Ep. 55 – Delayed Pleasures

Hey, my beautiful friends. How are you doing? I’m excited to talk to you today. We’re gonna do something today about delaying pleasure. What? I’m gonna call delayed pleasure. Hmm. You’re like, what is that about? Well, I’m gonna tell you, so if you are ready to talk about. Delayed pleasure, and what that means to you after divorce.

Then stay tuned cuz. Here we go. Let’s get started.

Are you ready to create a life that’s better than ever before? We are Doreen Yaa and Jeff Wilson, and we are here to give. Strategies you need to create the life after divorce that you deserve and desire. As partners, both in marriage and coaching, we use our expertise as well as our own personal experiences to help you make the next chapter of your life the best chapter.

All right, my friend. So how you doing? Let’s see. I’m in Florida in Boca Raton, middle of August, and it’s really, really hot outside. It’s probably hot where you are. I think this has been like the hottest summer ever. But thank goodness for air conditioning, right Samantha, my youngest just brought her back to school to get her set up in her new apartment for college.

She’s gonna be a cannot believe it. A junior this year at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers. Beautiful area. Got to spend a little time with her and her boyfriend and we did dinner, and I like decorated her apartment with her. So much fun. Megan, my middle daughter, is starting her last year at Wofford College.

As I always tell you, she’s a volleyball player, D one player, and so we’re excited to start volleyball season and that’s like always fun. Love watching the games. Amanda, my oldest is still in Charlotte, cannot believe it. She’s gonna be 25. Month. Oh my goodness. Time does fly. Spencer, my stepson, I’m just gonna call him my son.

My amazing son, Spencer. He is enjoying music. He’s DJing and, uh, seeing more of him lately. So really, really excited about spending time with him on a regular basis. Jeff, my hubby. Guess what he’s doing, getting certified as a coach through the life coach school. Unbelievable. He is definitely into it. He’s in the middle of the program and I’m gonna have him on as a guest host.

We’re gonna start working on some ex. Citing programs for you guys, and so more to come on that. In the meantime, listen, as I told you, we take on one-on-one coaching A, we take a limited amount of post divorce clients, so if you’re interested, just give me a call. Give us a call, reach out to us. We’d love, love, love to talk to.

All right, so what are we gonna talk about today? Today I want to talk to you about delayed pleasure. Do you know what this is? It’s my term, but it comes from a concept that is important to those of you who are post divorce, you know, past that divorce process, and need to, in my humble opinion, understand and implement this thought, this idea of delayed pleasure before you start rebuilding your amazing life.

So what do I mean by that? Well, it has to do with delayed gratification. And what do I mean by that? What I mean by that is to start with the understanding of our brains and our human nature. We gotta start there. You see, our brains are on what I call autopilot. Autopilot to seek pleasure and avoid. You see, it’s one of those concepts that whenever I study it and while people discuss it in different ways, in different terms, the skinny of it is, it’s like that immediate gratification of dopamine that dopamine hit.

And I was speaking to Jeff. and he was, you know, learning about it himself, you know, studying it and we thought it would be a great subject to talk to you about. So I’m sharing, of course, I love sharing with you and I love bringing to you things that I implement in my own life and now my husband is starting to get more involved in.

So we were looking at our life. Jeff and I, and we were thinking about successful business people that we know, and what we saw in common. There was like this thread, and I think it clearly separates successful business people from unsuccessful, or let’s just say like average business people, and what we saw was that very successful business people tend to have.

and of course I’m not categorizing totally, but in general, this innate ability to delay immediate pleasure. and the concept of delaying pleasure to pleasure. Sorry. Pleasure. to me and Jeff really is interesting, right? The way I can explain it, like in simple terms to you, it is when you give up the immediate pleasure or reward or dopamine hit, and you instead wait for a bigger and better result.

Or a bigger and better pleasure that will come if you forego that immediate dopamine pleasure hit, basically delaying and or discounting it to wait for something bigger later. So let me bring it down to you using just a. Example to help you understand it. If I ask you, would you rather have a hundred dollars now, or what if I said to you, I’ll give you $150 If you wait a week, which would you prefer?

Most people out there, I would venture to say, would say, I can wait a week for an extra 50 bucks. Like that’s a no-brainer to. . But let me ask you another question. What if I said to you, you had to wait 90 days, three months? How would that maybe change your answer? You may say, Hey, I’d rather take that a hundred dollars now than have to wait three months now to get the 150, because now it’s like nine 90 days away, right?

So the delay in time, the brain starts to rethink the time involved, and it starts to not make as much sense to wait for that extra $50. So many of us were programmed as human beings to seek immediate gratification, pleasure, as opposed to the bigger pleasure or outcome if we focus and wait longer. Now, the reason that I think it is so important for you when you are in the middle of rebuilding your life and your future.

