Have you ever wondered why starting a new fitness routine makes us excited and happy at first? And then we lose motivation after a few weeks? Consistency starts to take a hit, sticking to your meal plan seems like a drag and the temptation to skip workouts increases.
Sticking to your workout plan isn't just about willpower. In fact, willpower sucks. It won't make you reach your goals faster. Understanding how your brain is wired for rewards and how to work with that, is in my opinion, a much better strategy.
Let's check out exactly how you can implement this!
Table of content
The instant gratification trap
Why delayed gratification is better
Practical strategies to build delayed gratification in fitness
What is delayed gratification
As the name implies, it's delaying something that feels good. It's doing something hard now to enjoy something later, it's pushing through a hard set instead of stopping when it hurts, it's sticking to your meal plan when it could be so easy to order pizza.
I personally call it mental toughness.
Scientifically speaking, delayed gratification is resisting the urge for an immediate reward in favour of something bigger and better down the line. Sounds simple enough, right? But in practice, it’s a bit more challenging, especially when you’re working towards long-term goals like building muscle or losing fat.
So, why is it so important in fitness? Well, most of the progress you make—whether it’s shedding body fat, gaining muscle, or improving performance—takes time. There’s no magic shortcut, and the small, day-to-day decisions you make add up.
Before we go any further, we need to chat about the dopamine hormone which plays a huge role in our motivation.
Role of dopamine
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, a chemical messenger in the brain that plays a key role in regulating mood, motivation, and reward-seeking behaviour. It's released when we experience or anticipate something rewarding—like eating, exercising, or even achieving a personal goal.
Every time you do something pleasurable, whether it’s biting into a delicious meal, scrolling through social media, or hitting a new PR at the gym, your brain releases dopamine, giving you that “feel-good” boost. It’s what drives us to seek out rewards and repeat behaviours that we enjoy.
But here’s the catch: dopamine is all about immediate rewards. Your brain is wired to love that quick hit of pleasure, which can sometimes work against you when you’re trying to stay consistent with your fitness goals.
Instead of waiting for the long-term satisfaction of hitting your goal weight or building muscle, your brain might nudge you to skip a workout or indulge in something that feels good right now.
The Instant Gratification Trap
This is where many of us get stuck. Your brain craves quick wins, so when faced with a choice—Netflix and chill or a tough leg day workout—it’s easy to choose the option that gives you that instant dopamine hit. The problem? Those quick rewards often lead to slower progress in your fitness journey.
This is known as the instant gratification trap. It’s like wanting to see results in the gym after just one workout. Your brain wants the reward now, even though we all know real progress takes time.
Why Delayed Gratification Wins
Here’s where delayed gratification can help you break the cycle. Instead of constantly chasing those short-term dopamine bursts, you can train your brain to focus on the bigger, long-term rewards—like reaching your fitness goals.
When you delay that instant pleasure (like skipping a cheat meal or pushing through a tough workout), you’re essentially teaching your brain to value the future payoff over the short-term high.
Remember that dopamine also gets released in anticipation of a reward. That's what we want to train our brain to do.
And guess what? The more you practice this, the easier it becomes. Over time, your brain starts to view working hard, staying consistent, and delaying those quick dopamine hits as the reward.
On top of that, you will also get bigger dopamine release when you do reach those long term goals like seeing your body transform, hitting new PRs or being pain free.
In the next section, we’ll explore the different ways you can practice getting better at delayed gratification and forging an unwavering mental toughness.
Practical applications of delayed gratification
Remember how common it is to fall off the wagon after a few weeks/months. That's because we get our dopamine hits from external factors. Going to the gym, feeling those newbie gains, being exposed to a new environment.
This will work until a point. Once your progress slows, once you become familiar with the new environment or once you've eaten the same thing over and over, the dopamine release will fade.
We want to become good at enjoying the process, our workout plan, our fitness routine.
We want the day in day out mundane activities to be our reward. We want to get dopamine hits from intrinsic factors.
Going to the gym on a rainy day can release dopamine.
Picture a rainy Saturday morning. You slept in, had a good breakfast and now are looking at the droplets streaming down the window.
You can go on one of two paths.
Stay inside and skip your workout. Instant gratification, you'll stay warm and cozy.
Grab your gym bag and go lift some metal plates. For a beginner this will be delayed gratification: you are forgoing the comfort of your home to reach your fitness goals later. But I want you to realize there's a stronger incentive here. As you're making your way to the gym under the rain, you could, and should, think to yourself something along the lines of "Hey look at me, I'm staying consistent. I'm stronger than that desire to stay comfy". This right there is where the money is. That is the cheat code. Acknowledging and enjoying the process does give you the dopamine your brain wants. Going to the gym becomes the reward. Keep in mind that as you do this over and over, you will also get a bigger dopamine hit once you hit your goals.
