I am someone who can delay gratification. It takes a lot of regular practice but I have worked really hard to get there. I think that it comes from my core value that hard work and perseverance pays off.

“I don’t believe there is pleasure in life. I believe there is only relief of pain… We have to suffer to be on top.” GEORGES ST-PIERRE

I don’t think that all my work has linear growth but I have found over a long enough timeline the core value of delayed gratification to be beneficial. It’s amazing how many people do not do this. I spent a lot of time looking for a shortcut or large short term gains. But I just spent all my time looking for those and I was left with a lot of busyness but nothing to show for it. When I put my head down and just put in the work I know I need to do, I see the slow gains but after a while they grow exponentially.

It comes down to mitigating risk. I love to take risks, but I do it within reason. I take risks by making long term commitments in a thoughtful way. I think about this in how I drive my car. I could wait till the last possible minute to leave, take the fastest route and risk being late if anything gets in my way. Or I could leave extra early, take a slower, less stressful and more reliable route. I arrive at a similar time, but I am more consistently on time. I also can break this down. When I do that, I take less risk on the route. If something slows me down, I’m not in a hurry so I can wait. If there is a car taking forever to make a left turn, I have time to sit and wait with them. I see these moments as tests. They are opportunities for me to practice patience. My first thought is, “oh my god hurry up” and start looking for how I can get around them. In these moments I like to take a pause, a breath and ask, “where are you going?” Oh yeah, I’m on my way home from work, I’m not late for anything important, I can wait. What am I really in a hurry for? To get home and scroll on my phone? Every time I make this move I get a little better, it gets a little easier, and I get there faster. The hope being that I get to where the pause is the reaction. Like oh cool an opportunity to change my music, or look around at the world. I can finally fully zone out and appreciate everything. I’ve got nowhere to go, awesome.

Today I’ve noticed that its seeping into other areas of my life. Like finances. Look at some of the most successful direct to consumer businesses. The ones who make the most money are in it for the long term. Like banks. They mitigate risks of people and they win. Or selling a car. Setting up the payments. If you put more upfront and make a bigger payment ultimately you pay the least money overall. If you put less down and spread the payments over a longer period you pay the most interest, there for the most overall. For me its not the big transactions that make me go broke, it’s the small ones. Death by a thousand cuts.

Its not too many large purchases, it’s the small ones at higher frequency. It’s the $8 Starbucks every morning, the subscription to every streaming service, and a gym membership you don’t use. All these recurring expenses over time add up. For most people, if it’s a big purchase we think about it, but it’s rare to think about that daily cup of coffee, or lunch. It’s not easy. Its upfront work for later payoff.

The almost ironic thing is that I have begin to prefer the upfront pain for later payoff. I love the pain of practice, once I get started. That goes back to my article about motivation. But I realized recently that I enjoy paying more upfront for something when over the long period I make more and it gets easier. I feel like I found the key to success. It’s about putting off pleasure for long term gains. So a practice of pushing now, being uncomfortable now, so future Bjorn can enjoy it is how I roll. I like to get there by asking myself what would future Bjorn think? I think about my friend complaining how his headphones are always tangled up, and I offered up a solution. I asked what do you do with them when you are not using them? He just stuffed them in his pocket. I showed my headphones, carefully wrapped up with a small velcro cable tie and put into a repurposed round Aloids mints tin. I just took time to find a solution and created a habit of putting my headphones away so that future Bjorn could never have to worry about tangled cords again.

It’s one of the things that really drew me to standup. I love how I get to think and write things down then bring them to a crowd later. My regular writing habit, pushing to write when I don’t feel like it has paid off. Some of my best works have come from me not knowing what to say, yet still putting pen to paper or fingers to board. Organizing my thoughts and presenting them is such a fun experience for me and the more I do it the better I have become at it.

I’ve been working to adopt this “see it, do it” habit. I am extremely forgetful. I thought it was lack of focus but its more too much focus. I focus so much that the world drops away. I am hyper focused on whatever is directly in front of me. In order for me to be successful I must design systems, or I forget about things. I tried this thing where if I see something, I do it right then. If done sporadically it’s not always effective but if done consistently I find huge results. My approach to cleaning my house I call ADD popcorn cleaning. What I do is if I see something that needs to be done, I have two options, either I put it on my to do list or I do it right then. I then just move through the tasks getting as many done or started. So I might see the laundry needs to be started, so I will grab that and get it going, then I notice the trash is full, so I bring that out, but then I see that the carpet needs vacuumed, I will start doing that, then when I go to empty the vacuum I notice that I didn’t put a can liner in so I do that, and I just move though my house till it’s all done. Who cares what the order is as long as it’s all getting done, it’s really fun and very novel.

I am far from perfect, but when I use the lens of delaying gratification it’s brought my life results, I could never even imagine. It’s always better to put the treat at the end. When I have a habit of doing the dishes while I cook and get as many done before I eat as possible. I have left is the dish my food was on when I finish. It’s a painful push most times, but oh the results are so much better. The more I apply this concept to aspects of my life the happier I am. I am left feeling satisfied rather than empty or guilty. My competitive advantage over most people is that I focus on: What short term pain will give me the biggest return long term. Even if it’s just small amounts of discomfort every day over time I know I will see results.

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~Bjorn RG~

Short Term Pain for Long Term Gain.