Gratification

Gratification

Have you ever known someone who is able to rise out of bed at 6am every single morning and head straight to the gym. They always seem productive. Busy just getting things done. Are these people born motivated? “Do they have naturally more drive than me? They are lucky that they are able to do something they love”, you may say to yourself. I would argue its more than likely quite the opposite. It’s a learned behaviour.

We all have days where motivation is absent. Our minds are screaming at us to do the right thing, but we just don’t feel like it. So we say “maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow I’ll feel like doing it. It won’t hurt for one day”.

If we solely relied on motivation as a means of task completion, well…the evidence is in plain sight, we wouldn’t get much done whatsoever. Fortunately, we don’t need to rely on motivation. What if I said that discipline was a major factor. Provided we have discipline, we can hold ourselves accountable to getting things done, knowing we have only ourselves to blame. As Jocko Willink has famously phrased “discipline equals freedom”. When we can embody discipline, we can complete the tasks that need to be completed, regardless of whether or not motivation is there. True growth lies in doing something when you do not feel like doing it.

You may think “It’s great that I need discipline and I understand I cannot always be motivated, but I cannot find any reason for putting myself through such things. I have nothing to be disciplined for?”. In our daily life, consistent thoughts pop into our head surrounding bettering ourselves. Losing a stone, cutting down social media usage, increasing the frequency we run per week or simply heading home to see our parents more often. If at any point you have the feelings of “what if” or “should I have done that?”, then you are only doing yourself a disservice. If you are anything like me, I’ve had these thoughts daily for years of my life. However I never had the desire to act on them. I could not understand why, as the thoughts would never leave me. And then I stumbled across gratification.

What is gratification? Gratification simply means pleasuring from something you desire. For example, it’s been a long day and the only thing that has been on your mind is leaving the office and hitting the McDonalds drive through for a Big Mac. You do however want to lose a stone for the Christmas party in three weeks time and your diet hasn’t been great. You’ve actually already been to this very drive through just two days ago. But here you are again. You crave this Big Mac. “This one will taste amazing!” you tell yourself. Upon getting the Big Mac, you wolf it down. Does it taste good? Maybe, yes. But how long does that good feeling last? Seconds? And then, how do you feel after? Still hungry? Still dissatisfied? Maybe even guilty knowing that tomorrows gym session is going to have to be extended by ten minutes. This gratification is instantaneous. Otherwise known as instant gratification.

Now let’s flip the scenario. It has been a long week, but you have eaten very well. Nutritionally, you have not deviated from the plan you have put yourself on as one of your goals was to lose a stone for the Christmas party in three weeks. However, come Friday after finishing work for the weekend, you’ve promised yourself that due to sticking to your program for the entire week, you’ll head to McDonalds drive through for a Big Mac. Only this time, the Big Mac has come about as a means of sacrifice for a whole weeks worth of good diet. There is now a significant attachment to this Big Mac of hard work, discipline and sacrifice. You are able to enjoy the Big Mac without any feelings of guilt. It feels gratifying. This is known as delayed gratification.

Another example, and of which my mother claims to be one of her proudest achievements. Throughout her early twenties, she would casually smoke twenty cigarettes per day. She would smoke in bed and in the office. Wherever she felt like smoking. Smoking felt good. It alleviated the stresses of the day and took the edge off. Smoking was instantly gratifying.

When she hit her mid twenties however something in her mind drastically changed. She had plans in the not so distant future for children. She had always wanted children, however she had read about the damage smoking could potentially cause the developing child.

Two whole years prior to even trying for children, she quit smoking cold turkey. She had set a goal for herself that she would not touch another cigarette to protect the health of her eventual children. This wasn’t about her health, this need superseded her self. Myself and brother had not yet been born. In fact we were almost three years away from gracing planet earth and yet that concrete decision had been made. My mother said she would never be able to cope with the guilt of knowing that she had any potential negative effects on the health of her children during her pregnancy. Did she still crave cigarettes? Probably. The dependency to nicotine hadn’t just vanished. And yet this discipline and delayed gratification meant that when myself and brother were born, there was no guilt and no regret. Alongside smoking, she consumed no alcohol and took every piece of health advice as gospel from her doctor.  She sacrificed her comfort, and instantaneous pleasure for that of infinite and eternal delayed gratification knowing we were born healthy. To this day she has no doubts in her mind that she wouldn’t change a thing in the way she approached her pregnancy.

Take ownership of these decisions. Understand gratification and what impact it is actually having on your life. Before logging back into social media for the 700th time today, consuming a whole tub of Ben and Jerry’s or skipping the gym to watch Netflix as you feel too tired, be honest with yourself. Ask yourself “is this hit of dopamine merely instant gratification? Is it actually doing anything for me? Will the me of tomorrow thank the me of today for this decision?”. If the answer is no, you will only be doing yourself a disservice. This is how you take control and ownership of your life and begin to achieve the goals you set for yourself.