This is one of many examples of delayed gratification. Others can include:
Pushing through a tough set. You've done ten squats, you feel your quads about to give out and your personal trainer or gym buddy tells you to do 2 more. You were mentally ready to stop but you crank out two more reps. The instant gratification would of been to stop when you wanted. In this example, you delayed gratification for a mere 10 seconds. It can be this easy.
Sticking to your routine even though you haven't seen changes in a couple of weeks. You keep doing your workouts, keep eating the right foods and sticking to the 80/20 rule. Instant gratification would be skipping a workout or program hoping. Going to a new (and hence more exciting) workout routine is a common fitness trap caused by the need for instant gratification. In this example, delayed gratification is doing the boring stuff now to see results later. Again, with practice, the boring stuff will actually be the reward. That's why you'll see people seek out a tough workout. Those people have mastered the art of turning the day to day mundanities into the rewards.
Going grocery shopping instead of ordering in. Here's a situation I find myself in all too often. It's later, I'm tired and hungry and I realize there's no food in my pantry or fridge. Do I order in, or do I go grocery shop? Ordering in is the instant gratification. Grocery shopping is the delayed gratification.
Our brain is very, very, very good at rationalizing instant gratification. Yes order in, it's just this one time. Yes skip the workout, you've worked hard all week. Don't push through the tough set, you've done good already.
Our brain loves instant gratification.
That's why reframing our rewards is so important. With practice, your brain can think "Yes go to the gym even though you forgot your headphones, you're a beast".
Let's see how we can use our goal setting to get there.
Goal setting and dopamine
You can create habits and goals that increase the dopamine reward system.
When setting a goal, we need to ask ourselves one important question
Is the time frame worth the reward?
If you were to tell me "Workout for 10 months while only salads and then you can have a Nutella crepe" I would laugh, give you the birdie and go have the Nutella crepe right now.
It's just not worth it. I'd rather have the Nutella crepe now.
However, if you told me "Stick to your routine this week and then you can have a Nutella crepe this weekend", my tone would be different. I can do a week without Nutella, hell, I can even do two weeks without it.
The point of this ditzy example is that time frame matters. And that most of the time, fitness goals take a long time to achieve. Chiselling a six pack takes months, building strong muscles and losing fat can take years depending on your starting point.
Short and long term goals
Breaking down your long term goal into weekly, or even biweekly sub goals is important of this.
Your long term goal are often external results: desire to look a certain way or lift a certain amount of weight.
Short term goals have a more intrinsic component: hitting the gym a certain amount of time, and staying consistent with your food.
These smaller goals do two things:
It's much easier to track your progress. You can really see whether or not you want to the gym X amount of time this week.
You can actually give yourself smaller rewards. Dopamine! Telling yourself that you'll watch your favourite show once you've completed your gym workouts is a great reward. It doesn't hinder your progress and it'll give you a dose of dopamine.
Aligning your rewards with your goals
To go a step further, you can give yourself rewards that will work in tandem with your goals.
For example, "Once I go the gym 10 times in a row without missing a workout I will buy a new workout shirt". Or a good piece of steak. (or whatever it is you like).
Practicing this will help create a compound effect with your fitness progress and get you to your goals faster.
More friction, more dopamine
The more your body wants to resist something, the less it wants to do it, the greater the dopamine release in anticipation of the reward.
Seeking out tough situations that your brain doesn't want to do is challenging. The gym is a great place to start because you can create discomfort in a very controlled environment. Find a machine or an easy you can do easily and do reps until your muscles start to burn. How many reps can you do before the burn gets too uncomfortable?
This is why you see very fit people seeking tough workouts. It's one of their dopamine sources.
This shows you just another example of why delayed gratification is important. If you always take the easy route, you'll get a small burst of dopamine. You could be getting much bigger ones by doing the tough thing now.
Conclusion
Your body is always grappling between doing what's easy now versus what's easy later. Choosing the path of least resistance gives us a little dopamine hit. Opting to introduce friction in our lives and going through something a little tougher releases dopamine in anticipation of the reward on top of the reward dopamine.
Choosing to do what's tough now to enjoy what's easy later takes practice. Mental toughness is like a muscle. The more you train it, the stronger it gets.
Start by doing small things in a controlled environment, like the gym. Try to squeeze out a few extra reps while keeping proper form.
When you get good at that you can start tackling events that are tougher for longer.
Delaying your reward makes it sweeter when you reach it.
You go this,
Clem
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