Introduction
Professionally successful people or leaders often have patterns of behavior that are hard to find in others. It is interesting to observe such people, to follow their motivation at work and priorities. Leaders and other essential workers start their journey long before they enter a vital position: some at university and others at school as a child. Patience, or delayed gratification, laid down in childhood or adolescence, is considered one of the keys to professional growth.
Delayed Gratification: Definition
Delayed gratification is a conscious choice that a person makes in favor of a future enjoyment that is supposed to be greater than the momentary one. Such a decision requires a person’s willpower and the ability to prioritize (Baig, 2022). Many studies find correlations between professional (and even school) success and delayed reward mechanisms (Gilbert, 2008; Miller, 2005; Nenkov, 2019). Delayed gratification has several factors underlying decision-making and influencing a person’s professional life.
Strategic Planning and Thinking
Strategic planning drives a business to success, but not all leaders have the necessary skills to do it. Sometimes leaders and professionals have to go for a gambit and give a little to get what they want later. It is a risk that people can consciously take, guided by the principles of delayed gratification (Waters, 2021). When deciding for the sake of the future, people weigh the present and the prospects (Folta et al., 2012). Strategic thinking is always far-sighted, and such people do not live one-day thinking only about the problems that have arrived.
Walter Mischel’s experiment showed that even seven-year-old children could show such strategic thinking, weighing what adults told them. Although the percentage of children who managed to refrain from treats for the second marshmallow was about 30, these children undoubtedly improved their results (Barragan-Jason, et al., 2019). There is an obvious assumption that the percentage of such children as early as 14 years old could increase (Watts et al., 2018). Here, risks and goals play a significant role, which for many children are formed only in adolescence. For example, an ordinary child, spoiled by his parents, at the age of 14-15 can become interested in sports and be impressed by coaches. Denying themselves the pleasures of the moment (sweets, TV shows, scrolling the Internet without a goal), such children go to training and give all the best. It is all due to a clear desire and formulated results that need to be achieved.
Discipline and Self-Control
Self-regulation correlates with the cognitive-emotional system of the individual and is responsible for discipline and self-control. In society and communication, such people are not afraid of responsibility and take their goals very thoughtfully. It helps them achieve career heights, as the authorities and colleagues take them seriously, respect and even sometimes fear them. Perhaps in a group of workers, such people are uncomfortable since most people cannot set work goals so high that they sacrifice others for them for a long time. However, such discipline is not universal, and Walter Michel understood that each person has areas of ‘relaxation’ (Mischel, 2015). These areas are shopping and eating habits; some have serious communication problems due to the inability to compromise. Thus, a very disciplined person at work can be inattentive and infantile in communication with a partner, spouse, or friends.
Clear Understanding of Needs
Purposefulness is incompatible with fuzzy formulations of these same goals and possible results. It is normal for people to need clear instructions on how to stick, and it does not indicate they are suspicious or unprofessional. On the contrary, the more people clarify doubt and articulate it in speech, the more they demonstrate critical and strategic thinking. Only with a clear understanding of the goals and results can one move towards them through sacrifices. If the goals are not outlined, then a small number of people are ready to wait and suffer to achieve them. Precisely the same way it works in situations where the leader of a group or company was caught in a lie, and now no one trusts setting his goals. The marshmallow experiment confirmed these assumptions: by charging the experimenters and accepting precise results in the future, the children made an effort to be patient. If this trust was destroyed or called into question by vague wording, the children preferred to eat marshmallows right away.
Delayed gratification requires the belief that success is, in principle, achievable. If for some reason, success is not possible even with effort, then most people (children and adults) will not even try. It is a game with circumstances where some rules should not be a secret. In other words, all conditions are subject to rigid implicative rules, either a regulation, a promise, or a natural order (Norling, 2009). An example of the latter would be exercising and dieting when overweight or market processes that yield benefits over time.
Priorities
One of the keys to a successful strategy is the distribution of forces by the set priorities. Delayed gratification is the natural setting of priorities and acting on them. A typical example of delayed gratification daily is diet and a healthy lifestyle. It is an example of how a person prioritizes having a beautiful and healthy body over eating unhealthy and delicious food (Baid, 2020, p. 101-102). People being treated for obesity, do the same since the issue of recovery for them is now the most priority compared to eating habits.
A good leader knows how to set priorities for himself and others, and a professional in his field will continuously improve by what should be paid special attention to. Priorities are the focus of human engagement, which, if properly configured, will not require energy to achieve the goal. Priorities are rationalizations and explanations of desires put in a logical order. Such ordered structures are easy to transfer from leader to subordinates or colleagues. That is why many companies, during brainstorming, are guided by creating priority rows. These rows will be common goals for many people, not individual personal desires linked to motivations and dreams (The Brainwaves Video Anthology, 2015). By setting priorities, one can later see that delayed gratification does not require much effort from a person since he learned about the importance of specific tasks before that (McCormack et al., 2019). In this regard, one can return to the example of a healthy diet and lifestyle. It is vital to understand not only the needs but the reasoning why it is essential, what can be achieved after that, and what awaits a person if the goals are not fulfilled.
Shame as the Other Side of Delayed Gratification
As with any psychological phenomenon, delayed gratification has a downside. A few research has been devoted to this particular topic, but shame is considered one of the reverse mechanisms of delayed gratification (Koomen et al., 2020). Shame implies the presence of witnesses in front of a person with negative feelings. These witnesses can be any person since achieving goals (at least those mentioned in this text) is a social act. Some people may feel that they have not lived up to their expectations or demonstrated their weakness.
A person feels shame in front of parents, teachers, superiors, and subordinates. A patient seeking to recover from obesity feels ashamed in front of doctors who have developed a diet and exercise model together (Rybanska et al., 2017). Sometimes shame can be interspersed with guilt if the goal set in the future was an intimate desire and proof of something to oneself. All people strive to avoid negative emotions, including those associated with shame. Sometimes the flight from shame becomes the only motivator to keep moving towards a future goal when no other reasons are left. However, on the initial stages, flight from shame may not be the primary reason for patience.
Conclusion
Delayed gratification and its mechanisms may be established in childhood or adolescence, but they profoundly affect adult life. This psychological phenomenon helps people succeed in their studies and at work, set goals, and unquestioningly go towards them, regardless of obstacles. Usually, such people make respected leaders and indispensable specialists at work, who have spent many years developing themselves and perfecting unique skills. Strategic planning and thinking are responsible for making informed decisions for the benefit of future achievements, which the more developed, the more successfully a person reaches career and professional heights. Such people are distinguished by serious self-control, which makes them not retreat for a long time for the sake of the goal. All people who are guided by delayed gratification have clearly articulated needs since the sacrifices made cannot be made for the sake of illusory hopes. Goals should be just goals, not dreams and hopes, although the latter can give strength and motivation to people. Delayed pleasures are people’s main priorities, to which they can strive, denying themselves momentary joys. The reverse mechanism of the considered phenomenon is the shame felt by a person for wasted sacrifices.
References
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