Do you know why Lamborghini doesn’t advertise on television? Because their target customer is not sitting around watching TV.
Your inability to focus on your goals or stay committed to a task is caused by your need for instant gratification.
In other words, you don’t fail at something because of a lack of talent or motivation. You often fail because you are addicted to the most addictive modern-day drug: instant gratification.
Here’s Why
Failure or success at anything is determined by one thing – choices.
I’m not talking about your choice to take on a goal or commitment to do something.
That’s the easy part.
When you decide to do something, you’re all inspired and energized. If you could achieve the goal with a GIGANTIC amount of effort on the same day, you would.
But gaining mastery of anything takes consistent effort and discipline. Loads of it.
In simple words – THINGS TAKE TIME.
It is the choices that you make during THIS time that determine your outcome.
What do you do when you have an exam a week from now? Why do you procrastinate when your most important responsibility comes up? How do you spend your time when you have nothing else to do?
Reading a Book vs Scrolling Through TikTok (Aimlessly)
Fast foods, instant noodles, and TikTok. What’s common about them?
They are easily accessible and their pleasurable effects are easily seen.
All your senses moan in satisfaction as you slurp a good momo dumpling.
As you scroll through TikTok, your brain is constantly flooded by hits of dopamine (your brain’s pleasure chemical.)
But finishing a book takes longer than that. Learning a new skill requires more effort than that.
That is exactly why you fail – because all the good things are so fucking hard!
Instant Gratification Kills Dreams
Convenient things save time and make the human race go forward, at least that’s what we believe.
But the crisis arises when your brain becomes so used to being tickled and pleased instantly that it hates doing the hard stuff.
But the hard stuff, ladies and gentlemen, is what actually matters in the long run.
Finishing a book is hard (left a book halfway, anyone?)
Listening to your teacher attentively for an hour is hard.
Learning a new skill that’ll bear its fruits years from now is hard.
And all of this can be explained:
If Instagram chats, fast foods, and TikTok clips can please your ape brain instantly, why would it ever want to work for your long-term goals?
Find Fun in the Boring Stuff
I will tell you who becomes the best guitarist – that guy who can spend hours on his guitar mumbling and fumbling through chords, even as the guitar strings bite at his fingertips.
That guy who has formed calluses on his fingers.
And who becomes the Olympic gold medalist swimmer?
That girl who spends EVERY SINGLE DAY in the pool working on her strokes and breathing pattern.
Swimming is fun for most people because they do it once or twice every summer.
But can you imagine working only on your diving technique . . . for a month EVERY DAY? Every fraction of a second saved matters in the international competition!
Who becomes the self-made millionaire and lives the life of his dream?
That guy who resists the urge to chase girls during his youth, the one who works silently on his dreams while everyone else is partying, going to sick places, and uploading Instagram stories.
I hope I made my point. Long-term success and excellence go to people who save themselves from instant gratification and find fun in doing the hard stuff.
Okay, Smartypants. How Do I Love the Hard Stuff?
There’s a term that is gaining popularity these days: Dopamine Detox.
Dopamine Detox happens when a person avoids dopamine triggers for a set period of time.
Let me translate that to English:
For some time, you don’t indulge in anything that gives you instant pleasure.
The idea is simple: you isolate yourself from anything that is easy and quickly pleasurable.
Don’t scroll through TikTok without a purpose. Don’t look at your phone as you’re lying on your bed. And don’t watch porn (#NoFap Day 02).
Because all these things are fucking up with your brain’s circuitry. They prevent your brain from doing the hard stuff.
Once you build a habit of it, it’s not very hard.
Results of Avoiding Instant Gratification
As your brain rewires its pleasure-seeking system, you will find fun in the stuff that once felt boring.
Finishing a book will be easy, actually a lot more pleasing than scrolling through Instagram.
Completing an entire course to learn a new skill will be fun, you’ll be able to persevere through it.
The grass will appear greener, you’ll start noticing the weather and your surrounding more clearly.
You can do this.
Humans were meant to think about the future. We have the ability to work with long-term consequences in mind.
If you only succumb to instant gratification, you’ll be no different from a rat that spends the better part of its life looking around for the most calorie-dense food, or a sexually untamed dog who conceives with any dog it sees.
We have ape genetics, one of monkeys and chimps, but we don’t have to be like one.