Instant Gratification

Forget your phone at home? How did you handle it?  With today's technology being so much a part of my lifestyle, I know I can get OCD when I forget my phone at home.  Ever wonder how long you can go without using your smart phone?  Those days of the rotary phone, a beeper at most are so far gone that we often feel FOMO if we don't have information, communication at our fingertips.  This yearning and longing for things can completely alter our day and shift our moods. Here is an interesting study and video that I loved to remind me to step out of my OCD suffering when it's really not needed. Alternatively, a possibility of delayed gratification that can enhance our self discipline and patience skill set. 

VIDEO

In the 1960s, a Stanford professor named Walter Mischel began conducting a series of important psychological studies.  During his experiments, Mischel and his team tested hundreds of children — most of them around the ages of 4 and 5 years old — and revealed what is now believed to be one of the most important characteristics for success in health, work, and life.

The Marshmallow Experiment
The experiment began by bringing each child into a private room, sitting them down in a chair, and placing a marshmallow on the table in front of them.  At this point, the researcher offered a deal to the child.
The researcher told the child that he was going to leave the room and that if the child did not eat the marshmallow while he was away, then they would be rewarded with a second marshmallow. However, if the child decided to eat the first one before the researcher came back, then they would not get a second marshmallow.  So the choice was simple: one treat right now or two treats later.  The researcher left the room for 15 minutes.

As you can imagine, the footage of the children waiting alone in the room was rather entertaining. Some kids jumped up and ate the first marshmallow as soon as the researcher closed the door. Others wiggled and bounced and scooted in their chairs as they tried to restrain themselves, but eventually gave in to temptation a few minutes later. And finally, a few of the children did manage to wait the entire time.

Published in 1972, this popular study became known as The Marshmallow Experiment, but it wasn't the treat that made it famous. The interesting part came years later.

The Power of Delayed Gratification
As the years rolled on and the children grew up, the researchers conducted follow up studies and tracked each child's progress in a number of areas. What they found was surprising.
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The children who were willing to delay gratification and waited to receive the second marshmallow ended up having higher SAT scores, lower levels of substance abuse, lower likelihood of obesity, better responses to stress, better social skills as reported by their parents, and generally better scores in a range of other life measures. (You can see the followup studies here, here, and here.)
The researchers followed each child for more than 40 years and over and over again, the group who waited patiently for the second marshmallow succeed in whatever capacity they were measuring. In other words, this series of experiments proved that the ability to delay gratification was critical for success in life.

The studies above do make one thing clear: if you want to succeed at something, at some point you will need to find the ability to be disciplined and take action instead of becoming distracted and doing what's easy. Success in nearly every field requires you to ignore doing something easier (delaying gratification) in favor of doing something harder (doing the work and putting in your reps). jamesclear.com