Self-Improvement

May 11, 2024

Stop me when this gets a little too personal:

 

Your life is consumed by instant gratification but it’s alright because everything in moderation right?

 

The only problem is, that whenever you get the motivation to do something with your life, you never stick with it long enough to see results.

 

You self-diagnose as having ADHD because someone on TikTok said you do.

 

(Disregarding the people who have ADHD)

 

In reality, you’ve tuned your brain to seek constant stimulation to the point that anything that requires patience seems boring and anything a little bit challenging seems impossible.

 

You struggle with procrastination, addictions, and going to the gym consistently because your brain is wired that way.

 

This causes you conflicting thoughts because you want to be great but you’re making no progress.

 

You try to convince yourself that you’re content with how you are but you know that’s not true.

 

Then you watch self-improvement YouTubers like me tell you about the marshmallow experiment for the 20th time.

 

And the cycle repeats. . .

 

You are not the problem.

 

The modern world is conspiring against you.

 

It’s depriving you of your ability to delay gratification and handle struggles.

 

So yes, you are not the problem, but you are the solution.

 

It’s your responsibility to take back control of your life.

 

This one is going to be a long one, but if you can delay gratification long enough to make it to the end, it might change your life.

 

Choose Your Pain

 

I’m not just saying all of this to motivate you, because that doesn’t work.

 

In order to cultivate a delayed gratification mindset, you need to understand it.

 

Instant gratification come from the activities that give you a reward right now but come back to bite you later.

 

Things like:

• Video-games
• Social media
• Junk food
• Drugs
• Porn

Whenever people like me put down those activities and call them “bad habits” there’s always that bit of backlash.

 

“Everything in moderation”

 

Sure.

 

But if you’re so secure in your ability to indulge in pleasure “moderately” why would you feel the need to defend it?

 

Sounds like a cope.

 

“When do you get to enjoy yourself?

 

Now.

 

You’re confusing pleasure with enjoyment.

 

There are lots of things you can do to pleasure yourself, but there’s nothing you need to do to enjoy yourself.

 

If you want lasting fulfillment, stop looking for it.

 

To some people, that may seem like a contradiction to the benefit of delaying gratification but it isn’t. Let me explain.

 

If I chose to sleep in today, I would feel bad right now. I’d be disappointed in myself and my circadian rhythm would have been messed up.

 

But since I went to the gym at 5 AM today, now I get to enjoy myself.

• I get the satisfaction of doing something hard first thing in the morning
• It’s out of the way so I don’t have to dread doing it all day
• I’m building a physique I’m proud of

Why wouldn’t I choose that option?

 

When I spell it out like that it makes so much sense right?

 

But in the moment you don’t think of it like that because you’re only concerned with how you feel at that moment.

 

The truth is, instant gratification has never served you once.

 

Your level of success in life comes down to one thing:

 

The ability to delay gratification today so you can experience growth tomorrow.

 

It makes sense when you think about it.

 

Sleep in today, or go for a run?

 

Scroll on your phone, or read a book?

 

It seems like the “right” thing to do always requires you to delay gratification.

 

That’s why it’s so hard to choose most of the time.

 

You have to ignore how you think and feel right now in hopes of a better future.

 

It requires a lot of self-control to do that consistently. It seems like some people were just born with incredible amounts of self-control.

 

But not all hope is lost for us.

 

The Other Marshmallow Experiment That No One Talks About

 

The idea that some are born with higher self-control has been further perpetuated by the famous marshmallow experiment.

 

I won’t go into too much detail because you’ve probably heard it before, but the marshmallow experiment was done in the 60s to test children’s ability to delay gratification.

 

These children were given a choice: They could eat one marshmallow immediately or wait 15 minutes to get two.

 

Of course, most children ate the first marshmallow and couldn't wait while the few resisted the temptation and got two.

 

They followed these people throughout their lives and found that the children who waited longer for the second marshmallow performed better on tests, fitness, careers, levels of substance use like drugs and alcohol, and more.

 

This study does a really good job of showing us the effects that delaying gratification has on our lives but it fails in one very important way:

 

It implies that self-control is a character trait that is decided before you’re even born.

