Mastering Delayed Gratification: Gamifying Your Path to Success

In Minecraft which takes more work to get — wood or diamond?

But which is the strongest?

The more work you put into something — and the more patient you are — the better the eventual outcome.

Medical school is the definition of delayed gratification.

You work non-stop for 5 years without getting anything in return until you finally become a doctor.

Going through this process has taught me how to make the journey fun — motivating me to get more work done.

Instant Gratification — The Killer of Success

The normal tendency for most of the population is to procrastinate until their deadlines approach and in the 3 days leading up to the deadline they start to actually take the work seriously.

A bunch of work gets piled up on top of each other.

No time for planning and adjustments.

Inefficient.

Delayed Gratification

Building a business is also another example of delayed gratification.

You spend years — sometimes even decades — building your business’ foundations and then after a lot of dedication and hard work you manage to become successful.

Since a strong foundation was built, this type of success is more likely to be maintained in the long run.

That’s why people who win the lottery eventually end up broke.

They didn’t work for their money so they are not trained to handle it — their foundations are weak.

Making the Journey Fun — Gamification

Telling someone to prioritise delayed gratification is way easier said than done — especially in today’s world where we are constantly being bombarded with little shots of dopamine through likes, TikTok videos and other forms of instant gratification.

What we need to do is educate others on HOW to train themselves to live a life of delayed gratification.

The key is gamification.

If we manage to convince our brains that the work we are doing is just like a PS5 game then our motivation to complete the task increases.

True gamers all know about the dopamine rush you get when you start to progress through levels when playing a game.

That feeling is what we need to emulate in our work.

How do we do this?

The 4 Pillars of Gamification

1. Self Assessment

In GTA Online the way one carries out self assessment is through the ranking system. The higher your rank is, the more progress you have made in the game. In story mode you carry out self assessment by checking out the percentage of completion of the game.

What you need to do is track progress of your work and like this you will get a clear picture of how much you have progressed from the beginning.

This will cause dopamine secretion and will motivate you to keep on going and progress even further until you reach your goals.

Some examples of self assessment are:

• Pictures after every gym session

• Track new subscribers every week for YouTube channels

• Keep track of how much time you have spent on a particular side hustle

2. Break Down Goals into Tasks

The second pillar of gamification is to break down goals which seem like they carry a high risk into low risk, high reward goals.

Imagine your main goals is to make $10,000 per month.

Seems very hard to get there right?

Not if you take it step by step and break it down into smaller goals, each goal leading to the next:

• Goal 1: Find a high income skill that I can learn.

• Goal 2: Make time to dedicate 1 hour everyday to learning this new skill

• Goal 3: Make $10 through providing value with this new skill

• Goal 4: Make $100

• Goal 5: Make $1,000

• Goal 6: Make $3,000

• Goal 7: Make $5,000

• Goal 8: Make $10,000

Breaking down goals in this way makes them seem way more achievable because you are starting easy and always increasing the challenge slightly.

Seems way more achievable then taking on $10,000 right from the start. This would probably discourage you and you would end up giving up early on in your journey.

This can be easily understood by using the gym as a metaphor.

You start with the weights you can handle and every week you aim to increase the weights — progressive overload. If your goals is to bench press 100kg you start with 20kg and increase every week until you get to 100kg.

You never start with 100kg, you work your way to it.

And that should be the same for all other goals in life.

Start small. Build momentum. Accomplish goals.

3. Form a Culture

Time and time again you’ve probably heard the phrase: ‘’You are the average of the 5 people you hang around with’’.

There’s a reason you constantly hear this.

Because it’s true.

If you spend time with people with similar goals, not only will you start to become like them, but you will also compete (in a healthy way) and this makes you want to work even more.

Form a culture of people who will change you for the better.

Compete together and help each other out.

An easy way of doing this is by meeting up once a week with two other friends at a coffee shop and everyone works on their business.

Seeing your friends working will make you want to work as well.

4. Rewards

What do we do when a dog performs a trick after you have trained them? Give them a treat. A reward for their work.

Our brain is not that different from a dog’s brain.

Reward it and it will keep on performing.

For every little milestone in your journey give yourself a reward.

For example, if you are writing a book, reward yourself for every chapter you finish. With each chapter being completed you will receive a reward and you will be motivated to complete the next chapter until you have finished the whole book.

It’s all a positive feedback loop. Work. Reward. Repeat.

Now armed with the power of gamified delayed gratification, embark on your journey.

Start by incorporating the four pillars into your daily routine, transforming work into play.

As you progress, remember that true achievement is found not only in the destination but in the thrill of the journey itself.

Get addicted to the process and not to the end result.