The Marshmallow Test – They Got It All Wrong

Have you ever heard of the marshmallow test? If not, let me start by saying that this is a famous experiment. Allegedly, the experiment aimed to identify the ability of becoming successful in small kids. In short, four year old kids were given a marshmallow, they were put in an isolated room and they were told they’re going to get another marshmallow in a few minutes IF they won’t eat the first one. But a movie is worth a thousand words:

After a few years, the kids were evaluated and researchers found out that the kids who waited for the second marshmallow were more successful than the kids who didn’t. Out of this experiment, a concept called “delayed gratification” (or deferred gratification, according to Wikipedia) emerged. According to this concept, people who are able to delay gratification for longer periods of time are more likely to become successful in life.

While I do agree to some extent with this concept, I don’t really see how the marshmallow test supports this. I gave it a lot of thought in the last few weeks, and, to be honest, I don’t think the marshmallow experiment is about delayed gratification. I think they got it all wrong.

The Decision

First of all, the test took for granted that the kids would really want the second marshmallow. Like this was something that every kid in the world would do. Something compulsory. Well, I don’t think all the kids are wanting 2 marshmallows in a chunk. They may crave one marshmallow and just won’t care about the second one.

Kids have the ability to decide. If they decide they would really want the second one, then the experiment will challenge their ability to delay gratification. Without this decision, the test is not clear. So, by just implying the kids are all wanting 2 marshmallows, the test is becoming a little blurry to me.

The Promise

Let’s say part of the kids agreed to want the second marshmallow. Now, they got a promise that if they follow a certain path, they will get it. This promise is in fact a prediction. The future was described in a certain way. I think we’re talking about the ability to see things that aren’t there yet.

Last time I checked, this was called vision. The capacity to create the future out of nothing. The kids were promised something that wasn’t there and I think this is amazing: those kids were actually seeing the second marshmallow in their heads. They pictured it before it was manifested.

The Trust

And finally, they had absolute trust that the promise will become true. Trust is fundamental in this experiment. If they wouldn’t trust the promise, they will never waited for the second marshmallow to come. Without believing the fact that the second marshmallow will manifest, they wouldn’t wait.

I think the test would have yelled completely different results if they would have repeat it several times and every other time the second marshmallow wouldn’t manifest (for whatever reasons: they forgot about it, the world crisis, a dishonest business partner, etc). I think the results would have been surprising, to say the least.

What Makes You Successful?

To the core, the experiment proved something fundamentally true, but the general conclusion was wrong, in my opinion. Delayed gratification has little to do with becoming successful. Delayed gratification is a mild form of asceticism: let’s deprive ourselves from some really good stuff now, because we will get some great stuff later. The only way this could work is by  helping you maintain focus on the target. By staying alert and keep the goal in sight. Nothing more.

But I don’t think this is what really makes you successful. The key to that is something that the experiment revealed, but nobody acknowledged so far. The key to success is the ability to take decision (decide you really want a second marshmallow), to predict the future (picture the second marshmallow in your head, before it’s manifested) and trust the future will give you the second marshmallow (if you follow a certain path). In this specific experiment, the path was a restrictive one: just don’t eat your first marshmallow, and you’ll get a second one. But that doesn’t automatically mean you have to restrain yourself in order to become successful.

I find this experiment really fascinating, once you get over the simple layer of pleasure and gratification. The core of the experiment is: decision, promise and trust.

How many times you decided you want something? How many times you pictured in your head that something before it was manifested? And how many times you trusted your own power that you will get that thing, if you follow a certain path? This is what makes you successful and, with all due respect, this has very little to do with delayed gratification.

If I would believe this theory, that would mean every successful man is a type of ascetic. Keep delaying the gratification until they get more. But in my experience successful people are almost always people who enjoy life more than the average. Most of the time they’ll taste life with much more intensity than everyone.

Now, scroll up and look at the video again. What are you seeing? What is your second marshmallow right now? A house? A relationship? More money? If you decided you really want the second marshmallow, make a promise you will get it. In the near future, you will have that thing. It will manifest. Just keep it in your head. Now, just keep your focus on it. Don’t focus on something else, do whatever you have to in order to manifest your second marshmallow.  Follow your path. Stay there.

In less time than you think, the door will open and somebody will give you the second marshmallow.

Rising above the Context

We’re greatly influenced by surroundings. From our friends to the way we lay out furniture in our rooms everything has an impact on the way we act, react and deal with our life situations. I call these surroundings, generically, contexts. One of the things which constantly fascinates me is how to get over your contexts. Like overcoming them, stretching and reaching beyond.

