The other weekend while talking with a nice young lady outside of the supermarket I stated, “I don’t have patience in my personal life, I use all of my patience in my professional life.” God must’ve heard me and chuckled. Enters this blogging and going through the process of growing my audience…I see what you did there God! I previously posted a writing called But What Are You Doing? that addressed writing down your goals and working on them daily. Honestly, we can work on things day after day and it sometimes looks like we aren’t making headway. It gets discouraging; so what do we do in the meantime while we are working and waiting for our goals to manifest?

1. Evaluate what’s working- Let’s be honest, some things that you are doing work well for you, some of them you can save yourself the energy by cutting it out of your routine. From a strength-based counseling perspective, we would say keep doing more of whats working. This can be applied in your professional and private life. If going to bed at 9 pm helps you to get your full night of rest so that you can be fully functional in the morning, by all means, GO TO BED! It is not up to others to understand the how or why of your behavior, especially if it’s working. The same is true for the opposite, if it’s not working, you may need to adjust what you are doing or stop it completely. If you are feeling stuck, see how you can view the obstacle from a different perspective. Don’t be afraid to ask someone else their thoughts (be careful who you ask, that’s covered more in the third step).
2. Continue to do your research and plan- There’s this saying, “Be careful what you pray for you might just get it.” Let’s say you become an overnight success, are you really prepared for that success? The idea of being successful and making money is appealing to everyone but is your business or side-hustle ready for that level of success. Believe it or not, there are some things that need to be in place in order for you to maintain your success if it were to happen overnight. I have heard of businesses that have actually FAILED because they were not able to keep up with the success of their business. It seems crazy but it’s the reality. Researching does not only apply to business but also to your personal life. Find out more about yourself. This can be done various ways by trying something new, taking a trip, learning a new language, reading a book, coming to terms about an event that continues to show up in your current relationships.  You have to plan for successes, professionally and personally. Know what you will be doing every day to help yourself and business grow. Whether we are waiting for our business to grow or waiting for your knight in shining armor, keep growing!
3. Surround yourself with like-minded people- Seems simple enough but apparently, there are some serious complications that come along with this idea. It’s interesting how we can do this successfully in our personal lives (find people similar to ourselves) but we fail at doing this in our business circles. Maybe what happens is that we try to get a two for one special from our closest friends and are disappointed when we find out that it doesn’t work the same.  Please, refer to 3 Reasons You Are Losing At Life, your people will not always support your growth! The benefits of reaching outside of your comfort zone to find these like-minded people is that they will bring fresh ideas and information to help you grow to the table. I cannot stress this enough. If you were in my counseling office I would ask questions like, “How would you know that you are being supported?” “What could you lose or gain by building new friendships focused primarily on your area of growth?” “What would you tell a friend in your shoes?” It’s cool, go ahead and ask yourself those questions now. Don’t worry, I’ll wait!
4. Lastly, stay grounded in the Word- There are times when I could just cry from frustration because things aren’t going the way that I feel like they should be going. Not because I’m spoiled, but because I feel that I have done the work and set things in motion to prepare myself for success both professionally and personally. So what now? If you remember how we started this post, identifying patience, yep we have to go there! I will be the first to admit having to be patient sucks donkey balls! Seriously, who has time to wait! Apparently, we do! Haha! The bible references patience in suffering several times. The suffering referred to in biblical times is a bit different than our day to day suffering (for the most part, I’m completely aware of those that truly suffer for Christ or that deal with illnesses on an everyday basis). The quickest reference is Brother James. James, the brother of Jesus, wrote to Jewish Christians about suffering for Christ; they lived in the Gentile regions and they were subjected to suffering. We may be familiar with the first part of James, the trying of faith worketh patience, James 1:3. Let’s flip to the last chapter, James 5. Verses 10 and 11 read, “For examples of patience in suffering, dear brothers and sisters, look at the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. (11) We give honor to those who endure under suffering. For instance, you know about Job, a man of great endurance. You can see how the Lord was kind to him at the end, for the Lord is full of tenderness and mercy.”  I’ll leave you with this, we are never given a reason for Job’s suffering other than the knowledge that the devil felt like he needed a challenge, just like we may never know what is delaying our own progress. But, what we do know is that the Lord is full of tenderness and mercy. Trust the process and trust that he will keep you during this time.

P.S. There’s so much more to be said about patience but we will save it for another post! Per the usual, the scripture is from the New Living Translation. Find the photographer @OLUELETU.