A Hamburger Today...or Two on Tuesday?

I'm catching up on the July posts that I promised! If you're having trouble waiting, there is bad news in store. Self-control and delayed gratification may be connected to success in life, according to a long-term study described in this New Yorker article by Jonah Lehrer.

In May, I accompanied a job seeker on a job hunting trip. We picked some employers in a nearby neighborhood and hit the sidewalk with resumes in hand. She was dressed nicely, business casual with a spring flair, and she had taken the time to fix her hair and makeup. It was a noticeable effort that I complimented. Then, she said, "And I can't smoke, right?"

That's right!

The next hour and a half was a battle over an extreme example of self-control: resisting nicotine addiction. She made it to 7 businesses before I let her have her cigarette reward. At that point, she looked through her purse and found that she had lost her last one.

Along the way on our trip, she found a twenty dollar bill on the sidewalk. That made the lost cigarette a minor disappointment.

While cigarette cravings are not the type of impulse referenced in the New Yorker article, the situation helped me link the study with employment services. What kind of impact, I wondered, could an inability to delay gratification have on a job seeker?

Some ideas:

1. Unrealistic expectation of a short job search; frustration grows as time goes on.

2. A lack of long-term planning; no investment in training, education, or working oneself up from entry-level.

3. Disassociation between the effort necessary to apply and the reward of being hired; there may be too large a gap between the action (targeted resume and cover letter, fully completed application, follow-up calls or visits, interviewing) and the result (job offer).

This is where an employment plan with short-term goals -make a big deal about checking them off- can pay off.