Many of us want to lose weight and become healthier, often the journey requires us to eat healthier foods and exercise more. For some, they give up after a few days or weeks, as they do not see instant results. Businesses often take short-term wins over long-term wins by making short-sighted decisions that will impact the future of the company negatively.

A lot of dreams and goals that you want to achieve will require short-term sacrifices; these sacrifices tend to have instant gratification like eating a burger if you are attempting to eat healthily. These temptations are why a lot of people fail to achieve their goals as it’s easier to do things that you can have now.

Instant Gratification

In today’s society, we live in a world that is full of instant gratification. The rise of digital technology has enabled us to gain instant gratification without the need to wait. For example, gaining likes or comments when posting a photo on social media or buying a product from Amazon prime and receiving it the next day.  Instant gratification has made us lazy; when you are unable to get that instant gratification we get frustrated. We tend to find the lazy and easy way out of any problem.

Sacrifice

Any long-term goal will require some sacrifices to achieve. The biggest sacrifice for people is our time and how we spend it. Many of us like to spend time doing things that we like to do such as hanging out with friends, watching Netflix or ordering takeaway foods so we don’t waste time on cooking. Many sacrifices will involve taking away the instant gratifications that we love to experience.  

Self-Discipline

To give up instant gratification will require self-discipline. Self-discipline cannot be built within a day and needs to be built up over time. Start with something small and over time resisting all temptations will be much easier. Once your self-discipline has been built you will be able to achieve your goal faster.

Think Long Term

While you are on the journey to achieve your goal or objective, it is good to remember your goal especially during the tough days when you think no progress is being made. Always remember why you wanted to achieve the goal, the reason will remind you why you set the goal in the first place. Don’t forget how far you have come and by looking back you can see your growth and it will further encourage you to not stop and carry on.

Summary

Many of us lose sight of the long-term benefit of the goal we are trying to achieve, as the short-term sacrifices needed are tough to take. A society where we can gain instant gratification within seconds can make it hard to continue with short-term sacrifices to achieve long-term benefits. In today’s world where short-term sacrifices of our freedom and normal life for the safety of friends and family can be difficult, we have to remember the long-term benefit of our sacrifices will help improve the difficult situations we are in today. Remember short-term sacrifice, long-term benefit.