by Douglas Cooper

Created on: November 27, 2009   Last Updated: November 30, 2009

Delaying gratification is one of the hardest disciplines to master, but once you make it part of your life, your money will grow and you can spend like there is no tomorrow when your retire. Getting to learn some positive habits and incorporating them into your life is crucial towards your long term success.

The first step to learning to delay gratification is understand the effects that not spending money can do for your life. Compounding is a financial term that Albert Einstein said is the greatest power on earth. Compounding takes your invested money and allows it to grow and the interest to generate interest and at some point your money grows at a much faster rate than you would expect. The key to compounding money is time, the more time your money has to grow the more powerful the effects of compounding will have on your money. So a dollar saved today will be much more valuable then a dollar saved next year. Once you understanding this it becomes easier to delay gratification and allow your money to grow.

After understanding compounding another important lesson towards delayed gratification is the power of goal setting. Setting goals will allow you to take gradual smaller steps to reach a larger goal. As you see the smaller steps being completed you have an easier time reaching a bigger goal. It takes these small baby steps before any major financial goal can be reached. The sooner you set the small goals the faster you will reach the big goals.

Goal setting is important but learning discipline is crucial towards delaying gratification. Discipline will allow you to stick towards your financial goals and let nothing get in the way to delay your plan. Setting discipline on autopilot is a lot like creating positive routines. The first few weeks of any new routine is tough but after three weeks of daily routines science has determined that it become a habit and is much easier to do. You won't even struggle to work towards your financial goals with discipline in your tool kit.

Finally, delaying gratification will feel better once you have understood these facts and make them a part of your life. Knowing that your financial future is secure due to your habits is better than anything you could ever want or buy. Later on in life these habits will pay off with a much better life than you could have ever imagined.

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