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Curated Sermon Illustrations on Self-Control
Explore powerful illustrations on self-control. Discover stories, analogies, humor and more as you illustrate the timeless truths from scripture.
Featured Sermon Illustration
The Marshmallow Test
Delayed gratification may be an important key to success in life, points out Mark Batterson. In a variety of experiments, the most famous from 1972, Walter Mischel studied how young children delayed gratification. In an experiment, a child from the ages of four to six would be offered a marshmallow or other treat and told that if they waited, they would be given another one. Children varied in their responses. Some grabbed the treat immediately. Others tried to resist. Mischel described children singing, hiding their head in their arms, stamping their feet, playing, praying, even falling asleep.
Mischel and his team tracked the many of the children through High School. Those who could resist simply taking the first marshmallow fared differently from those who could not wait. They scored higher on the SAT, they tended to do better in school and score higher on IQ tests and were more “socially competent.”
A followup study of the children in their early forties found “that the two-marshmallows-later children had higher incomes, stronger marriages, and happier careers.”
Batterson concludes: “goal-directed, self-imposed delay of gratification is a powerful predictor of future success in any endeavor.”
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