 

While there is some research that suggests this, it doesn't mean that those of us who don’t have immense reserves of self-control are doomed for failure.

 

I myself have been able to go from failing to exercise once a week to exercising every single day at 5AM without fail for over a month now.

 

What people don’t talk about is a more recent marshmallow test that was done a little differently. The researchers decided to run the experiment again but this time, they divided the kids into two groups: one they called "reliable" and the other "unreliable".

 

Before diving into the marshmallow test, they made a promise to the kids. They told them that they'd be given some crayons to play with.

 

For the "reliable" group, they actually delivered the crayons. But for the "unreliable" group, they didn't. They made up some excuse about why they couldn’t give them the crayons.

 

After this little setup, they did the real marshmallow test. They found nearly all the kids in the "unreliable" group, the ones who were let down about the crayons, gobbled up the first marshmallow right away.

 

Meanwhile, most kids in the "reliable" group, the ones who DID get the crayons, held out for the second marshmallow.

 

One thing we know for sure from the original experiment is that self-control is pretty much non-negotiable if you want to succeed in almost any area of life. We need to cultivate it if we want to achieve our goals.

 

What this new research shows us, is that self-control isn’t an inherent trait but rather a product of our environment and experiences that shape our decision-making skills.

 

(Personally, if the researcher lied to me about bringing crayons, I wouldn’t trust him to bring me that second marshmallow either.)

 

Alright so why am I rambling about science stuff and what does this have to do with you?

 

Recognize The War

 

Like I said before, the modern world is conspiring against you.

 

It’s depriving you of your ability to delay gratification.

 

But if you can recognize this war, you can win.

 

You don’t have to be a slave to cheap pleasures.

 

Change Begins with a conscious choice to decide who you are.

 

So start taking steps toward who you want to become.

 

You can not only decide to be better, but you can cultivate your self control and delayed gratification by building it. Like a muscle.

 

How do you build muscle? Through progressive overloading.

 

You’re struggling with delayed gratification and willpower because you’re expecting too much of yourself.

 

If you’re struggling to replace your bad habits with good ones, here is the framework i’d use to progressively overload my ability to delay gratification:

 

Play The Long Game

 

Going to the gym is more appealing when you’re already in shape.

 

Meditating is a lot easier when you’re already a mindful person.

 

Studying is more satisfying when you have good grades.

 

Making Youtube videos is a lot more rewarding when you already have the following.

 

Essentially, everything we do is a lot more fun and easy once we start to see the fruits of our labor.

 

The problem is that most people quit before they reach that point.

When we start to work on ourselves, there’s always this gray area where our results seem invisible. That gray area is where people start to fall off.

 

By February, more than 80% of people had already given up on their new year’s goals.

 

It’s illogical to do so, because one month isn’t enough time to see any meaningful progress in almost anything.

 

I wrote a whole newsletter on this back in December.

 

If and when motivation dies, discipline has to take its place.

 

If you only do the thing when it’s convenient or exciting, you’ll lack the ability to stay consistent when things get tough.

 

You need to have the discipline to put up with discomfort, the boredom, the stress for long enough to see the results.

By that point, things will be a lot easier.

 

Set The Bar Low (lower than you need)

 

Let’s assume that you’re a student.

 

You’re trying to build the habit of studying every day after class for 3 hours but you always end up choosing the easier thing to do.

• Doom-scrolling
• Netflix
• Door-dash

The problem here can be seen a mile away.

 

3 hours is way to long to expect yourself to sit down and focus on one task. Especially if you haven’t done any deep work like that before.

 

It’s a little better than not having a set amount of time to work at all but its still too daunting.

 

Instead, start small. Smaller than you think you should.

 

Don’t try to focus for 4 hours, start with 4 sets of 25 minutes.

 

Your ego will tell you that you’re above doing 25 minutes of work at a time, but in reality, you’re not. If you were, you would already be doing it.

 

Lower your ego and master the basics.

 

Continuous Improvement

 

I made a video on my second channel talking about the idea of making every day a good day.

 

The main idea is to focus on getting the same wins every single day without fail. Even if they are just small wins.

 

I track my habits in a habit tracker.

