You may have heard about ‘The Marshmallow Test’ that Stanford did back in the early 70’s, it was really interesting…
The experimenters got a bunch of kids and gave them 2 options, they could have one marshmallow right away or they could choose to wait 15 minutes and they’d get 2 instead of just the 1 and…
What they found was that the children that waited for 15 minutes and received 2 treats instead of just a single, tended to have quote unquote ‘better life outcomes’ measured via SAT scores, educational attainment and BMI, which is short for body mass index.
BMI isn’t the best measure for all folks because it only uses your height and your weight and so if you carry around a decent amount of muscle mass, it doesn’t factor that in because it just uses a crude measure of weight as opposed to differentiating between muscle mass and fat mass, however…
For general population folks that aren’t overly muscled, BMI is a pretty darn solid measure of whether you’re of a healthful weight or not, but like any measurement system there are flaws and muscle mass is essentially the leak in the BMI assessment tool.
Some social scientists think that this study is telling and others think that it doesn’t tell us much of anything, but let’s just take a slight step back and look at this logically in regards to adults.
Adults that are willing to delay gratification at least to some degree tend to have better body composition because if you feel as though you need an immediate reward in regards to say nutrition, you’re much more likely to reach for treats and highly processed food options because they provide a bigger dose of that!
They also require virtually zero preparation and they typically taste quite good however, they’re obviously far from the healthiest options and your body composition, health, sense of well-being, cognitive function etc. is all going to take a serious hit if you eat these foods on a super consistent basis.
The same deal applies to alcohol and drug intake because drugs are basically the definition of an instant reward, you feel great right away and then you pay the cost on the backend i.e. a comedown, hangover, you name it.
If we look at delayed gratification in terms of financial stability, you can totally get your paycheque, spend it all immediately and live like a rockstar, or you can invest some of your income and earn compounding interest or invest in property or your 401k or retirement fund, anything really that gives you some cushion and sets you up for better financial stability down the road vs. living paycheque to paycheque.
If you want to lose fat, you’re going to need to make some adjustments in terms of your current lifestyle, which are time and effort investments…but if you’re unwilling to delay gratification in any way, shape or form, it’s pretty darn hard to lose fat and get healthier because the timeframe is different than say eating a donut right now because…
You’re not going to reach your fat loss goals overnight, you will feel better day after day but it does take time, whereas an instant hit of a tasty treat on your tongue rewards you right now!
Going to bed at a time that sets you up to wake up feeling rested and alert all day may not be as enjoyable in the moment as watching another episode of your favourite Netflix show but, when you wake up the following morning you’re immediately going to experience the downfalls of staying up too late or the benefits of hitting the hay a little earlier…there’s a pretty quick turnaround on sleep.
Essentially, folks that are unwilling to delay gratification get themselves into trouble in essentially every way because most if not all things that are worth having require an investment of time and effort upfront.
Now this definitely doesn’t apply to every situation as nothing does, but delaying gratification is a massive part of life and just being an adult, for example…
Where would you consider yourself the most successful in your life? However you define success, what area?
You almost certainly delayed gratification by doing the hard thing now, investing time and/or effort and reaping a much bigger reward down the road whether it was schooling, working your way to a higher paying career position, therapy, building a relationship, getting in shape and the list goes on…
If this experiment in children was accurate, done well, telling in the slightest or not, it actually doesn’t even matter because as adults we just know that most immediate payoffs come at a cost and sometimes those costs are totally worth it and that’s great, but…
In a lot of situations they’re just not because quite often when we say things in the moment like ‘Ah fuck it, I’ll just do it or have it or eat it or drink it’…it’s essentially like saying fuck you to your future self right!?
It’s like ‘ahhh that’s a future Marcus problem’ and then unfortunately that future me becomes the present me and I’ve gotta clean up my mess!
Much of life has a pay now or pay later type of setup, but what often goes overlooked is that when you choose to pay later, you typically owe interest, for example…
Pay the time and effort cost of eating well now or make a less effortful and convenient choice in the moment and pay for it later…and quite often that choice doesn’t just last the length of the meal, you may feel like shit for 2, 4, 6, 8+ hours or even days afterwards and when these choices are made over and over we begin to dig ourselves into a deeper and deeper hole.
Fortunately, you can totally dig yourself out, that’s what I do via my coaching, however…the sooner you can catch it, the better because it’s far easier to keep up than it is to catch up.
Foresight is key and here are a few helpful tips or questions to ask yourself in order to support you as far as refining this perspective…
When you invest in your current self, your future self will thank you.
Circling back to the where are you successful question…you can even look back at that version of you in the past that was putting in all of the hard work and thank them. You are reaping the rewards now because of the choices that you made at that point in the past.
You can also think about it like honouring your future self, so essentially it’s the opposite of the ‘fuck it mentality’ and instead acknowledging ‘that the bill is coming due and I’m going to set my future self up for success instead of dining and dashing.’ I know personally in regards to alcohol, I have dine and dashed on myself SO many times…
I know what a hangover feels like and still for years I was just like ‘Fuck you Marcus, I’m gonna crush another 3 drinks right now just because I feel like it’…where’s the respect and honour in that!?
Now if it was an aware and mindful choice, that’s a whole different story, but that’s not exactly what we’re talking about here.
For myself in situations where I’m making a choice and it’s the deciding moment…am I going to have another drink or skip it, eat a healthful meal or a not so healthful one, go for a walk or sit on the couch, hit the hay because I’m tired or ignore my body wants and needs…
Personally, I find it helpful to ask myself a really cutting question because it helps me put things into perspective really quickly and the question is super short and straightforward, I say to myself, ‘What do you want dude?’
That question…as simple as it sounds clears everything up for me in a single moment. Am I going to have that tasty dairy-filled dessert that I know gives me joint pain or would I prefer to skip it and not to experience sore knees tomorrow?
Oh and by the way, there’s no moral judgement here, it’s just a matter of what I want most…of what you want most.
Maybe it’s 7pm and I look at my step counts for the day and they’re quite low, am I going to put the effort in and go for a walk or am I going to opt out and most likely feel a little stiffer tomorrow and not sleep quite as well tonight…
Are you going to choose a fat loss friendly meal option that’s congruent with what you say that you want or are you going to say ‘fuck it’ and just order in…
There’s no right or wrong answer, just choices with consequences attached to them and in the vast majority of cases, any single choice isn’t going to be make or break, so you don’t need to apply endless amounts of pressure on any one choice, however…
The choices that we make consistently quite literally shape our lives aka you are a culmination of your thoughts and habits…which is super cool because you are the only thinker in your head and no one controls your habits and behaviour but you.
