By Christopher Cervantes, RFP

To those in the market for quite some time, you will easily spot the difference of highly successful investors with average players. Successful investors are almost always having a long-term view, while most average performers or underperformers are short-term oriented. Short-sighted people are usually motivated by immediate success, and this “instant gratification” is normally the culprit of their failure to achieve the bigger picture of what they could be. This thing is also true not only in investing principle but also with personal money management.

This is not absolute but many of us would agree that the purpose of life is to be happy. We are willing to take all the hardship and challenges to achieve lasting happiness. We collect toys we don’t need and consume goods unnecessarily because they can make us feel better. However, this endless pursuit of happiness could sometimes lead us to unwanted frustration.

For that reason, whenever I do financial coaching with someone, I always try to delve deeper into what he really wants in life. What are the things that would really bring him happiness? He might say he wants to buy a house, but in reality, he really wants to look better than his neighbors. Some would say they want to send their children to the best school, but they just want to show power over them. Some might plan to buy a car, but they simply want to look good. Because of all these pretentions and deceptions, they will tend to work even harder than they need to. Sometimes they will do some foolish things just to provide all the things they don’t even know if they really need them to begin with. But at the end of the day, you will find yourself lying in your bed alone and thinking: “What’s next in this endless pursuit of happiness?”

I always explain to my coachees that there are two sources of happiness. Being satisfied– the decision of just being happy at the moment. We can all be at that moment anytime; it is just a matter of choosing to be happy. Like, “I am happy with my job, car, house, community, and even spouse.” And every time you acquire new things, you just get happy.

The other source of happiness is gratification. This is the game of life. The game of acquiring more. If I have a car, I need another one for the coding day. If I have for coding day, I need a different color. This is also the game of looking better. I should be better than my officemates, neighbors, or even siblings. And this is also the game of being different. The desire of always at trend or being the one to set the trend.

The problem with happiness coming from gratification is you will always look for a reason to be happy. Your concern is how you can feed your happiness appetite because your focus is on what’s not there. This is where the conflict begins. I know a lot of people who have a good set of business and investment portfolio but can never be satisfied with them for he is always looking for what’s not in his holdings. It’s okay to have a desire for improvement, but you have to check from what space it is coming from. Are you desiring for betterment or are you coming from greed and jealousy?

There is a big difference between success and mediocrity. Those who see the value of gratitude and satisfaction will slowly but surely be able to create a better future for themselves. You can choose to be happy but also aim for improvement and let it compound for by even 1 percent and surely it will lead to a better life. Or you can feed your satisfaction that will result to an empty bank account, failed business or investment, that will lead to pains and frustrations.

In essence, to achieve lasting happiness and success, you need to align your present self to your goals in the future. If you want to live a meaningful life, you need not only to delay gratification, you might also need to forget about it and find ways how you can truly be satisfied.