Build Your Future Through Delayed Gratification

You can have anything you want. You just can’t have everything at once! If you’re a high achiever, you’re probably chasing a more incredible life, and of course it’s within your reach. But chasing too many things at once won’t result in success; it will most certainly result in exhaustion and draining your time, energy, and finances. 

Lots of opportunities come your way, right? If you try to tackle them all at once, you could lose your focus and spend 80 hours a week trying to keep up with everything. A lot of business people lose their drive, their health, and then their marriages because they cannot say no. Think about this: Are you spending your health for wealth? I did for a while, and then I woke up! I realized I didn’t have to have everything…at least not all at the same time. Life is a journey, and we need to do our best today to live it that way. 

One smart strategy to achieve what you want without overload—and without taxing your resources—is to stage your successes, purchases, experiences, and big spends. It’s important to see the big picture of what you want, but it’s equally necessary to see the next step from where you are now. One way is to differentiate between your needs versus your wants. You can delay gratification and plan things far into the future, and it will mean even more because you planned for it. Timing is everything. Remember that you can have anything you want, but give yourself a reality check and consider whether you really need it right now, all at once. Know what you want and have complete clarity about how to bring it into your world
so that it compliments—not complicates—your life. It’s tempting to spend all our energy on things that give us immediate payoff, and in business, that’s often a good thing. But we should also be focusing our efforts on things that pay off down the road, in both business and in life. If all our efforts were rewarded short-term, we could be missing what matters most. 

Here’s a worthy note: I encourage you to not just keep striving toward “having,” but to also include what you want to experience, share, and become. It was really powerful for me when I made this distinction. I realized that I was willing to give up a lot of what I could have so I could experience, do, and share
other things. 

Have the discipline to wisely delay gratification and build future wins. Consider what you need to spend more time on now to get future rewards. Think about what you should invest in now that will pay off later, relative to your kids, home, financial stability, health, brand, and business. Make a plan, get clear on your goals, and start thinking, organizing, and building for future rewards. Be intentional about doing now what will pay big dividends later.