I get am. I hope this finds you well. Welcome to another installment of you project, Craig Anthony Harper. Just a reminder if you're listening to this week, this week being well, it's the fourteenth of August. As I record, I'm going to be in Bendigo this weekend. I'm going to be in Bendigo this week and doing my workshop, my new workshop which is called Understanding You. If you live anywhere near Bendigo and you're interested, go to my website Craig Arba dot net. Go to education, have a
look and you can find out more about that. I'd
love to see you there. Right So today, as is often the way, and I say this too much, but it happens to be true, I'm talking about something that I spoke about with somebody this morning, and that is the idea of doing the hard thing, the slow thing, the inconvenient thing, the thing that's not quick, easy or painless, and moreover, ladies and gentlemen, more over, the idea of delaying gratification, not doing the thing in the moment that might give us an instant hit of dopamine or pleasure,
but rather having an awareness, a greater awareness of the bigger picture and being able to make a decision in the moment which might make all of our subsequent moments better or potentially better, because we are resisting something that might give us a modocoum of joy or euphoraur or
dopamine in the moment. But by doing that constantly, which many of us do, hitting the quick fix button or hitting that dopamine button, it kind of fucks us up over the long term, and in our fast paced world where instant access to everything is at our fingertips, it's
just to click away. The idea of delaying gratification can seem old fashioned, I guess, an outdated and maybe sometimes even counterintuitive, but for me personally and with the people that I've worked with over the years, it's proven to be that while, of course we can have our moments of pleasure and fun, and we need to an extent live in the moment, but we also need to have an awareness of our life moving forward and what our life might look like moving forward, the quality of our life,
our health, our relationships, our career, our experiences, our mental and emotional well being. It's good for us to have an eye on that, or an awareness of that moving forward, so that in this moment when I'm about to do this thing or say this thing, or make this decision, or eat this thing, or drink this thing, or buy this thing, or react this way, that I'm realizing that even though it might feel good or it might feel right in the moment, in the context of my life,
it could be somewhat destructive. It could be toxic, it could be a negative. And you and I live in a culture that really celebrates you know, the now, the quick wins, the fast food, the magic pills, the quick fixes, the two minute abbs, the instant results of which I've
spoken about many times. But we know that when it comes to building a better life, whatever that means, like whatever a better life means to you, so health, career, lifestyle, the kind of results that you're producing in your world, your energy levels, your relationships, or I guess, broadly speaking, that internal state, like I've said a lot of times, like where life happens is external, but where living happens is internal. And so what is the impact. I'm thinking
about this as I go. So if it's a little bit lumpy and bumpy today, please excuse me. This is not scripted or particularly planned other than the theme. So I'm as I do always with these solo ones. This is intuitive, instinctive, and organic. So if it ain't the most polished brothers and sisters, I apologize, But just the I guess, having the awareness of in the moment, what might be the consequence, good or bad, of this thing
that I'm going to do. And for somebody who spent a lot of his life really struggling with food, like for me, food was my drug, Food was my addiction. Food was my not only my physiological barrier, but also my mental and emotional barrier. Because I would I would in the moment medicate myself with food. I would numb myself with food. I would I would drag myself out of some kind of pain temporarily with food because I just shoved this whatever it is that I didn't need
my body didn't actually need it. I just wanted it. I'd shove it in and then I'd momentarily feel good. I would make an in the moment, instant gratification driven decision, and literally fifteen minutes later, I would hate myself. I would feel regretful, I would be disappointed in me. I would be frustrated, I would be ashamed, and I did that, or I did a version of that. For years, I was constantly trapped in this cycle of pushing the dopamine button.
