Law #13: Hack Your Finances by Learning to Delay Gratification
The Law
For those who give in, instant gratification—the urge to want good things and to want them right now—results in the tendency to forego a future benefit to get something you want at the moment, even if it’s less rewarding. The immediacy of fulfilling your desire becomes your reward rather than the value of the item you obtain. You want a better place to live right now, so you accept a crappy deal that satisfies your immediate desire but won’t be rewarding in the long run. Or worse, you get locked into something that eats all the income you’d started to save, destroying your chances to buy a home later, a more rewarding long-term opportunity. You want a vacation right now, so you jump at a chance to take off to Europe before you can afford it and end up in debt for something you could have delayed for a more rewarding experience later. Even worse, you end up paying 2x the trip’s cost by the time finish getting beat down with your credit card company’s compound interest. Don’t fall victim to instant gratification. Instead, learn the art of delaying gratification to build a life you want and love in the long run, not just in the moment.
Your Keys to Power
Get rational about instant gratification and play the long game. John Lennon said, “Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.” Many people say this is one of their favorite quotes, but we disagree. Plans are a part of living a quality life, and if life is passing you by just because you’re making plans, you may need to up your planning game. Planning is one of the most effective ways of avoiding the pitfalls of instant gratification. You’ll hear many pop culture icons and everyday folk give advice about grabbing life by the balls and going with the flow. They’ll say things like if you want something, get it. Examine their lives—not just the picture-perfect social media curations or the things those kinds of friends share publicly. Pay attention to the behind-the-scenes moments. Very seldom will you find someone who lives a life guided by satisfying gratifications instantly and who remains happy with those choices in the long run. Strive to have a life you want and love for a long time, not just one you like right now. If driving something less desirable for a while, skipping that big vacation for another year, or moving to a less expensive city allows you to pursue bigger, more rewarding, longer lasting, and ultimately more gratifying future goals, play the long game.
Practice delayed gratification. Delaying gratification means putting off what you want right now to get something more strategically beneficial and gratifying later. This practice helps you save money, make wiser financial decisions, and reach more lasting goals. Holding off on a large purchase (i.e., a $5,000 vacation) or financial decision (i.e., moving into a new apartment) offers you time to think through the decision's long-term impact. You can weigh pros and cons, evaluate all options—even the ones that don’t come to mind right away, seek counsel from mentors and friends, and save enough to avoid interest fees if you ultimately decide to go forward with the purchase down the road. Delaying certain gratification helps you save, protect your credit score, and keep debt low. Saving, keeping your credit score up, and keeping your debt burden low all contribute to helping you borrow or make more significant financial moves when you have the opportunity in the future, like when you want to pursue a mortgage.
Question yourself objectively, and then don’t bargain. Before you make a purchase or a big financial decision that will impact your short- or long-term future, make it a habit to ask yourself these questions:
Why do I need this item right now?
Could I do better if I delayed this purchase/decision by some time (i.e., a day, week, month, quarter, more)? Would I lose anything if I waited?
Is this item an asset that will help me to create cash flow or build my future worth?
How will I suffer if I can’t keep up with the payments on this if I finance it?
How long would it take me to save enough to buy this item outright instead of financing it?
Why do I really want this item?
If you’ve asked yourself these thoughtful questions, you owe it to yourself to answer honestly. Once you’ve answered, if you decide against purchasing the item or making that big financial move at this time, trust yourself and don’t start bargaining with yourself or looking back.
Put an automatic buffer between your wallet and impulse purchases. For anything you didn’t plan to buy, automatically delay the purchase by at least a day, a week if possible. Make this an automatic rule to give yourself a chance to let your brain do its job. Remember, when you enter most stores, online marketplaces, and commercial websites, you’re up against savvy, guru-level marketing teams’ masterful works of art. They’ve invested countless hours and millions of dollars in making you fork out more cash than you initially came to spend. Level the playing field by going in with an automatic rule that you don’t break to delay any impulse purchase.
Avoid financing with credit. Imagine a credit-less world where you buy only the things you can afford at any moment. Instant gratification would still be an issue to conquer, but much less severe than a world where you need to navigate two potential pitfalls—instant gratification and the mystical delayed pain of purchasing with credit. By avoiding credit if you haven’t yet strengthened your delayed gratification chops, you’ll at least limit the impact to wasting nothing more than the cash you have on hand by avoiding credit purchases you can’t afford with cash.
Practical Application
Avoid making purchases when you’re stressed. This 2016 study found that you’re more likely to spend when stressed out. When you’re stressed, often, you lead with emotion rather than rational, thoughtful decisions. Avoid indulgent spending by going shopping with a clear, calm mind.
