Delaying Gratification
One of the greatest challenges in my life has been to start a piece of work. I have suffered from delaying things endlessly and would only do them when the push comes to shove.
This habit of mine has won annoyance of my parents, wife, friends, bosses, subordinates and even my clients. I always wonder why I do that. Strange thing is that once the work starts to roll, doing it is a very pleasant experience for me. Isn’t it weird that one delays something that fundamentally brings joy to him?
This article is an exploration into the self trying to understand what underpins this behavior.
Let’s take a specific example; it’s always useful to understand things from a point of reference because it brings in the clarity. My work as a consultant, trainer, coach and counselor provides me with opportunities to interact with people in varying contexts on the issue of excellence. It is an extremely interesting work and it gives immense insights into various issues. I have found these insights to be very helpful in my life and many of my audiences also have similar experiences. Therefore, there is a natural desire to write about these insights. However, I delay writing on one pretext or another which is so trivial that it would require some courage to mention it.
The question is: why is it so?
In order to answer the above question it would be worthwhile to analyze what happens when I sit down to pen my thoughts.
Naturally to start with, thoughts are scattered and there is no flow in the ideas. One writes a few lines and then they are erased. It takes quite a while before focus develops and sentences start emerging. This is the most critical period. If I am able to survive it the article gets done. Otherwise, my notebooks are full of unfinished articles. Generally, as soon as I enter into this period of confusion I want to do something else, for example: cleaning my table, having a snack, watching TV, calling a friend, etc.
Now if you look at all these activities they provide an immediate gratification because the outcome is immediate.
On the other hand writing an article requires me to delay gratification. I need to sit down, develop focus, overcome my frustration of not being able to sequence my ideas etc. However, as the time passes and the article takes some shape, I start enjoying it and I feel excited.
So the key is can I delay gratification? Can I live with the notion that even though I will be working, there will not be any outcome for sometime?
If we want to do anything substantial in life we should be able to suspend our need for immediate gratification. This is true for an individual as well as collective and in all contexts. The reason why we fail most of the times is not that we don’t have the means or the ability to do things. It is because we don’t have the patience, we are too focused on the outcome. And when the outcome is not there we lose interest. Any meaningful task requires a sustained effort over a period of time. There is always a time delay between contribution and results.
Path to excellence lies in finding gratification in effort and the results come automatically.
Comments
4 responses to “Busting the Barriers Part 1 – Suspending Immediate Gratification”
Dear Fakhir
I identify with this so much It is exactly what happens to me when I am writing an article for the website It is true that any meaningful task intellectual , physical, emotional and spiritual requires sustained effort It may not even bear fruit in one’s lifetime
Haha! Me too!
Benefits in future with struggle in present.
I think its not until one sees the struggle as a reward in itself that the habit of delaying things is avoided.
On a personal note, I have started a blog too and its an honor to say that Fakhir has been a great inspiration!!
Dear Fakhir,
Its human nature, I guess. I mean as human being we demand abruptly in proportion to efforts employed right next moment. We do not want to invest in future. As such we do not start a task unless someone pushes or deadline is being approached. There is a difficult phase in each task. Task becomes much easier after getting out of that phase. But initiating a task is a big deal. Agreed.