Carrots and Sticks

Eyes on the Prize

Why do so many people fail to reach their goals? They vow to quit smoking but give in to their cravings. They can’t get organized at their jobs when they know they’d perform better if they did. The answer lies in human behavior. Typically, humans want to fulfill their needs without delay. They would rather have a smaller reward now than wait for a larger reward later. This attitude is called “hyperbolic discounting.” In the terms of behavioral economics, “the value today of some future gift should lose a fixed proportion of its value for every unit of delay.”

Hyperbolic discounting can help explain why you might decide on a goal and then not be able to reach it. As temptations or options present themselves, your resistance breaks down. Your mind is “sophisticated” enough to understand that you’ll regret relenting, but you – and everybody else on the planet – prefer immediate relief to the promise of later success.

You feel bad when you cave. Worse yet, you are aware that you will feel bad once you succumb. You know you should wait and deny yourself because you’ll feel like a failure if you give in to the impatient side of your personality. Because...