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How To Cope With Instant Gratification
Lately I’ve been finding it so hard to sit down and write, sit down to read and sit down to start on my long awaited projects. I realised that something has to be done and so I started picking up a book by James Clear titled ‘Atomic Habits’
I gave myself at least 20 to 30 minutes each day to read and found myself really putting some of what James shared into practice. The interesting thing came when he shared a point on why sticking onto a habit(good ones)is a challenging task. He gave a term called the ‘ cardinal rule of behaviour change’
“What is immediately rewarded is repeated, what is immediately punished is pushed away.” (Cardinal rule of behaviour change)
And that strikes me with the inspiration to find out on why, why do we often fall into this cycle of pushing away what we know as good for us in the long term, but merely just because of the immediate punishment or pain that we get from them. That was when I realised once again that we often fall into this cycle of Instant Gratification. We seek for what’s easy and enjoyable but ignore on what comes next, the consequences of eating loads of junk food now, the consequence of not studying for an examination or the consequence of spending beyond your budget.
“With bad habits, the immediate outcome usually feels good, but the ultimate outcome feels…
