Challenge of Being Patient

I would be a terrible farmer. While I would be quite good at doing my part such as tilling the soil and planting the seeds, I wouldn’t do as well when there was nothing else for me to do except be patient and let the seeds germinate and eventually poke their heads through the dirt.

When I try too hard to “make it happen”, it’s kind of like after going through all the trouble to plant the seeds, and not seeing them germinate the next day, I reach in the dirt to help pull them up. The absurdity of this approach is quite apparent when you visualize it, but how often to we essentially undermine our prior work by trying to force the outcome to meet our timeline?

A key tenet of manifesting is that we have to let go of the outcome and the logistics. People talk about trusting the Universe or letting go and letting God. In both cases, the point is that there is only so much we can do to achieve a goal. At some point, there is nothing else we can do except what we have already done. Being patient as the process unfolds is to me one of the biggest challenges of manifesting a goal.

I’ve been working at growing my coaching business, but like the farmer, the seeds don’t grow as quickly as I want. Does that mean I try even harder to make it happen? My experience is that trying to force an outcome usually doesn’t work because it is being driven by fear-based energy. Trying too hard leads to discouragement and discouragement leads to giving up.

One of my goals in terms of building my business was to create a new blog post each week. I had been disciplined at doing that, but like my seed metaphor, I started to get discouraged that I wasn’t getting the results I wanted. So what did I do? I stopped posting, which of course is the exact opposite of what I need to do to build my business. As I write this post, I am conveying it’s message to me as well as you.

So what can we do to be patient and let the process unfold? I have found one of most effective tips is to focus on something else. Go for a walk. Work on another project. Ride a bicycle. Read a book. Pray for an inspired thought relative to your goal.

All the willpower in the world is not going to make the seeds germinate before their time. Do you part of the process and then step back and let go of how you think it should work out and what outcome you believe you must have. In a nutshell, be patient.

Simple to do? No. Necessary to do? Yes.