Mischel and his team put young children alone in a room with a marshmallow, telling them that if it hadn’t been eaten when they returned in 15 minutes time, they would be given another marshmallow and be allowed to eat both. The significance of this longitudinal research was that the ability to delay gratification and rather wait to get the two marshmallows, was linked to the childrens’ success in various areas later in life. Undoubtedly, the ability to abstain from gratifying one’s immediate urges is one of the key emotional intelligences, and is significantly linked to one’s ability to achieve longer-term goals.  Similarly, a lack thereof has been linked to many difficulties that people face, including obesity, crime, violence, sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. I often hear people complaining that they have no will-power. But this is inaccurate – as will-power is nothing more than the ability to make a decision and then follow through on it. Without this ability, they wouldn’t be able to get out of bed in the mornings, dress themselves, make a cup of coffee, let alone hold down a job of any kind. So anyone who is ‘getting by’ in this world would not be doing so if they did not already have significant will-power. It may be of course be that someone is out of practice in applying it in certain areas, and yes -  re-learning it in a certain area takes depth of commitment, a willingness to put up with discomfort, and ultimately lots of practice! The good news however is that research has shown that self-control is domain general. This means that by practicing in one life area, you automatically are also strengthening a similar ability in other life areas.