Be careful even with interest-free credit options. In this always-on, shop-anytime world, buy now, pay later options are everywhere. See these options for what they are in many cases—a picture-perfect exploit of the very nature of your instant gratification weakness. These tools prey on the very desire you have to get what you want right now, even if you can’t afford it. “Interest-free” options to spread payments for items out over a few paychecks entice you to help those fintech company stockholders get rich(er) while you struggle through four or more payments for something you 1) probably didn’t need, at least not right now, 2) probably won’t even want in a short while, and 3) that may end up costing you a ton of interest or fees the second you miss one payment. Be as careful with these options as you should be with credit cards. Don’t let the ease of use steer you toward an instantly gratifying purchase before you fully weigh the decision.
Start wherever you start and get better in time. This process is hard to start if you’ve never worked on impulse control. When you start, there will be times when you give in to your urges. That’s okay. Everyone does. When you do, tap into your feelings afterward and track them. Write out the impact of your decisions so that you have something concrete and tangible to revisit the next time an urge comes along. Remembering the pain resulting from a decision to pursue instant gratification is a great way to counter the impulses the next time a similar decision presents itself. This growth will be a work in progress—just make sure you’re putting in the work.
Define your goals. Without goals, you may not have a reason why you should delay gratification. Establish your goals, check in with them regularly, and adjust them as needed, but by all means, know what they are. Keeping your goals top of mind—to be financially independent of parents, to be able to retire by age 50, to purchase a home in 3 years, to have 6 months of expenses saved for emergencies—will give you something to hold up to your instant gratification urges.
Seek help. Okay, so you’ve chosen to forego something instantly gratifying for a longer-term reward. Way to shoot for your goals. Good job! But now you’re a moping sourpuss. If making wise financial decisions that will help you create a lasting life you love, even if it’s in the future and not right now, pushes you toward depression, seek professional help. Clinical depression is a medical condition, and seeking treatment is okay. Or maybe those decisions don’t result in a medical issue like depression, but you become a self-absorbed brat who can’t stop talking about whatever you just gave up, or you get frustrated with friends or mentors for bringing up valid points. Then it’s time to do some work on yourself, and that’s ok, too, as long as you realize it and put in the work to improve.
Authority
"The ability to discipline yourself to delay gratification in the short term to enjoy greater rewards in the long term, is the indispensable prerequisite for success." - Brian Tracy
“The surest sign of an adult is the ability to accept delayed gratification.” - Tommy Tomlinson
“In today’s day and age of one click purchases and immediately accessible information, instant gratification is seen as the norm. The always-on world, with smartphones and Wi-Fi, reinforces that you have to get what you want right away. But instant gratification isn’t always best – in fact, impulse control is an essential life skill. When it comes to achieving your goals, delayed gratification is the skill that will get you there faster.” - Tony Robbins
“The worst temptation is instant gratification.” - Jon Luvelli
“Instant gratification takes too long.” - Carrie Fisher
“We live in a quick-fix society where we need instant gratification for everything. Too fat? Get lipo-sucked. Stringy hair? Glue on extensions. Wrinkles and lines? Head to the beauty shop for a pot of the latest miracle skin stuff. It's all a beautiful £1 billion con foisted upon insecure women by canny cosmetic conglomerates.” - Joan Collins
“Incessantly demanding that I am given some ‘thing’ today may very well destroy the role that it was going to play in my life tomorrow.” - Craig D. Lounsbrough
“Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with. It is the only decent way to live.” - M. Scott Peck
“Actually, the substitution of the reality-principle for the pleasure-principle denotes no dethronement of the pleasure-principle, but only a safeguarding of it. A momentary pleasure, uncertain in its results, is given up, but only in order to gain in the new way an assured pleasure coming later.” - Sigmund Freud
“Success awaits those who steadfastly commit to any requisite sacrifice.” - Ken Poirot
Our Vote
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a master at delaying gratification. I can focus intently on the goals in front of me, control my impulses, and don’t mind saving for things I can't currently afford rather than purchasing them with credit. While I love nice things, I easily spent almost a decade with simple things to afford more splendid luxuries later in life.
Some tell me that my resolve, grit, and determination are extraordinary. I reject that. Delaying gratification is a skill anyone can build through hard work, just like a muscle. I spent time building mine because, as the youngest of only two children to a mother who herself had four siblings who each decided not to have children, I have a lot of mothers and fathers who raised me. Essentially, my aunties are mothers; my uncles are fathers. They all shared in caring for me as I aged from birth. As they age, I have the incredible privilege of returning the favor. I take care of them, which is possible only because I delayed gratifications that could’ve landed me in situations where my resources were more limited or where my debt burden would’ve prevented me from being able to support them.
This message is not to say that others should delay their own gratification for others. But if taking care of those who took care of you breathes joy into your heart, it’s worth it. Even if my path is not your path, and you don’t have this responsibility, other rewarding opportunities of your own are waiting for you on the other side of instant gratification.
Reversal
There is no reversal to this law. While there are times when purchasing in the moment is a solid choice, that should always be a conscious choice, not one guided by impulsive desires.