 

I’m currently focused on:

• Meditation
• Stretching
• Exercise
• Reading
• Pushups

For me, I have won the day when I check off all of those habits.

Anything else is just extra.

 

That’s not to say that I don’t have other things to do. I still have to do deep work like writing my newsletter or recording videos.

The point is to be consistent.

 

There are some days when I struggle to write or the video doesn’t go as planned or some kind of emergency gets in the way of my deep work.

 

On those days when all else fails, I can end the day knowing that I at least did these simple habits that don’t take very long. Pair that with lowering the bar like we talked about earlier and I guarantee you will have more good days.

 

Narrow Your Focus

 

You don’t get what you want in life because you have too many other wants that are incompatible with the first one.

 

If you don’t sacrifice for what you want, what you want becomes the sacrifice.

 

If you want to get good grades and you have limited time to study, you can’t binge watch tv every day. Those two things are incompatible.

 

Narrow your focus on the things that truly matter to you. No matter how long it takes, it’s worth the sacrifice.

 

I don’t even have a tv in my room anymore because I don’t have the time or need to use it.

 

Do I want to play video games? Sure, that would be fun.

 

Do I want to make it a habit and fry my brain again? Not really.

 

There’s better things I could be doing. Even if I want to “have fun” there are other things I’d rather do, that don’t overstimulate my brain.

 

(I prefer to get my dopamine hits from playing guitar and going outside to play hackie sack like humans are supposed to.)

 

I don’t watch tv, I don’t play video-games, I don’t doom scroll on social media, I rarely eat anything unhealthy, except the rare occasions i’m out with friends at a restaurant.

 

There’s so little instant gratification in my life that people think i’m weird or crazy for it.

 

I am 20 year’s old and I still go play outside.

 

I like to go pick up sticks and bugs and run around and go on walks around my town and explore streets i’ve never been on.

 

I like to read books and listen to audiobooks and long lectures and play my guitar in my past time.

 

People think that i’m optimizing my life to be like a robot or something but that can not be further from the case. The activities I do were completely normal even in our parents time.

 

But for some reason now it’s seen as toxic hustle culture when I don’t watch tv.

 

Okay i’ll stop ranting now, but the point i’m trying to make here is that if you want to get better at delaying gratification, just cut out as much of the instant gratification as you can.

 

When you get the urge to scroll on your phone, pick up a book.

 

When you go to the store, buy nuts instead of candy.

 

When you feel like you need to smoke, try meditation instead.

 

Make it a habit to choose the ‘harder’ thing to do. Do this for long enough and there will be a much greater reward.

 

Since this is a pretty long one, I want to quickly summarize:

• Play The Long Game: Understand that significant changes and benefits come over time. Don't quit when you don't see immediate results, but keep pushing towards your goal. Maintain discipline to endure the discomfort and stress that may come along the way.
• Set The Bar Low: Start with small, achievable goals instead of aiming unrealistically high. For example, if you're a student trying to build a study habit, don't start by aiming to study for 3 hours straight. Instead, start with 4 sets of 25 minutes each. Lower your ego and master the basics before moving on to more challenging tasks.
• Continuous Improvement: Focus on achieving small victories every day. Consistency is key, and every small win brings you closer to your goal. Using a habit tracker can help you monitor your progress and ensure that you're consistently making progress.
• Narrow Your Focus: Prioritize what truly matters. If your time and resources are limited, you need to focus on the most important things and let go of the less important ones. Sacrifices may be required, but they're worth it for achieving your primary goals.
• Minimize Instant Gratification: Cut out as much instant gratification as you can from your life. When you feel the urge to indulge in activities that offer instant gratification, replace them with alternatives that offer long-term benefits. Constantly choosing the 'harder' thing to do will, over time, yield a greater reward.

Join Apperception Alliance, my free online community to help you gain focus in a world of distractions.

 

Also check out the Purpose Planner to live a more purposeful life and to try out 14 Days To Purpose, my free journaling course designed to help you find direction.

 

That’s all for today, and remember,

 

Purpose is your priority, distraction is your enemy 👁️

 

Have a great weekend.

 

-Abraham