The Benefits of Delayed Gratification

The group of young children sat in a private room with a marshmallow directly in front of them as a researcher gave instructions.

He was going to leave for 15 minutes, and when he returned, if they hadn’t touched the marshmallow, they’d be rewarded a second. If they had eaten it, that would be their only one.

Some of the kids inevitably jumped up and ate the marshmallow as soon as he shut the door. Others held off initially, then ate the treat after a few minutes as temptation became too great.

A select few restrained themselves the entire time and got two.

This was 1972, and the researcher who conducted the experiment, Walter Mischel, would follow the subjects’ lives for the next 35-plus years.

What Mischel found was that the children who held off and got two marshmallows ended up having higher SAT scores, lower levels of substance abuse, better responses to stress and better social skills in general.

So, what’s the relevance to us from a study from 50 years ago?

The end of 2022 is drawing near — and many of us are invariably reflecting on our achievements and disappointments from the past 12 months. We’ve likely hit some of our goals and fallen short on others, while watching some of those close to us seemingly check off every item on their to-do list.

But as we consider some milestones or targets that we perhaps haven't reached, we may want to keep the Stanford Marshmallow experiment in mind and think about what the hidden benefits of not getting the coveted results in the short term may be.

Sure, not reaching our win target may cause us some anguish and deep reflection now, but it could lead us to implement an even better offense for the years to come.

Falling short on projected return on investment is certainly disappointing, but maybe it leads us to shift our financial resources and energy to a more productive cause.

The point is that immediate results and satisfaction do not necessarily mean we’re on the right track for long-term.

Sometimes, we truly do need to go back and delay our gratification to improve the larger product and formulate more sustainable strategies.

The most fulfilling achievements of all frequently require us to wait a bit longer than expected.