And all that did for me was that made me less functional, less happy, less resilient, less capable, less adaptable over the long term. And so the process or the practice of delaying gratification, it's not just potentially transformational, but it's just a really good, important and powerful idea, I
guess process path to take. And that doesn't mean, of course, like I said before, that we're not going to have fun and silliness and we're not going to have a piece of cake ever, or we're not going to we're not going to press that button, that dopamine button at times. Of course, I press the dopamine button every time I choose to ride one of my motorbikes instead of drawing driving my boring fucking car, you know. But that's that's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about the
exclusion of joy from our life. But we're talking about decisions in the moment, actions, reactions in the moment that might be setting us up for pain over the long term. So delaying gratification. I guess it means being able to resist the temptation of something immediate, an immediate reward with that mental, emotional, psychological, or physiological I should say, in favor of something that's bigger and perhaps more enduring in
the future. So it's the ability to say no to the easy choice now, so that you can say yes to something that is far more rewarding, fulfeeling, meaningful, empowering, and enduring over the long term. Like and I truly think that this ability is it an ability, this traits, this practice is the cornerstone of personal growth and success. I've not met one person who has been what I would call And when I say success, I'm not talking
about financially necessarily. It could be in any realm. It could just be that someone that's genuinely fulfilled and happy and calm. You know, that's depending on your value system. For me, I value that kind of internal, spiritual, emotional, psychological, sociological wealth. I hold that personally higher regard than money. Money is good. I don't hate money. I'm not mad
at money. I get paid money. But for me, money is a practical resource that I use to do stuff and I've made buck all money at times, and I've made lots of money at times, and I can personally anyway, I can tell you that for me, when I was making ten times the money, I didn't have ten times the happiness. That's my experience. Doesn't mean it would be yours, but that's my experience. So for me, the relentless pursuit
of money is a dumb pursuit. It's factored into my life moving forward more on a practical and experiential level, you know, getting bills paid, being able to do things, being able to serve others, being able to look after my parents, all that stuff. But the idea of being hell bent on making more and more money at all costs for me, that kind of that's not a big driver. That's not a big driver. So let's think about the pursuit of, say, better health. I mean, this is a
no brainer because everybody wants that. So we know that in the moment, it's far easier to reach for the thing that we don't need, whatever that is for you, than it is for a healthy option and that immediate kind of pleasure, that immediate kind of hit or fix, satisfying that craving or that urge is understandable. And I actually think every now and then, I don't think that's
a deal breaker. I don't think, but I think the decision to delay that consistently so to for example, choosing to go for a run, or choosing a nutritious meal, or choosing to have some water instead of some booze, or choosing to have a different having one glass instead of five glass. Perhaps, but this not only does this hey dividends over time, but it changes us. It changes us so that we become we become better at making decisions, right decisions, and choosing the right path and taking the
right action and reacting the right way. And when I say the right way, I mean the right way for you, the right way for you. And we go, well, what's the right way for you? What does that mean, Craig? How do I know what's the right way? Here's how
you know. If you are if you are making a decision, if you are taking an action, if you are responding a certain way, and that response or that action or that choice aligns with your values, how you want to be, who you want to be, what is important to you, then that is the right choice. Then that is the best choice that is the best action, that is the
best reaction, and the same thing. You know, it applies across the board, like with lifestyle, the kind of life that you want to build, you want to you want to buy a home, or you want to dream holiday, or you want financial independence. You know, the temptation to short term, to spend on short term pleasures like to buy the gadget that we don't need one hundred inch TV, or the spontaneous shopping spree, or the eating out seven nights a week because it gives us a level of
instant gratification. Again, sometimes these are things that we need to go Is this what I should be doing to set myself? What do I want my life to look like in five, ten, fifteen, twenty years? What do I want? What is the best version of me? What is the best version of my health? What is the best version?
If I think of my optimal lifestyle or my optimal living situation, or my optimal career, and I think about how that might eventuate or unfold or grow, how I might create that over the next one, two, five, ten, fifteen twenty years, I think about my life moving forward, and then I come back to the micro of now then I come back to today, to this moment. And obviously whether or not I choose a beer or a water in this moment is not in and of itself transformational.
But when we put all of those moments together, of delaying gratification or denying gratification, or choosing the narrow path not the wide path. When we put all those in the moment moments together, the collection of those, that becomes our superpower. That becomes the way that you and I build an operating system that aligns with who and how we want to be over the long term. And it's tough. You know, it's tough because when we and I say
it's tough, plainly because I want to be honest. You know, I don't want to tell you it's quick, easy, fun and painless, as you've heard me say, because it ain't. It ain't like. Quite often, the thing that you need to do to build your best body, build your best life, build your best marriage, build your best brand. You know, do your PhD, do your undergrad degree, write that book, overcome that addiction, repair that relationship, whatever it is, whatever
it is that you need to do. Quite often, the thing that is easy in the short term is destructive over the long term. And quite often the thing that you would much prefer to do today is not the best thing. I'll say that again. Quite often, the thing that you would prefer to do today, it might make today a bit easier, but it's going to make moving forward a bit harder. And so the question is based on who I want to be, how I want to be, how I want the macro of my life to play out.
