delayed gratification

A Stanford University experiment demonstrated that one of the most important determinants of a person's future wealth was the capacity for delayed gratification. They put children alone in a room and gave them each a marshmallow and told the children that if they didn't eat the marshmallow they would be given a second marshmallow, and they would then have two. Many years later the children that were able to resist temptation and did not eat the marshmallow were significantly more economically successful than the ones that ate their marshmallow. In fact, the ones that were able to delay gratification tested better in a number of ways, got higher SAT scores, were healthier, and more successful in everything they did.

-- Saulius Muliolis, quora