We all have goals.
Some are big. Some are small. Some are personal, while others shape our careers or businesses.
Whether it’s growing a business, losing body fat, building strength, learning a new skill or simply becoming someone who exercises consistently, there’s one thing almost all of us have in common…
We want to skip to the bit where it’s happened.
My Patience Scores 11 Out of 10
I said in class recently…
“If impatience was on a scale of 1 to 10…
1 being: ‘I sent an email today. It’s fine if they reply next month.’
And 10 being: ‘I sent the email this morning and I wanted the reply two days ago…’
…I’m an 11.”
It’s funny because it’s completely true.
The older I get, the more I realise that the hardest part of almost every goal isn’t actually the work.
It’s the waiting.
The Frustration of Waiting
What makes waiting even harder is that many of the things we want aren’t entirely within our control.
Businesses rely on other people saying yes. Career opportunities depend on timing. Family commitments change our priorities. Life has a habit of throwing unexpected challenges into the mix.
Sometimes it genuinely feels like you’re doing everything right, yet nothing seems to be moving fast enough.
If you’ve ever felt like that, you’re definitely not alone.
Waiting Isn’t the Same as Standing Still
Here’s the important part though…
Waiting has never got anyone anywhere.
The results take time, yes, but they only arrive because we keep doing the work while we’re waiting. We keep learning, planning, practising, making decisions, asking questions and putting ourselves out there. That’s what eventually makes the waiting worthwhile.
I think we often confuse waiting with inactivity.
The business still needs building.
The body still needs training.
The habits still need practising.
We can’t speed up time, but we can make sure we’re using it.
Four Questions I Come Back To
Whenever I catch myself becoming spectacularly impatient, I try to ask myself a few simple questions instead.
- What can I do today that moves me forward, however small?
- Am I measuring the effort I’m putting in, or just obsessing over the result?
- What’s one thing Future Me will be grateful I did today?
- If I repeated today 100 times, would I eventually get where I want to be?
Those questions usually stop me focusing on what hasn’t happened yet and bring me back to what I can actually control.
Looking Back
Reflection is something I encourage my coaching clients to do regularly.
When I stop and look back honestly, I’ve actually achieved many of the things I set out to do. Maybe not always to the extent I’d originally imagined, because many outcomes rely on other people as well as our own efforts, but I’ve moved forwards.
None of those achievements happened because I sat around waiting for the perfect moment.
They happened because I kept quietly chipping away while time did its thing.
One Small Decision
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m just off to refresh my emails for the fifteenth time today…
Although, in the spirit of not just waiting, I’m also having a proactive meeting to move a few things forward. Last night I even mocked up an entire website… just in case!
That’s the difference.
Waiting doesn’t mean sitting still. It means doing everything you can while the bits you can’t control catch up.
It reminds me of something from my childhood.
I often joke that I’m being very “Girl Guide” by always wanting to be prepared, except I was never actually a Girl Guide. I went to Girls’ Brigade for a while before begging my mum and dad to let me leave so I could join Harriers running club instead.
Looking back now, that decision at just ten years old shaped so much of who I am today. It sparked my love of training, competition and challenging myself to discover what I was capable of.
At the time, it probably felt like a small decision.
In reality, it influenced the direction of my entire life.
The Small Things Matter
Maybe that’s the reminder we all need sometimes.
We don’t always need to make huge leaps forward.
Keep doing the little things.
Keep preparing.
Keep learning.
Keep saying yes to opportunities.
Keep taking the next step, even when it feels insignificant.
Because you never know which small decision, habit or conversation will become the moment you look back on years from now and realise…
That was where it all started.