Marshmallows and Long Term Savings
This delightful video of the Marshmallow Test will not only put a smile on your face, it may remind you of your own journey with long term savings. You will see young children who are offered a marshmallow. But there’s a catch. If they wait to eat it, they will get another marshmallow as a reward for waiting. Watch these kids grapple with the decision and picture your own temptations to spend rather than save.
Did you notice which child had the hardest time “saving?” She looked to be the youngest one of the bunch, which comes as no surprise since delayed gratification is cognitively very challenging for children under the age of 5.
Rest assured, if saving is hard for you, you are not alone. Somewhere in all of us is a kid just wanting to take a nibble of the gift in our hands, even if saving it promises more reward later. But you can overcome those tendencies.
Here is some good news from the world of behavioral science. Delayed gratification is an adaptive skill. In o
ther words, you can get better at it. The key is to provide positive reinforcement that makes the decision to wait “worth it.” Luna Jaffe, author of Wild Money*, makes the case that the best way to feel a connection with our long term future is to dream about it. Much of Jaffe’s work challenges readers to envision the future, to think of it as a time of plenty. What would you be able to do then? What would you be able to give? What impact might your life have if those possibilities were to become real?
Take heart, you can get better at waiting. And those two marshmallows you get will be worth every bite.
