I heard NFL quarterback Colt McCoy say that he has not had a soft drink since he was like twelve years old. Most people I know think a cold Coke or Dr. Pepper is one of life’s simple pleasures. Why would Colt deprive himself of something that tastes great?

For that matter, smokers derive pleasure from smoking. Those who have kicked the habit have chosen to forgo that pleasure for some reason. It doesn’t end with those just refraining from some potentially dangerous activity. Olympic and professional athletes actually punish their bodies running, biking, swimming, and skating for miles on end. Their bodies feel pain and exhaustion. Would you say this is present-oriented behavior? No! Present-oriented behavior seeks pleasure and comfort.

“I love pain.”

In a pool I would derive pleasure from the first lap. After that I would be swimming for some other reason. Why do these athletes do it? The answer is that they are engaging in future-oriented behavior. As the term implies, future-oriented behavior is behavior we engage in now in order to achieve some pleasure, reward, or benefit in the future.

Regarding money, Dave Ramsey puts it like this: “If you will live like no one else, one day you will get to live like no one else.” He is encouraging the future-oriented behavior of budgeting, eliminating debt, building wealth, and being generous. It is the delaying of gratification. Hedonists will not be impressed by such an approach.

Anthony Reading, author of Hope and Despair: How Perceptions of the Future Shape Human Behavior, made the observation that the ability to envision a future and then structure actions today to make that future possible is a uniquely human capability. My Welsh Corigs, while obviously the smartest dogs on earth, don’t seem capable of thinking about what kind of Corgis they would like to be in a year. I don’t observe them setting goals and then working to achieve them. The successful people that I know do exactly that.

Future-Oriented Behavior?

So, one of the keys to success is the practice of future-oriented behaviors. Take a personal inventory and ask yourself how many of your daily actions are for the present and how many of them are oriented toward the future, toward your dreams, and toward your goals.