Would You Rather Have One Marshmallow Now… Or Two Later?

 

Whatever you do… do not watch the video below!

(If you can’t see it, here’s a link to the same video. But I’m serious, don’t click the link and watch it!)

Were you able to resist the temptation to press play? Even if you did, was it more difficult than if I had just embedded it and not mentioned it?

The Marshmallow Test

In 1972, Walter Mischel of Stanford University ran a study on deferred gratification now known as the Stanford marshmallow experiment.

In it, a researcher brought children into a room one by one and sat them down in front of one marshmallow. After telling them that they would be able to eat two marshmallows if they didn’t eat the first one, the researcher left the room for an agonizing 15 minutes while the child did everything in their power to take their mind off the tasty treat sitting unguarded in front of them.

Some of the children ate the marshmallow immediately after the researcher left the room. The rest fidgeted, covered their eyes, and turned their backs to the treat.

In all, one third of the children were unable to leave the marshmallow uneaten for 15 minutes, even though they knew that meant giving up another marshmallow later.

Oh, and if you have made it this far without watching the video, go ahead and check it out already, you rock star.

What’s YOUR Marshmallow?

So what happened to these kids? Well, they grew up. They went to college. They got married and started families. They started businesses. They traveled the world. They became you and me.

Despite our beliefs otherwise, we all still struggle to turn down a treat now for the promise of two later… but for most of us it’s a little more complex than just a marshmallow.

It’s fast food. It’s microwave dinners. It beckons to us from the kitchen and pantry. It calls our name from the supermarket aisles and from the large signs we drive by every day.

It’s our jobs that have us sitting in a cube for 40-50 hours per week, and the TV and social media that tempt us to spend the evenings on our duffs.

In every way, our society is set up to constantly tempt us to eat crap, move little, and stress ourselves out.

My Own Marshmallow Test

I’ll give you an example from my own life.

During my Average Joe Diet experiment, I got into the habit of eating pretty much anything out of the vending machine at work.

By the time this four week trial had ended, I was addicted to soda whereas I couldn’t stand the stuff before. On top of that, they had jalapeño chips available, which are an all-time favorite of mine.

What made this particularly impossible was a little plastic card.

You see, one of the perks where I work are the cards that all the employees get that can be used to pay for items from the vending machine. Twice a month, we get 20 bucks added to them.

Since this is more than I can reasonably spend, I effectively had unlimited access to whatever junk food I wanted at any time. Before you knew it, I had built up a habit of going to the machine to get a can of soda or bag of chips whenever I felt like it.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have absolutely NO willpower when it comes to food, and I will chow down on anything you put in front of me.

Obviously, this was gonna be a problem…

So what did I do to remove the “marshmallow” that was constantly tempting me? I got rid of my card on purpose. Now whenever I want some chocolate I need to dig into my own pockets.

By making one small change, I was able to make an unhealthy habit MUCH more difficult, and I have cut WAY back on vending machine food since then.

One Marshmallow, Two Marshmallows, and the Willpower Game

What can you take away from this decades-old experiment on children?

As I mentioned, we all have the same psychology as those kids, but our objects of temptation have changed from marshmallows to something else.

 

The children essentially had the following experiences:
1. The Willpower Game–Fifteen minutes of sitting in front of an unguarded marshmallow is torture for a kid and the ultimate test of their willpower. Even if they are able to resist temptation, they would have had to use up a lot of this rare resource.
2. One Marshmallow–The easiest thing to do, from a willpower standpoint, would be to simply give in and eat the marshmallow, satisfying the need for instant gratification.
3. Two Marshmallows–Those who were strong enough to weather the storm were able to get the delayed gratification of an additional marshmallow if they could make it 15 minutes.

When it comes to health and fitness, we all must face a similar test, with similar results.

The willpower game is the willpower that we must utilize to avoid the temptation to eat crappy food and lead inactive lives. In a world that is increasingly moving in that direction, it is only getting more and more difficult to tolerate the willpower game.

The most common solution given to this problem is conscious caloric restriction, eating less and exercising more in an effort to thwart our bodies’s natural drive to self-regulate its composition.

The easy way out is to just go with the flow. It’s automatically doing whatever is easiest in your environment. It’s eating cheap fast food. It’s using every excuse to avoid exercising.

The better option in the long term is to learn new habits to live a healthier lifestyle without all the difficulty of self-deprivation. It’s learning how to cook a few healthy meals. It’s making the habit of going to the gym a couple times a week. It’s learning how to keep your stress levels down.

So, what’s it gonna be? Do you want one marshmallow now, or two later? Or would you rather see just how long you can play the willpower game?

The clock is ticking…