What do I need to do in the micro of this minute when I hold up the values and the aspirations and the goals and the intentions and the dream and the story of my future, that is the macro of my life? What do I need to do now in this moment, in this moment when no one's looking, in this moment, when no one's cheering. And this is
another thing. With all of this, we need to get to the point, I believe, let me preface it with that, I believe we need to get to the point where we are doing the right things in the micro, in the moment, in the day to day minutia of our existence. We're making the hard decisions and doing the hard things and resisting and avoiding the instant gratification without any need, without any need for in the moment reward, without any need for validation or approval or recognition. And one of
the problems is that's another instant gratification thing. We love everyone to tell us how fucking amazing we are for eating a salad, for going for a walk, for showing up, for just doing the right thing. We somehow revert to this child life like mindset that I need people to tell me I'm amazing every time I do something that, by the way, is not fucking amazing. You eating a salad isn't amazing. You going for a walk isn't amazing.
You do not need a gold medal for that. You do not need a round of applause, You do not need other people to watch. You do not need any kind of validation. And if you think that you do, the problem is in your thinking. If your story is I need someone to tell me this to acknowledge that that, then that ain't. The problem is not that that's lacking.
The problem is the story. We need to always check ourselves because we're always telling ourselves a story about what is and what isn't, and quite often the story that we're telling is the problem, and it's in I guess, it's in the practicing of you know, restraint, I guess, for want of a better term, delaying, denying, avoiding those immediate, sometimes overwhelming desires. And by the way, it's hard, it's hard as fuck. I get it. I get it, you know.
And sometimes like that desire, that overwhelming desire for me that still exists in various forms that might not be so much in food, but sometimes it's in my ego where I want to say something that I know is going to impress someone, or I know that is going to get me some kind of accolades, and in the moment, in the moment, I realize what I'm about to do or what I'm thinking about doing, and it's just putting the brakes on that in the moment and just shutting
the fuck up and pulling my ego back into check and saying, this is not me, this thing that I want to say or do, this doesn't align with who I want to be. And how do I want to be humble? Do I want to be self aware? Do I want to have a purpose bigger than me? Yes? I want all of that, but I really want that so right now, ego, pull your head in Right now, I'm going to I'm going to choose the narrow path
right now. I'm going to deny that impulse that I have for recognition, for approval, because yes I'm still insecure, and yes I still want all of those things, but me chasing that shit, it doesn't help anyone else, and
it definitely doesn't help me. And what we do. Quite often when we become that person that is in constant need of approval and attention and reward and accolade, we've then just created a new addiction because I can't do anything positive unless there's a round of applause or a trophy. And while it's great to have people that care about us and support us, it is completely unhealthy to be paralyzed or incapable of moving forward or doing anything positive
unless we have the attention of someone else. So I guess delaying gratification is not It's not about denying ourselves the pleasure of living a life or denial and deprivation. It's not about misery, it's not about in fact, it's the opposite. It's about creating a life that is more rewarding, more fulfilling, more joyous, and also in the middle of creating that life, it's about creating a version of us so that we don't need or we don't need, that
instant gratification, whatever that might look like. It's about making conscious choices that in the moment might be hard, but conscious choices that in the moment align with our deeper
values and our longer term goals. It's about recognizing that the easy path is rarely the rewarding path, and that true success, health, happiness, fulfillment, growth require patience and perseverance and a willingness to forego the immediate pleasure of something for the sake of something greater in the macro of our existence. You know, the ability to delay and deny gratification is a muscle that can be strengthened. But it's like anything else. We need to go to the gym.
We need to go to the delaying gratification gym so that the next time we do it it's a bit easier, and it's a bit easier, and it's a bit easier. Each time we choose to wait, each time we choose to deny that impulse or resist that impulse, or each time we choose to prioritize our future over our in the moment, right, we build that muscle, and over time, these small and repetitious and consistent acts of self control they accumulate, they build that muscle, They build, they pertrophy
that that delaying gratification muscle. They turn us into a version of ourselves that can now consistently make or more consistently perhaps the kind of decisions and embrace the kind of behaviors that lead to that profound transformation. They shape our character, they shape our habits, our day to day operating system, and ultimately they shape what our life will look, feel,
and function like. And us in the middle of it, you know, and I guess in a world that is always pushing you and me, you know, through marketing, through media, through various forms of advertising, through peer pressure, through you know, we're always being urged to take the quick and easy route.
And in the middle of all of that, the practice of delaying gratification is a it's a somewhat radical act, like it's really it's a choice to live with intention and self control and awareness and some other very unsexy things like discipline, and to prioritize the long term us, the long term growth, the long term fulfillment, the long term calm, the long term success over the short term whatever, and to invest in a future that holds the promise
of something truly worthwhile. And I believe it's in the mastering of this practice, this trait, this habit, whatever you want to call it, that we can unlock a power create a life that's not just good in the moment, but amazing over the long haul.