Now or never: In a world of instant gratification how can we make a ‘10-year plan’ happen?

Gamification has become a go-to strategy for companies to engage their users. On the positive side, this strategy can help us achieve certain goals—whether that be creating an insurance policy or learning a new language. But, between collecting gems and trumpet sound effects, we have become addicted to the rush of dopamine.

Dopamine is often referred to as the “feel-good” neurotransmitter since it’s heavily involved in our reward pathways. Eating good food or receiving positive social feedback increases dopamine levels in the brain, making us feel better. Additionally, dopamine levels are correlated with our motivation, learning, working memory, and more.¹

Modern apps, especially those designed for social media, gaming, and content consumption, are built to trigger mass amounts of dopamine through various mechanisms like unpredictable rewards, variable rewards, and instant gratification. These mechanisms create a feedback loop where the brain starts to crave the constant stimulation provided by these apps, leading to increased habitual use and, in some cases, addiction-like behavior. You know that feeling of repetitively refreshing the notification feed, desperate to see if there’s something new? That’s your brain craving stimulation.

It is quite naive to believe that our craving for dopamine stops immediately when we stop using our phones. A 2023 study found that higher social media usage rates reduce our ability to delay gratification (as if the present bias wasn’t enough to ensure that we prioritize immediate rewards over investment in the future). Additionally, it seems that the FOMO (fear of missing out) phenomenon is correlated with social media usage, negatively impacting productivity in our daily lives.

In this new reality, 'real-world' activities that move us closer to our goals—like reading a book or writing an article for your professional website—often seem less appealing due to their distant or less immediate rewards. And it’s hardly a fair fight. How can these activities compete when apps pull us in with rich notification systems that constantly shift our attention? With so many distractions, it’s challenging to maintain focus and make progress toward our 10-year plan.

Ok, I got it. Humanity made life more complicated by making it more fun. But there must be a way around it.

When I’m filled with doubt, my go-to motivational tune is Miley Cyrus’ “The Climb.” It reminds me I need to stay persistent to reach my goals even when I’m down. The lyrics, full of wisdom, preach the art of staying strong in the face of challenge. Nonetheless, a lyrical reminder accompanied by a catchy chorus won’t suffice. So I kept looking for a formula that would bring me back on my feet and suddenly it was all so clear to me.

Usually, I cover how cognitive biases impact our daily lives and how to avoid them. I approach it this way because we tend to focus more on what we could lose than what we could gain from a specific situation (aka. loss aversion, so meta). 

But what if we can leverage these heuristics to nudge ourselves towards meeting our goals? What if we could build an environment that encourages us to move forward due to and not despite our cognitive biases?

It’s a lose-lose situation.

Taking the first step is probably the greatest challenge. When debating about our next move, we tend to drown ourselves in all things that can go wrong. What can we do? As I mentioned, we have this innate tendency to weigh the burden of potential losses twice as much as the joy derived from potential gains when making a decision. 

Loss aversion could prevent us from choosing rationally. For instance, imagine receiving an enticing offer from a random recruiter. Though tempting, you find yourself focusing on what you could lose by transitioning to the new company. You might lose your sense of comfort, connections, and valuable time to learn and adapt to the new environment—rather than focusing on the potential success and growth it could bring. This fear might keep you stuck in an unfulfilling job instead of pursuing career growth.

What if, instead of listing the potential losses in taking the first step, we think about the potential losses of not taking it? Think about the disappointment you’d feel by not making strides in your career or, about all the times you will ask yourself: “What if?” Maybe that way, loss aversion can motivate you to act instead of standing by.

Make it public

The fear of being tagged as “delusional” or a “failure” can dissuade us from sharing our plans with others; If they don’t know my plans, they can’t say I’ve failed to achieve them. Nonetheless, spreading the word can amplify your willingness to follow through thanks to our tendency to stick to our previous commitments or behaviors.

The commitment bias can lead us to make irrational decisions such as staying in touch with people we’ve outgrown or riding it out in a toxic workplace.

But when used wisely, it could also help you out—this innate tendency is enhanced once a commitment is made publicly. So, to leverage the commitment bias, start sharing your plan with the public. I don’t mean taking a megaphone and shouting in the street or posting it on your Facebook feed to random people from the past. Share it with your close community, people who will be around to support you in your journey. Choose wisely—those you feel will show enthusiasm towards your goal and have full belief in your capabilities to achieve it. Also, don’t be afraid to seek help from professionals in your sphere; they can be useful mentors and will likely offer you some good advice. 

Sharing your plan will serve you in two ways: first, you will feel motivated to actually “show up” and less tempted to quit when things get hard or demanding. Secondly, good friends and family members who truly root for you will ask about your progress and try to help you in any way possible. Even casual texts about your progress will drive you forward.

Fight numbers with numbers

In the early 80s, Kahneman and Tversky found that the way information is presented can significantly influence our decisions. They named this observation the framing effect. This can skew our perceptions of alternative options and lead us to choose irrationally. For example, When a store advertises its sales by emphasizing the amount of money we save rather than simply posting the discounted price, we tend to find the deal more appealing. This effect can also change how we comprehend our progress when putting extensive effort into a long-term project.

Since numbers are easy to put on a scale, we tend to overvalue numeric metrics over qualitative assessment. Thus, grades and wages might tip the scale when put up against an abstract concept such as ‘self-growth.’ Moreover, these numeric indicators are found in our environment; our professors hand out grades and “likes” are given by our online connections. Since we don’t possess mind-controlling powers, we can’t always influence how people react to us or how we are evaluated. This reality increases our uncertainty about our success and results in feelings of despair.

I decided to combat these numbers with some numbers of my own. Recently, I started to quantify my “qualitative” successes—those I can control. We may not always have full control over our exam grades for many different reasons, but I can control how much time I dedicate to learning or how many new things I’ve learned today. With a simple step of documenting daily triumphs on a WhatsApp group chat, I can capture my progress when scrolling through the chat thread. Transforming the abstract idea of “I learned something” into a physical representation that encourages me to continue to grow. When I feel like I’m going nowhere and I’ve wasted too much time on nothing, I pull up the group chat and show myself that I might be exaggerating.

Don’t throw it all away

An additional side-effect of my new mechanism is unlocking the power of the Sunk Cost Fallacy to boost my motivation. We have a tendency to consider unrecoverable previous costs in our current decisions, whether it’s time, money, or effort we are afraid to lose. Occasionally, it leads us to make irrational decisions of sticking with our initial approach and causing us to lose even more. For instance, waiting for the bus that never shows up instead of taking an Uber just because we initially chose the bus option. Switching to the Uber alternative means we officially made a mistake and lost too much time. To avoid this feeling, we are sticking with the initial option.

But in this case, we want to leverage this intense feeling of “no, I can't lose this” for our own good. After framing my daily growth as a clear cost of time and effort, the fallacy kicks in and boosts my motivation toward continuing with my original plan. Remember, it is not a waste if I am inching toward my goals. Once you manage to push yourself past the first stage of fear of the unknown, let the fallacy take the wheel.

As we navigate through our instantly gratifying world, harnessing our cognitive biases can be the secret weapon to achieving long-term success. It’s important to recognize that progress can be slow, and uncertainty is part of the journey toward achieving our goals. Our 10-year plan is right around the corner; we just have to remember that instead of battling against our nature, we can leverage it using the right conditions. From making public commitments to reframing our losses, we have the tools to stay motivated and resilient to the turmoil of a long-term plan, even when it feels too distant or undefined.