It Ain’t a Walk in the Park

Everybody talks about how wonderful is to overcome your condition. To win against all odds. To get over your current status and reach to something way better than everybody thinks it’s possible. Well, that might be true, but it talks only about the second half of the game. The half in which you already reached beyond. And I totally agree: once you got over your pressuring contexts, everything is pink and easy. Sweet harmony all over.

But few are talking about the first half of the game. The half in which you are struggling. In which you are in a war. The part of the game in which every part of your being is challenged. The part in which you are ready to quit more than one million times (and yet still remain in the game). The part in which you don’t really believe you can do it unless you leave all hesitations behind and just dive in, like jumping into an empty pool, hoping water will be there by the time you’ll need it.

This is where everything happens. This is where you conquer your freedom, beat the context and reach out. And that part is not about harmony. It’s not about fulfillment either. It’s about challenging the status quo, about creating disruption and denying your current condition. All in the hope of something better, agree, but something better which doesn’t exist yet. I’ve already told you, and I’m telling you again, I’m fascinated about how one can give up everything he has – like his current context – for a promise of something which doesn’t yet exist: his goals.

Reaching beyond your context is risky, difficult and totally against nature. You’re chasing fantasies. You’re fighting your current position, your current stream of life. You can’t reach out to the things you want until you actually destroy what you have right now. You can’t become the one you want unless you give up the person you are right now. In order to become a bird you have to break the egg shell. Can’t stay in the egg context forever. And this is destruction. This is fight. You’re eliminating something: most of the time, parts of yourself.

Financial Struggle

One of the most common contexts people want to overcome is their current financial situation. They’re willing to give up what they have in exchange for something better. Like their current income for a future, allegedly better one. But somehow, in the process, they don’t really get over the current context. They expect a better context, but they don’t really get out from their current one. The risk part of the game is unconsciously rejected. Reaching beyond will actually destroy what they currently have. And the result is more than often predictable: they can’t reach beyond their current context.

Your financial context shapes a lot around you. There’s a huge part of life far and beyond money, I agree, but if you are interested in exploring the world in all its dimensions, having a good financial potential is a key factor. Money gives you the possibility to travel, to live a better life, to enjoy more, to experiment more. If you’re rejecting a potentially better financial context, you’ll rejecting a better life.

The current global financial context is a mess. We’re going through a world financial crisis and that’s a fact. People are losing jobs, houses and businesses are dramatically decreasing profit margins. There’s constraint. There’s limitation. It’s a tough financial context. And yet, being just a context, it can be overcome. People often forget that. In a strange, yet totally understandable way, the current context becomes the expected one. Financial struggle became the new comfort zone. Living under your real possibilities is accepted as norm.

And yet, this is just a context, folks. Just a context. You can overcome this. You can reach beyond and change it for the good.

What Does it Takes?

Finally. The question I’ve been waiting since the beginning of this article.

It takes discipline. And vision. And trust. This is all it takes to overcome a limiting financial context.

You need discipline to stay on track even with limited supply. Learn to live frugally while aiming for more. Discipline to implement frugality but not to get used to it. I’m not into frugality and I enjoy life to the fullest, whenever I can. But if there are limiting contexts, I can adjust. And so can you, until the storm is gone.

You need discipline to understand the new processes around you. Overcoming your current context means learning new things, making new connections, really grasping the underpinnings of the new, richer context. These are all new and if you don’t focus on them, you risk being pulled back to the old context.

And you need vision. You need to be able to identify the new context, to establish a new financial level, even if only mentally for a few months or years. Or weeks, if you’re really into it. You need vision to be able to actually see where you want to be.

And you also need vision to integrate your life in the new structure. Everything will be different in that new context. You will be different, your relationships will be different, your physical surroundings will be different. If you are acting on a new, more abundant financial context, things will dramatically change around you. Better cope with it, or you’ll lose it.

And, last, but certainly not least, you need trust. Not a blind trust that things will go smoother, although this kind of trust can’t hurt. But hope alone will do nothing. You’ll need trust that you’ll have enough power to finish the race. Trust that you know what you’re doing. Trust that you’ll be able to go through this even if everything else around collapses. And trust that you deserve what you envisioned.

Discipline, vision and trust, those are your only allies in the first half of the game. You’ll go through many battles and hit a lot of walls. You’ll lose some, you’ll win some. In the end, you’ll reach above the context and you’ll tell everybody how pink and easy your life is right now. And you wouldn’t lie, of course. Your life is sweet harmony all over, now that you’re enjoying a brand new abundant financial context.

But you couldn’t make it without discipline, vision and trust.

The game has always two parts. Usually, the first one is the most difficult. You don’t want to talk about it. And to some extent that is ok. You’re free not to talk about it as long as you still keep it handy for the next challenge. As long as you don’t let your secret tools (discipline, vision and trust) worn out in a comfortable, yet infinitely fragile and temporary context.