Want Now vs. Want Most
My kids are afflicted with the same disease many of us suffer from: the instinct to choose what we want now over what we want most. I'll give you a recent example. There's something Pax really wants to buy. He talks about it all the time, and it would really mean something to him to get it. That's what he wants most.
Here's where the problem comes. A few nights ago, after helping me unload and organize our most recent Northern Vessel coffee shipment, he had $22 in his account. He's nearly halfway to his goal! Unfortunately, there are a few other smaller things he wants now, and said smaller things happen to cost around $20. Therefore, he was begging me to stop at the store so he could buy this thing he doesn't really care about... but it's within instant gratification's reach.
Over and over and over again, he sacrifices what he wants most for what he wants now. After explaining this concept to him, I strongly encouraged him to resist the urge to buy what he wants now, knowing he can buy what he wants most soon enough. He made the right choice for now, but his human desire for instant gratification will surely heat up again.
Does this sound familiar? We humans do it all the time! We so badly want to go on that trip, but it feels so far away and hard to attain. So instead of saving that cash and getting closer to making the trip happen, we blow it on dinner and drinks. We have our eye on a particular watch. It's not outlandishly expensive, but it will take some work to save up. However, we just want to scratch the itch of buying a watch, so we'll buy several cheaper watches that we probably won't wear or appreciate. These are two recent examples from the hundreds of versions of this I see play out in my coaching.
I'm certainly not immune to it, and I suspect you aren't, either. Write it down. What do you want most? Name it. What things do you want now? Write those down, too. Call them out. Now, look at the two lists and compare them. If it's true that what you want most is what you want most, act like it. Make decisions around it. Choose wisely. Each step of the way should revolve more around what we want most than what we want now. These could be more material things, but truthfully, they are often priceless, meaning-laden things in our lives that are far more valuable than money. Choose those. Always choose those.
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