delayed gratification

I've been thinking a bit lately about how much we are shaped by the instant gratification that our culture has sold us on. A lot of the decisions we make seem to be dictated by how I feel right now - whether I can be bothered making that phone call/sending that encouragement/going to the gym/reading that book/doing that cleaning.

Once again, the gym made me thing about it, because I was sitting at home on Tuesday, deciding whether I'd go or not. To be honest, I really didn't want to - I was happy at home, warm, had other things I thought about doing. But, I did go, and 1/2 way through my workout, I thought "why would I have wanted to miss how I feel now?"

I wish there was a way of experiencing how we are going to feel ahead of time. In other words, I wish my body/mind would allow me to know how I was going to feel after I'd been to the gym/finished the assignment I needed to do/ticked some things off my to do list/etc... but allow me to feel that as part of the motivation of actually doing it.

I wonder if that's where habits and rituals help. If we do something often enough, our body/mind is much better able to know how we are going to feel, and so give us extra motivation to get on and do it.