The future you want after divorce is because we are, you know, after divorce, we’re in like this pleasure seeking state, meaning we just went through. Basically hell in many ways, right? And so we’re trying, we’re trying to find things that’ll make us pleasurable, right? Let me use another example. Let’s use the example of drinking alcohol.

When you drink alcohol, you get that immediate dopamine hip, physically, that the alcohol brings to your. the same holds true with certain foods like sugar. Sugar has the same physical effect on the body. It brings this immediate hit. In our blood and in turn to our system physically, right? It feels good.

But what if you forego that drink or sugar? Would the delay pleasure of not having, for example, a hangover the next morning so you can get up and have a productive day? Isn’t that a bigger. Pleasure. A bigger delayed result than that immediate hit the same was staying away from that slice of chocolate cake, right?

The pleasure of the sugar and the chocolate. When you. Take that bite versus using your prefrontal cortex brain to realize that if you forgo that cape, it will likely result in a bigger, more pleasurable result that has a better result for you when you step on the scale the next day and you see that.

Dropping the pleasure that comes with that delayed result by not eating that piece of cake and getting that pleasure immediately is far greater. , you know, it also works with careers goals. Would you rather get that immediate, for example, 100 k, that maybe you can have it if you take your business one way?

Or are you looking at the bigger picture? Right. Are you looking at, Hey, I’m not gonna accept this. A hundred grand that I could be making because I have a bigger career plan. Yes, it’s going to take me longer, but I’m willing to wait because the result can be so much busi, bigger, right? The dollars can be so much more.

You know, I think about when I was in college in law school, I could have graduated college and taken a job for good income, but instead I delayed that immediate gratification of whatever those dollars look like to further spend money and time in law school to then make more money at the end of three more years and increase the long-term goal of the ability to earn more in the long run.

So as you are planning your new life and all the things you want from your career to personal fitness, to dating, to friendships, and on, I suggest that you ask yourself, are you settling now for an immediate pleasure or should you be maybe thinking, looking at this with your prefrontal thinking? Brain for a bigger, better, more rewarding pleasure.

Later, I’m gonna throw in another example with dating. So many times after divorce, I see clients jumping. Literally jumping into new relationships because they want a date. Maybe they’re lonely. They want the way that it feels, you know, to be with someone. And they end up settling for a person who is not their ideal person.

And what happens is they are then in this new settling type of relationship, and off the market, not open. To waiting and to take their time to the possibility of meeting a person who has more of the qualities, the attributes that they’re looking for, right? So what I suggest is sit down and think about that.

What are you looking for? What are your goals? Can you think about your goals using your prefrontal cortex as opposed to using your primitive? If that makes sense to you. Right. So if you think about it, you have two parts of your brain, and I’m just going to simplify it for you. Your primitive brain is that I want it now immediately.

Not a lot of thinking goes on there. Not a lot of planning is involved, not a lot of anything right about your future, but it’s instead. Let’s feel good now. Feel good in the mo in the moment, right? You know, Google defines your primitive brain as the part that controls survival instinct, which in K people time made a lot of sense, but most of us day-to-day are safe from, you know, physical harm.

So it doesn’t serve us like it did, you know, way back then. Serves a purpose, but not a long-term planning goal. Purpose. Then you have your prefrontal cortex, which you can tap into to really think and plan for your longer term goals. And you use your logical brain to map out and logically. What you can have.

Google describes the prefrontal cortex as the executive function in your brain. The function to make decision controlling shortsighted, reactive behaviors to take part in planning, decision making, problem solving, self-control, and acting with long-term goals In. So my goal for you, my friend, and for my client’s post divorce, is to be aware of the difference here and to know when you are giving into that immediate pleasure hit that you are doing it on purpose and that you realize that you may be, you may be foregoing a better result.

If you would wait, so when you understand this, which most of us may not even be aware of, you can get good at discipline for the greater good. You can learn to forego that. , you know that desire to eat the cake, even though it’s sitting there and you have this amazing urge to eat it, you can train yourself to realize this and to be more disciplined for.

Your better future, let’s say instead of taking that bite of that cake, you’re visualizing a slimmer, healthier body and really becoming someone who can delay that dopamine hit of that cake for the ultimate success, the ultimate weight loss, the ultimate healthier. . You know, this will require you to permit the urge that I know is uncomfortable, right?

But when you can think about the bigger reward later, if you don’t give in, it can really help you get past that urge. And you know what? There are studies that ur, that urge feeling doesn’t take. That long to pass, right? You can just like move into it, let it flow through your body. I always say, it’s not gonna hurt you, it’s not gonna kill you.

