22 Jun Go Ahead and Indulge: A New Study Shows More Pleasure Will Help You Be More Successful
Are you careful not to indulge too much?
Do you believe your happiness and success will come from being disciplined, and denying yourself guilty pleasures?
Well, this might be good to a point; but it might also lead to denying yourself important happiness and even life success!
What? I can indulge more? Maybe, if you do it right, and if you do, then you may well enjoy more happiness in a healthy and balanced way …
via Inc.com by Jessica Stillman
The latest science doesn’t give you permission to scarf the whole box of donuts. But one or two just might be beneficial.
Most of what you read about how to be more productive and successful focuses on how to get yourself to do difficult, unpleasant things. There’s a boatload of articles for entrepreneurs out there on establishing healthy habits, advice from experts on improving your self-control and boosting your willpower, and plans and systems for squeezing more work into every hour.
But what if achieving more wasn’t always about doing hard things, but actually also about indulging in more of life’s little pleasures?
Can you indulge your way to greater success?
That’s the thrust of a fascinating recent Guardian article from David Robson, author of The Expectation Effect. The article details a line of research going back to the 1990s that shows we can actually indulge our way to greater success in life.
Early studies suggested there could be such a thing as too much self-control, finding “children who scored well on self-control also grew up to be overly reserved and lacked curiosity.” They also found that “people with the highest levels of self-control may suffer from feelings of regret” and “struggle to appreciate the present moment, and when looking back over their lives, they come to resent the sacrifices they have made.”
When another team of researchers asked college alumni to look back on vacations that happened decades in the past, they “found that the aging graduates were much more likely to lament having had too much self-control than too little.”
Regretting not having more fun in your youth is one thing, but is there any evidence that a little more indulgence actually leads to better life outcomes? According to Robson, the answer is yes. For instance, dieters who allow themselves “cheat days” lose equal amounts of weight as those with a more Spartan approach — and they report being more motivated and enjoying the experience more.
Another study showed that the most academically successful students actually enjoyed more activities, like attending sports games, than those who locked themselves in with their books.
All these studies suggest that humans actually end up happier, and possibly even a little more successful, if they allow themselves a little joy and distraction. Maybe this is because a mountain of science shows happiness actually helps our brains work better. Or maybe because we’re more likely to feel in control and therefore less likely to rebel against our self-imposed good habits…
… keep reading the full & original article HERE