Why pleasure is the key to self-improvement

Like many people, I spent New Year’s Eve making a list of the goals I want to achieve in the year ahead – a habit that never fails to arouse the ire of my boyfriend. “Why do you always have to put yourself under pressure?” he’ll ask, rolling his eyes. “It’s so puritanical!”

And he has a point. When most of us turn our minds to self-improvement, we assume that we need to put pleasure on pause until we’ve reached our goal. This is evident in the motivational mantras that get bandied about – “no pain, no gain”, “the harder the battle, the sweeter the victory”. If we fail, we tend to think it’s our own fault for lacking the willpower needed to put in the hours and stick at it, probably because we’ve given in to some kind of short-term temptation at the expense of long-term gain.

Yet t…

Yet the latest research suggests that this may be the worst way to approach our personal goals. Put simply, we are far more likely to succeed if the process offers immediate gratification as well as rewards in the future, and we should actively look for new ways to enhance the inherent satisfaction in whatever it is we’re doing. Far from being the enemy of self-control, pleasure powers perseverance. Forget delayed gratification; it’s instant gratification that means we keep on keeping on.

These insights arise from self-determination theory, which sets out a kind of spectrum for motivation. On one side you have intrinsic drives, which are the things you’re drawn to do for their own sake, because they’re fun, engaging or give you pleasure. On the other there are extrinsic drives – things that you know you should do, often because of a longer-term benefit.

To give an example: you may go on a daily run because you love the feeling of the wind in your hair and the pounding of your feet against the pavement, for instance. That’s an intrinsic drive. Or you may reluctantly put on your trainers because your doctor tells you that 20 minutes of exercise a day will lower your risk of a heart attack, and running seems like the most efficient way of meeting this target. That’s an extrinsic drive.

Countless experiments have shown that intrinsic drives are more likely to see us through to success, but most of us fail to recognise this when making our New Year’s resolutions. For a study published in 2025, Kaitlin Woolley and colleagues surveyed 2,000 people about their goals for the year ahead. In the last week of December, the participants rated how “pleasurable” or “engaging” the resolution would be to pursue, two forms of intrinsic drive, and how “useful” or “important” it would be in the long-term, reflecting extrinsic drive. The researchers then kept track of the participants’ progress over the following 12 months.

At every stage of the study, the level of intrinsic drive was the best predictor of them staying the course, whereas their extrinsic motivations had no effect. It just didn’t seem to matter how worthy a goal was in the abstract if the activities themselves were not immediately rewarding.

Unfortunately, few of the participants seemed to be aware of this – as was revealed when their underlying beliefs about motivation were tested. In one of the questionnaires, the researchers described different kinds of intrinsic or extrinsic drives and asked which would be most important in determining success. Time and time again, the participants (wrongly) assumed that designing their new regime around its extrinsic value, instead of the pleasure it gave, would lead to greater perseverance – a strategy that was bound to fail.

Intrinsic and extrinsic drives do not have to be at odds, of course. You may initially choose to get fit because your doctor has told you to, but you can then look for the most enjoyable ways to do it. You just need to think a bit more creatively about how to build in the exercise. Perhaps you find running to be a joyless grind, for instance, but love the thrill of ice skating. It might not have been the first thing to pop into your head, but you would burn just as many calories, and your time at the rink would feel like a positive indulgence rather than a sad sacrifice.

Woolley’s research suggests that the worst thing you can do is to pick an activity simply because it seems like the quickest way of reaching your goals. A dieter, for instance, may choose some insipid soups that drastically reduce their energy intake, but they are far more likely to maintain their weight loss over time if they regularly choose mouthwatering meals that just happen to be healthy. (This takes a little time to research and plan, of course, but the investment will be worth it if it leads to more lasting change.)

If you’re struggling to find a way of making your new habit fun, you might choose to combine it with another activity that provides more immediate gratification. The behavioural scientist Katy Milkman describes this as “temptation bundling”. In a month-long trial, she gave students audiobooks to listen to while they worked out and found that they were far more likely to visit the gym, simply because it added another intrinsic drive to their exercise regime. You can apply the same principle to anything you want to do. If you’re studying for a course, for instance, you may find that taking your homework to your favourite coffee shop effortlessly transforms that chore into a treat, so that you are now far more likely to hand in your assignments on time.

I am taking this advice to heart. In 2024 and 2025, I set myself the target of running a marathon – and failed. But that was before I knew about the importance of instant gratification. Armed with a more realistic training schedule, the complete works of PG Wodehouse on Audible, and a slew of rewards for each milestone, I am filled with optimism that 2026 will be the year I finally hit the finishing line.

*David Robson is the author of The Laws of Connection: 13 Social Strategies That Will Transform Your Life (Canongate). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

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