From the course: Success Habits

Delayed gratification

From the course: Success Habits

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Delayed gratification

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- One of the dilemmas of time management is how much time to spend on having fun in the present and how much time to spend on planning for the future, even though, you might not feel like doing that right now. With happiness, this is a tricky dilemma, since getting the balance wrong either way is going to reduce your overall happiness. You might have too much fun now and then a future you didn't want. Or you might live too much for the future and forget to ever have any fun in the now. But with success, it's pretty clear that you need to do more future planning than you would ideally feel like doing. Successful people call it delayed gratification. Or the ability to put off something mildly fun or pleasurable now in order to gain something that is more fun, pleasurable or rewarding later. For example, you could watch TV now instead of studying. It'll certainly be easier and more fun. Or you could practice delayed gratification and study for that exam. So there's a need for the self-discipline, which will enable you to do the right things first, like working or planning. Or basically doing any tasks that are difficult or scary. I remember hearing a story about Daley Thompson, who won the Olympic gold medal for the decathlon twice and many people believe to be the greatest all-around athlete that the U.K. has ever produced. And he was training on Christmas Day. You'd think he would have had that one day off, but no. And then he thought, I know, I'll train twice because that will put me ahead of my competitors. And then he thought, but, what if someone else somewhere in the world is doing the same and they're also training twice on Christmas Day? So he went training three times on Christmas Day just so that he knew, for sure, that he was ahead of everyone else. He had talent, certainly, but he also did the work. So you have to put in the work to be successful. But the question is, how much work? In his 2008 book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell wrote that you need 10,000 hours of practice to be world-class at something. That's two hours a day for 15 years. Since the book, there have been more studies and it's been found that, in areas of rapid change, the hours don't have as much effect. In classical music, it probably does take you that long to master the violin. But in the world of rock music, the Sex Pistols were successful and they could hardly play their instruments. And I think something like social media might be more like rock than classical. It's so fast moving that it'll all be different in 10 years. So, how can you ever get your 10,000 hours in? But nevertheless, you're much more likely to succeed if you can play your instrument, so to speak. And, however much talent you have, you'll need to do some work to learn your trade. The more you know about your specialist subject, the better. So make sure you do the work up front. You may not feel like doing the work. You may not want to wait until you're eventually ready to reap the rewards. But it's a success habit to do the work and build your skills until you're ready. What's the knowledge that you would ideally have? How will you acquire it? And what's your plan for doing the work? What are the difficult things that you know you need to be doing? What's the extra bit that you're going to do that will put you ahead of the others in your game?

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