It’s just there. It’s just a feeling. And some suggest that it could take maybe 10, 15 minutes. That’s it, for it to pass. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. so you can train your brain, you can condition it to obtain long-term, bigger and better flows of dopamine or pleasure that are more sustainable to like a consistent pleasure, like the pleasure that comes with wearing and fitting into fun, beautiful clothes and feeling.

because you didn’t take that bite. You didn’t eat the cake, you stayed on your food protocol, right? For the bigger goal, you can apply this, my friend, to any goal. You know, I’m using food here as an example, but consider what you want and apply it there. Apply it to that. I do this in my own business and I have some things going on right now that I’ve been working.

in my law firm that, you know, I’ve been in work on for over a year or so. Right. More about that later, but my office knows what I’m talking about. I have something that I’ve been working on that I’m gonna share with the world soon. That has to do with helping people have an alternative for another way of getting through the divorce process that I don’t see out.

Right, that bigger goal of mine to help people to fill that gap and eventually to be a more sustainable, constant, bigger pleasure if it comes to fruition, which I’m sure it will. So in essence, I am making a business decision that delays our current increase in revenue for what we can make bigger.

Numbers, bigger amounts later. And yes, it is risky as any new business plan is, but the reward would be amazingly successful long term. And I will tell you when, like me, you have big goals. It is interesting how you can delay things. With a little less effort, right? When you think about that, when you put it into, into, you know, reality in your brain, like, Hey, I’m not gonna do that right now because I have a bigger plan, a bigger goal, a more successful outcome.

So let’s now turn to some practical questions after divorce that I want you to ask yourself. . The first question is how long is your future thinking? What I mean by that is how far out is your thinking? Are you thinking just as to today or tomorrow, or are you thinking, let’s say one year from now, three years from now, or even 10 or 20 years from now?

So let’s apply this to, to you my friend. I want you to think about the idea that delayed pleasure. Right. I want you to think about that. Your ability to plan ahead, to rebuild a life for yourself on purpose after divorce, to the bigger long-term goals that are important to you so you can create the life you deserve, the life of your dreams.

Is worth it. You should ask yourself, what do you want your future to be? When do you think about your future? How far ahead do you think? Do you want to think in terms of years and way out? Or do you wanna think more in the moment and why? When you do this work, it is amazing, really amazing how much easier it is to forgo that immediate dopamine pleasure hit when you are dreaming and really putting into action that future plan, that future dream, those future goals that are right there.

And all you have to do is map it out and get there. You should ask yourself, what do you want your future to be? Right? When you do this work, it is amazing looking at the long-term picture goals. Think about the plan in terms of let’s say 20, 15, 10, 5, 3 years out, and you can then balance those. With each other because of your future goal, because you are what I call future thinking, and you are able to create a life using your prefrontal cortex brain to power you.

Instead of that immediate pleasure seeking primitive brain that is always trying to get. in the way of your big goals. You know, I find myself sometimes, and I know it’s a bit weird, okay, I know it is, but I will talk to my primitive brain and say things like, oh no, you’re not taking over here. In spite of how much I wanna take a piece of that chocolate cake and put it in my mouth, Nope, you are not winning out here.

Because tomorrow morning when I get on that, I want that to be my bigger picture goal. I’ll give you one of my secrets on this. I decide ahead of time on on many levels, right? On many levels that help me with temptation. I’ll give you an example of what I mean by. So tonight I’m going out to dinner and I know that there will be lots of temptation as it’s one of my favorite Italian restaurants called I Milino.

There’s one here in Florida in Boca. I think they might have one in Fort Lauderdale. There’s one in New York City. It’s amazing. And I’ve decided ahead of time that I will forgo the bread. They have this amazing bread that they bring over, like with tomatoes on it and like it’s amazing. And then they give you, You know, Parmesan cheese right off this big block, and they give you fried zucchini and they give you salami slices.

They put everything on the, on the table, right. And you haven’t even ordered yet. Like sometimes you haven’t even got the menu yet and they just load you up with this, all this amazing stuff. I’ve decided already this morning, I am not eating any. They can put it there and my husband’s gonna be there, my friends will be there, and you know what?

They can enjoy it, but I’m not going to touch it. Right? Because again, I wanna enjoy the bigger goal of continued weight loss. I’ve been on this journey, you know, menopause, all that, and I’m really working hard on. So while I’m still gonna have a good time, I’m still gonna have an amazing dinner. I’m just gonna forgo certain things for the bigger picture.

I do this also with alcohol, right? I decided like tonight I will only have two glasses of wine because my bigger goal is, again, to lose weight. And we all know that alcohol has calories, right? And I also know that tomorrow I’m going out to lunch with my mom and my sister and my nephew and my husband Jeff.

Were going to the Hard Rock here in Fort Lauderdale area in Broward County. My mom, she just loves to play the slot machine. She’s like so cute. She’s like 83 years old. She pays, he’s like, Penny slots or whatever, you can sit her there for like hours, you know, and she’s, she’ll just love it. So I wanna feel good tomorrow.

