How to Become Mentally Tough - Delaying Instant Gratification to Achieve True Happiness
Instant gratification equals happiness... ehhhh, not so fast. Let's play out a scenario. You are on your phone scrolling through Instagram or TikTok. Your "friends" are all over your feed with lavish lifestyles, insane physiques, perfect spouses, incredible businesses, unique personalities, the list goes on. You scroll for an hour or two and eventually come back to reality, but nothing has been accomplished. You got the dopamine fix (feeling of reward) that is short-lived and leaves you wanting more. Eventually, you realize you're wasting time and not being productive. The sense of guilt or frustration sinks in, "what the hell am I doing with my time!?". Sound familiar?
I had a moment to sit down with exercise scientist, Dr. Nic Martinez, and talk about how instant gratification may be preventing us from a more profound sense of gratification in our lives.
YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/wvtZLUuK4VM
Resilience = Discipline
Dr. Nic Martinez noted that the book The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck keyed in on how people become more resilient to the negative pressures of life. Martinez summarized that at the core of resiliency is discipline; the more disciplined an individual is, the more likely they are to be resilient to stresses. These stresses can be intrinsic, like watching TV instead of going for a walk, or extrinsic, like the peer pressure to go out to the bar late with your friends. Stressors can be avoided at times, and some require action. It's important to distinguish which stressors are your responsibility to handle and which ones can be avoided. The more disciplined you are with your decision-making, the more resilient you become.
Sacrifice and Delaying Instant Gratification
Most things in our lives are at the touch of our fingertips. While most technology is helpful, it can often distract us and prevent us from working for what we want. This distraction usually comes from things that bring us instant gratification. Dr. Martinez describes this point stating;
"We shouldn't always just gravitate toward the hedonic principle [instant gratification] but instead we should be doing our best to delay instant gratification, and sacrifice… Once we overcome the problem and we solve the problem, now we have time to embrace the good things, to truly enjoy the things that we want to do...The reality is sometimes you have to solve problems that are facing you, in order to step into that happiness. In order to feel good about what's truly happening in your life"
Conclusion
Instant gratification is a fleeting source of happiness. Although the equation doesn’t always hold true, it seems like the more time and effort spent trying to achieve something the greater and longer the reward becomes. Additionally, happiness doesn’t have to come from the result of discipline and sacrifice, but rather be an ongoing part of the process of achievement. Next time you catch yourself on Twitter or YouTube, ask yourself if what you are doing is really giving you true happiness.
If you haven’t given it a view, check out my talk with Dr. Nic Martinez and share this with someone who may be interested.
YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/wvtZLUuK4VM