Satisfaction and Reward Are the Key to Success Essay Example

compared to the children who could not wait any more but ate the Marshmallow immediately the professor left. In this experiment, Posada realized the main key to success and the main difference between the most successful and the least successful people. The main factor to success if not merely hard work or superior intelligence but rather delayed gratification. According to Posada, the "Marshmallow resisters" generally achieve high degree of success while other people eat their entire Marshmallow at one instance. Posada provides that the children who eat the Marshmallow show a high level of accumulating debt and dissatisfaction despite their occupations or incomes. Fowler, James and Cindy (117) defines delayed gratification as the capability to desist current temptation because of immediate reward instead wait for a future or even more enduring reward in future. There is an increasing literature that shows that people who have the ability to delay gratification have positive outcomes in life such as academic success, psychological health, social competence, and physical health.

The ability of an individual to delay gratification related to other similar properties of an individual like patience, self-control, and willpower and impulse control, all of which are required in self-regulation(Addessiet al 392). Generally, self-control involves the capability of an individual to adapt the self as essential to meeting demands of the environment. The opposite of delayed gratification is delay discounting, which refers to the preference for smaller current rewards instead of larger but delayed rewards
Delayed gratification shows that people have personal discipline. Personal discipline is among the greatest virtual that most of the successful people have. Instead of pursuing the less current rewards these people are able to wait

for the benefits to wait for the benefits to accumulate and reap them in future(Cheng et al 137). Investment is among the areas that require a high degree of gratification.

Some of the lucrative businesses like real state require people who have high degree of delayed gratification. Unlike some of the businesses whereby the profits are realized within a very short period, real estate can take a long period before huge profits are realized. For this reason, there is need for investors in such a lucrative business to have the ability to delay gratification by developing the investments and wait for them to reach the prime level to earn them a lot of income. In such circumstances, the investors who lack the ability to delay gratification will sell their real estates at a cheaper price when willing buyers arises even when the real estates have not reached the prime level. Even though the investors with less level of delayed gratitude will earn from the investment, the value of their earning will be low compared to the earnings of the investors who have high degree delayed gratification.
Academic success is also another positive attribute of people with high degree of delayed gratification. Attaining academic excellence requires high-level of sacrifice and dedication and therefore the people pursuing it need to have high degree of delayed gratification. A high degree of delayed gratification enables the people seeking academic excellence to sacrifice the current benefits with knowledge that they will gain more benefits in the future(Stevens et al67). For example, instead of investing the money and time in pleasure activities that can bring them happiness within the shortest time, they invest

in education, which can take them many years before the realization of its fruits.

Delayed gratification is an indication of self-discipline. Delayed gratification shows that people have the discipline to wait until they attain what they want without having to comprise(Stevens et al 69-70).. This self-discipline is important for realization of success. Self-discipline enables people to set their goals and work towards them regardless of what they might face on the way. Lack of it means that the plans that people have will be overtaken by events. What is more, having a high degree of self-discipline enables people to realize what they need, the importance of it and what needs to be sacrificed in order to attain it.

Conclusion

Delayed gratification is of great importance factors for success. Most of the people who have attained meaningful success have a high degree of gratification while most of the people who lack this element have a high probability of being poor in their life. Delayed gratification refers to the capability to desist current temptation because of immediate reward instead wait for a future or even more enduring reward in future. This virtue enables people to work for the big picture of their plans and dreams instead of settling on small rewards. It shows that the people have high degree of patience and endurance and are in a position to wait regardless of the time that it takes them to realize their benefits. A good example is the children in the movie. The children who failed to eat their marshmallow shows that they had high delayed gratification meaning that their self-discipline patience and endurance are high. These factors enabled them to

be successful in both academics and life in the next ten years compared to the children who lacked such characteristics.