Have you seen the Stanford Marshmallow Experiments? (If you haven’t, we suggest you google and giggle, because the kiddies are so cute). Basically the SME were a series of experiments performed in the 60s by Walter Mischel, about delayed gratification. (Otherwise known in MY brain as a small form of torture- Alison)

In the SME, children were presented with a marshmallow, and told if they didn’t eat it for fifteen minutes, they would be rewarded with a second one. Sounds easy doesn’t it? And for some children it was. For others however, it was all too much, and they ate the first marshmallow.

The interesting thing was, that the children who could delay gratification and NOT eat that yummy, puffy, delicious pillow of sugar tended to have better life outcomes in the follow-up studies. Things like BMI (funny that), educational attainment and other life measures.

So what this means, is that if we are able to put off eating the marshmallow, not only will we be rewarded in the relative short term, but we will have rewards far, far into our future.

Fascinating.

And we don’t know about you, but sometimes that marshmallow can look so mouth-wateringly luscious that having it NOW can be all encompassing. It fills our brain, and assumes the proportions of Mr. Stay Puft from Ghostbusters. So even though we know it’s better to wait, to resist eating, buying, partying (or whatever your sugar is) all we can think of is the zing of the short term sugar hit.

So this week we would love you to think about where you are eating the marshmallow, (Hint: it’s probably in the life area where you have the biggest challenge) and imagine what life could look like if you delayed that immediate gratification, and decided to simply wait for some new growth.

Imagine.

(Your successes might even grow as big as Mr. Stay Puft if you tend them!)