I wanna be, you know, present with them. I don’t wanna feel hungover because I had too much alcohol to drink. And so I know that one. I’m gonna limit it to two drinks, two nice glasses of wine. And that’s it. Because tomorrow I have the bigger goal. You see how it works. So for you, my friend, after divorce, you know, trying to start a new career, figuring out a financial plan, may be a budget, planning for your retirement, even meeting someone new, taking up a new.

Activity, going back to school, losing weight, making friends, drinking less, whatever your goals are after divorce, right? Whatever they are. I know that for some of you, you have to work extra hard because when you don’t see that immediate benefit, you’re like, wait, what is going wrong here? Like for me, when I get on the scale, which I do every morning, , I probably shouldn’t, but that’s what the doctor told me to do right now.

So I’m doing it. And if I don’t see that scale moving, I’m like, something has gone terribly wrong. My immediate primitive brain is like, this is not working. You didn’t have that cake. You didn’t have that appetizers. You only had two glasses of wine, and you’re gonna tell me that I didn’t lose any weight and I, in fact gained a half a pound.

But then my prefrontal comes in and says, hold on, Doreen. Okay. This is a bigger plan. You’re smarter than. You know that it’s going to take time. The scale is just there, doesn’t mean anything. You’re still, I mean, it means something, but you’re still on your goal. You’re not gonna sabotage yourself today and be all depressed and give yourself an excuse in your primitive brain to go eat something that you don’t wanna be eating and go off protocol.

It’s really thinking like that executive, right? So what timeframe, my friend, are you willing to give yourself to create the life you want after divorce? Be to become that best version of yourself, to not just go through life on this autopilot, seeking immediate pleasure and giving up your future bigger.

So when you are like my mom’s age, 83, right? Can you say, Hey, I really did and gave it at my all. I wanna be that person. I wanna be my mom’s age, you know, like at the casino, okay, I’m not gonna do the slots. I’ll probably play blackjack and said, but you know, and I wanna say I gave it my best shot. Also, you can be an example to your kids of what’s possible after the adversity of divorce, but it can be the adversity of anything.

So you can say to your ex and to the world, and more importantly to yourself, Hey, look. This divorce was hard, but it was a blessing in disguise because look what I’m doing. Look at where I’m going. And while you may not see it right now, in this moment, hold on world cuz I got a bigger picture here and I can’t wait for you to see me in a year, three years, five years, 10.

like me with my weight loss goals, I can say to myself, well, this is going to take a year if I do it right. And I could be like, that’s just too long. Or I could say, you know what? What’s a year? Not such a big deal, right? Why not let it take as long as it needs to take? . If you could be consistently getting better and moving forward towards your goals and enjoying the process of it, why not let it just take the time it needs to take?

Right? So the question is, and I’m constantly thinking about this as well, can you learn to enjoy the anticipation of the future bigger result? , we can learn to really enjoy the process. And as I say, you know, maybe it’s used a little bit too much, but the journey along the way, it’s really important. For those of you as an example, that want to be in a relationship after divorce, think about how often people.

because it’s someone who is nice and they’re pursuing you, and maybe you haven’t had that kind of feeling in a while. You know the attention is nice, but what if you wait for someone that is more suitable? Question. Are you settling, dating someone that’s just okay so that you remove your possibility to meet that person?

That could be your amazing. , right? Why would you settle? I like to use this little trick. Where like the eating thing, you know, I think about my past person, like where I was with the past me and how I got the weight gain on, and then I learn from the part of me that’s the present me, you know, I look at today, like tonight going out to dinner.

And then I think about, you know, like today sitting at I Molina, what that’s gonna look like. That’s my present self. And then I think about my future self that will be on that scale tomorrow and the next day. And I wanna see that scale go down because that bigger pleasure of the scale as opposed to eating that chocolate cake.

Is worth it to me. So listen, my friend, I invite you to think about how you might delay immediate pleasure for your longer after divorce. Bigger goals. Where can you delay so you can have a better, more purposeful on purpose? Amazing. Life in the future. Where is it my friend for you? Think about it. All right, my friend.

Listen. Have a, a beautiful, a beautiful, beautiful, amazing week, and I would love to hear from you and your future goals and how it’s going for you. As always, if you want any tips or you just wanna reach me, you can always email me. D yaha, that’s D as in Doreen, yaa, y a, F as in Frank, F as in Frank, A at life balance lawyer.

Dot. Calm. All right. Listen, think about your future goals. Delay that immediate dopamine hit. Use your prefrontal and go for it. You got it, my friend. All right. I’ll talk to you next week. Bye.

You have the vision of what you want your life to look like after divorce, but maybe you just don’t know. To get there. So if you’re ready to take control of your life and want to find out more about our coaching, visit [email protected]. That’s l a d as in life after divorce-coaching.com. Until next time, have an amazing rest of your day.

And. Yes, you can have an amazing life after divorce.