How To Overcome Instant Gratification And Look Beyond Short-term Gains?

Gratification is defined as the pleasurable emotional reaction of happiness in response to a fulfilment of a desire or goal. Like most emotions, gratification plays a role of motivator in the entire reach of human social systems.

Key Takeaways

• Instant gratification is a natural human behaviour, but how well you manage it is crucial for the well-being of your life
• Managing instant gratification is not about abstaining from your needs and goals, but about controlling and restraining them
• You should balance your urges, short term, and long terms goals to achieve a balanced life
• Nurturing the habit of saving first before spending is critical for you to overcome instant gratification and meet short-term gains

What is instant gratification?

Instant gratification is a habit where you indulge in momentary pleasures to overcome short-term pains, which consequently result in long-term pains. In other words, it is human to find reasons or excuses to disregard the necessary actions to indulge in instant gratification at the cost of one’s short-term and long-term goals.

So, is there anything wrong with instant gratification? Yes! Let us take a look at two different standard ways of living. The first way is instant gratification: putting off work to chat or talk with friends, snoozing the alarm to delay getting up, expensive food, drink, the Internet, video games, buying expensive TV or setting up a home theatre, uninhibited shopping, gambling, etc, to list a few examples. Anything we want without any limits and restraints. This attitude leads people to debt trap, bad health, and in effect an unhealthy life. The second is opposite of the above way of life: enjoy most of the above, but modestly and with restraint. This behaviour gives you a healthy way of living by enjoying all the gifts of life.

How to overcome instant gratification?

So, here are some ways to manage the urge to be instantly gratified and achieve your short-term life goals:

• Keep a watch on the urges: Almost all humans have urges, whether it be to check email or social media, eat rich foods, or find means for distractions. However, be aware of your impulses to instant gratification and learn to delay acting on them. Also, think judiciously before you spend using credit cards or buy things on EMI. 
• Delay acting on gratification: Instead of acting on the urge immediately, take time to evaluate the needs. Keep some space between the urge and your action to help reason prevail over emotion. 
• Decide consciously: If you decide to respond to immediate gratification, do it consciously and thoughtfully, not just following your whim and urge. You take control of your mind and brains before deciding how you want to respond to your impulses. Making conscious choices will help you make wiser and mature decisions. 
• Learn lessons: Naturally, the human gives in to urges sometimes, but the key is to learn whether the decision was a good one or not. The next time you have to make a decision when an urge arises, draw lessons from the learnings so you will make wise decisions. Over time, your decisions will get better if you are ready to learn from experience. 
• Enjoy the moment: Life is meant to be enjoyed, but you can enjoy it either recklessly or carefully. Take, for example, two kinds of food, both can be delicious but one may be healthy and another not. You can enjoy both if you consume them thoughtfully. Once you make a choice, accept it and enjoy the moment, don’t cry about a conscious choice. 
• Mindset change: Arguably, the most crucial factor that helps achieving short-term goals is changing the mindset to saving first and spending later. This will help you budget your finances and in turn your lifestyle so that you can understand patterns in your monthly expenses. 
• Goal achieving: If you save money for some goal, ensure that you complete the goal for which it is earmarked. For instance, if you have saved money to fund a foreign trip, complete the trip; this will help you plan for more short, medium, and long-term goals.
• Financial planning: Planning for your finances is one of the critical elements that you need to consider for investing. If you cannot decide on how and where to invest your money, consult a financial expert to set your short, medium, and long-term financial goals. 

Bottom line

In a nutshell, don’t avoid gratification fully, but respond to it mindfully. Invest your money judiciously to take care of your financial goals of various ranges and magnitude. Allocate money for investment before you budget for expenses. Managing investment is critical and it can spread across various asset classes depending on your risk appetite. Explore innovative products that bring the best of all classes of investments like lease and inventory finance that combines the benefits of high-income market securities, fixed-income products, and passive-income generating investment.