Why Is Immediate Gratification More Painful?
There are specific decisions that can make your life easier – Immediate Gratification (IG) with little or no benefit after, or Delayed Gratification (DG), that have more of a benefit after.
This may sound like the “No Pain, No Gain” mantra but let’s be more realistic that we don’t need actual pain to receive gains.
It’s more realistic and helpful to look at the word “Discomfort” and I’ll explain why.
First off – if everyone only thinks it is “No Pain No Gain” will make people fall into the All or Nothing trap which I Addressed in the last blog.
Also, you need to appreciate the subtle discomfort that occurs after you choose IG instead of DG.
And this is like interest on a credit card you owe. It slowly adds up until it’s a painful debt and it actually is now pain instead of discomfort.
Look at these examples.
Let’s say your favorite IG is TV, cookies, or sleeping in vs. morning workout
Immediate reward
TV you get amusement and emotional connection to the characters,
Cookies you get a taste and again probably a temporary emotional rush feeling the excitement from the sugar and fat explosion.
The bed is nice a cozy, you’d rather stay in bed and not get up to feel that relaxing feeling.
Now have you looked at the after? What’s the cost?
TV
You likely lose sleep because you watch 30-60 minutes too long. Now you’re tired at work. Now you are grouchy at home because you had a long day at work. Now you can’t wait until the day is over you can watch TV again. (So the cycle repeats).
Cookies
Hyper palatable, so you may feel an emptiness of want to eat more. OR you feel like you ate too much, and you have poor digestion. Maybe feel guilt from the food choice itself if it put you over your calories. Now you feel like you’re bad at dieting again so you’re going to excessively restrict yourself. No matt what way you play it – you feel your mind and emotions are in a worse place for the next 23 hours until you get another cookie to settle your emotions temporarily again.
Sleeping in
You choose to again miss a workout, as you have for the last 2-3 weeks (although you promised yourself you wouldn’t). Your fitness is getting worse each week. Stairs feel harder. Your back is getting achier. You feel no confidence with your shirt off. Now your confidence is at a new low.
So, you see here is the irony. You thought you were AVOIDING pain, but you actually were avoiding discomfort (because we make too big of a lot of challenging tasks were not used to), but in the end, it adds up and costs your actual pain.
Now you see how that discomfort becomes a more painful life, just like interest on your credit card you didn’t pay off?
Now let's go to the good story.
Let’s talk about getting interested in our savings account, as we steadily put in just a bit of money at times.
By this, I mean DELAYED gratification, and you could say immediate discomfort.
Remember, seek out discomfort, not pain.
Same scenarios above, but I’ll explain how you can look at these with modest progressions (because I love TV, cookies, and sleeping in too!)
TV
You make sure you have a HARD stop time that is 5% less time than you did last week. That would mean if you watched TV for 2 hours you watch 6 minutes less for 2 weeks.
Say you increased this by another 5% every 2 weeks you would get another hour of sleep.
You feel better energy and you will still enjoy your television without it affecting your life.
Cookies
Track and determine the number of calories you get on a weekly basis from eating too many cookies (or any treat food you desire).
Again, decrease this 5% every 2 weeks.
You start choosing other whole foods that are sweet and filling like fruit, and you get more vitamins and minerals, plus better digestion.
Sleep vs. Workout
3 times a week you get up to just do 10 minutes of any form of exercise. Even if it is to get on an exercise bike and watch TV for 10 minutes while you ride.
You get used to the discomfort of waking up early and start to realize it’s only hard for the first 1-3 minutes (Provided you were up all-night sleeping). So you add another 10 minutes of Strength work
Then your body automatically wakes you up (which will happen) every day earlier and you exercise or go for walk every morning 20mintues before work.
You feel better energy throughout your day, start losing weight, joint pain goes away, and you literally feel younger.
So, I know you think these stories “sound nice” but are they realistic?
Aren’t they?
The major thing missing is significant evident pain you can attribute to your lack of fitness or nutrition because it's subtle and it’s a cascade reaction.
Ask yourself honestly now:
“Am I not sleeping enough because of TV?”
“Am I choosing poor foods because I don’t want to bother with the work of other foods?”
“Am I happy with my fitness?”
Now go deeper.
“Are those choices then resulting in a worse mood, worse energy, more joint pain, less confidence, affecting my relationship, and overall happiness with my life?”
This is like getting into debt and not seeing that there’s a way out.
There is.
Who do you go for to manage debt?
A debt management specialist.
Who should you go to for debt to health?
A training and nutrition specialist.
And like that debt manager, you need to do it slow and sustainably for your lifestyle for it to work.
That’s where the SSG comes into play.
Quick client story here about Dustin.
We didn’t ask him to flip his life upside down, but rather, what is one task you can improve on at a time?
Look here at his fat loss over steady progression.
Over 15lbs of fat loss but slow steady manageable progressions so he KEEPS the result.
And STILL making progress.
So I can’t urge you enough to appreciate what leaning into a bit of discomfort can do.
And you really need to appreciate what being afraid of discomfort can do as well, because you WILL PAY, with more pain and more frustration down the road.
Book a call with me today, I’ll tell you all about the SSG model that Dustin followed, and we can get you putting interest into your savings account rather than dealing with the credit card pain.