus on the end – Sure that hot dog might be good, but you know what is even better? Reaching your ideal weight. A cup of coffee every morning for a year might feel nice, but being able to buy a plane ticket from the money you saved (assuming 2-3 dollars per cup, Thank you Starbucks) for a trip will feel far better. The end result will always feel better than the immediate gratification. Remember the end result before allowing yourself to indulge in immediate satisfaction. Do you want to sit on the couch and watch TV? Think of yourself feeling good about your weight, let that drive you to go workout.

Make the future a reality – The problem is that end goal doesn’t seem as real as the temptation in front of you. The tempting Xbox 360 in front of you might seem far more real than retirement, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t save for it. If possible, make that future as real as possible. Saving for an item? Get pictures, learn about it, and read about it so that it seems more real. Something like retirement might be harder to make into a reality, but you can read about saving techniques for retirement, tips for retirement, and just think about it. You don’t have to be obsessive about it, but you need to be able to feel like it is as real as the temptation in front of you.

Set up your success – The biggest motivation for immediate satisfaction is that it is often the easiest thing to do. It is easier to surf the internet instead of work, so you have to make sure you make it easier to do the right thing. Lock yourself away from the computer then you have to work. Make automatic deposits for retirement instead of having to make the effort to deposit the money. Get rid of all the unhealthy snacks in the house. Find any way possible to make the right choice the easier one. If the right choice takes work, then make sure other options require more work.

Find short term rewards – Distant goals are hard to continually work towards, but if you set up rewards that occur often then this will help with immediate satisfaction. These short term rewards will allow you to keep going while still reaching for the long term goals. If you are able to, you can break the large long term goal into smaller goals. This allows you to feel the satisfaction of achieving each step of the goal. Each step will reinforce your desire to finish the goals.

Think of the benefits of the long term goal over the short term pleasure. Most of us are pleasure seekers, and we will take our thrills anywhere. We must recognize the draw to the immediate satisfaction, but be able to strive for the delayed satisfaction.

Photo by h.koppdelaney