Anth Quinn

We live in a world of instant gratification!

• We turn on a switch and we get light.
• We click a switch and we have heat to cook our food.
• We go to the supermarket and the fruit is always in season
• We want fresh water to drink we just have to turn on a tap.
• Friends on the other side of the world are only a call away!

This has brought huge benefits to everyday life and it’s understandable that we want other areas of our lives to be just as easy and quick.

There is a downside to this instant fix!

It lies in the fact that very often your goal is not what is really important, what is really important is what you will become in the process of growing as you move towards your goal!

Which do you think will be of more use to you, a university degree you buy on the internet or one which you study and work hard for 4 years?

Same bit of paper very different result on your life!

When it comes to personal development the same is true. Sure with NLP I can help someone get over a phobia very quickly – after all it was only ever in their mind anyway!

But no matter how good my skills I can’t do a 15 minute process and help a 20 stone man who hasn’t run for 20 years to complete a marathon in 4 hours! Well not unless I give him a lift in my car!

While I can help him get over the blocks and help him take consistent action, if he wants to lose weight and get fit he’s going to have to put the sweat and effort in himself!

That doesn’t mean he won’t benefit from ongoing support and encouragement, we all do, in fact I’d say that being part of a support community is one of the “secret” keys to success. But at the end of the day no matter how many friends and supporters he’s got, in the end it’s up to him. There is no easy way he can’t simply hire someone to do the training runs for him and expect to turn up ready on the day!

Another common example is people who win the lottery; studies show that a few years after winning many “winners” are back where they started or even worse off. They probably hadn’t learned to manage their income before their win, so it’s no surprise that they didn’t manage their money well after their windfall either. Whereas, entrepreneurs who build a successful business which then goes bad, leaving them with nothing – will very often build another successful company. The important thing here is that they may lose the business and all of their money, but they haven’t lost the skills and knowledge that they developed the first time around and they can learn from their “failure” and start again.

So is instant gratification a bad thing?

I’d say no, in fact planning in instant “positive reinforcement” is crucial to ongoing behavioural change. But seeking easy gratification and solutions will leave you open to the promises of the people who know how much you want it!

Hey none of us is immune from this, I spent years buying programs and attending courses to overcome my personal challenges of procrastination and fear of moving forward into the unknown – we’re only human and the advertisers and marketers are influence professionals!

Remember their job is to persuade you to forget the exercise equipment in the garage, to forget about the magic of compound interest, and to get off your butt and type in your credit card number. If you want to believe them then fine, just get them to deliver it straight into your garage – or advertise it on eBay as unopened! :o)

If you want to lose weight – don’t buy the latest gizmo from the shopping channel – work on your beliefs and attitudes towards food, begin an exercise program, eat healthily and join a support group! Weight watchers works for a reason!

If you want to build up your finances – stop “investing” in the get rich lottery and scratch card promises. You’d be better spending your money on a local course in financial management and investment.

If you want to turn any aspect of your life around, remember it’s not about a quick fix, it’s about changing the way you live your life day by day and if your life hasn’t been how you wanted it then that seems like a good thing to me, what about you?

All the best.

Anth.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 6:17 pm and is filed under Myths and Lies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.