Leadership Mindset

“Life has a way of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once.” Paulo Coelho

My favorite “Mutts” cartoon shows a shelter dog patiently waiting all week to be adopted. Every day he says, “Today is the day,” and nothing happens, but he still looks happy and hopeful. He is adopted on Sunday and says,” I knew it.” I like this cartoon because it represents patience and hope and makes me smile every time. It reminds me that sometimes I must wait for what I want. I love this dog’s attitude and strive for a similar attitude; if not today, maybe tomorrow!

I find myself in the waiting room of life a lot. I was in one yesterday. My husband was waiting to have a back procedure done. We arrived 45 minutes early and waited an additional one and a half hours. It was a long time; we managed to wait patiently. He went into the prep area and waited another hour. I waited for the call to pick him up, and it didn’t come. I began to imagine the worst things happening. When he finally came out, my patience had almost run out. I did my breathing exercises to calm myself and bit my tongue to avoid saying something I would regret. I bugged the clinic staff to find out what was happening. What I wanted to know was, “Is he ok?” No one would tell me anything, and that made my anxiety worse. A simple ” Sorry, but the procedure was delayed” would have lessened my anxiety. I tried to work on my emotional intelligence during this wait, but I could have done better.

I love that I get to practice what I write about in my blogs.

Sitting in life’s waiting room is a testing ground and not an easy place to be! I wait for different things like the next vacation, lab test results, a medical report, a quote from a contractor, and my husband coming out safely from a medical procedure. I find it easier to wait patiently for non-important things than important things.

Life’s waiting room is a test of patience and character. If you pass the patience test, you move on to the next thing in life. If you don’t pass the test, you get to do it all over again. I guess I’ll be doing this test again. How do you react during your patience test? With Anger? Aggression? Sarcasm? Infantile behavior? Or are you kind, empathic, calm, and understanding? Patience is a sign of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the key to leadership. Those without patience will make poor leaders because they are unlikely to control their emotions.

How Does Sitting in Life’s Waiting Room Make You Patient?

When you are sitting in the waiting room of life, you realize that there are some things you cannot change or control. That’s when you stop struggling, fighting against yourself, and trying to make things happen. You accept that you have to wait. If you fight against patience, you go back to the waiting room. If you choose to become angry and agitated and make others around you feel uncomfortable, you lose credibility as a leader.

If you have done all that you can to change a situation and have to wait, it becomes an opportunity to learn new skills and build character.

What We Learn From Patience

Patience,

It instills confidence in your leadership abilities because you can calmly and patiently address problems.

It makes you more tolerant, understanding, forgiving, selfless, and accepting of others.

It makes you a more empathetic person.

It helps clarify direction and priorities in life. It gives you time to think about what is important and drop everything else.

It builds character like trustworthiness, responsibility, respect, caring, fairness, courage, and integrity.

It develops perseverance and builds stamina by teaching us to finish what we start, whether a project, passion, or work. It shows us how to overcome setbacks and find the courage to reach our goals.

It teaches problem-solving. If you hit a roadblock, you don’t give up; you find a way to remove the roadblock or go around it.

Waiting More Effectively

I am getting better at waiting, but there is room for improvement. Like many people, I suffer from needing instant answers. In researching ways to improve my waiting skills, I found something called active waiting. Active waiting consists of anticipating, preparing for, seizing opportunities, and dealing with threats as they arise. We become active participants in our lives rather than passively waiting for something to happen to us. Active waiting gives us hope for a positive outcome; passive waiting makes us reactive.

How to Practice Active Waiting

Practicing being calm is a skill we can learn. Slow down your breathing and tell yourself not to react in the moment. Slow your thinking; this allows you to listen, problem-solve better, and be more patient with others. Patience and calmness instill confidence in your leadership abilities.

Learn from the experience. What is patience teaching you about yourself? What would you do differently, and what worked well?

Try to distract yourself. Read and learn new things. Actively engage your mind.

Do something physical, walk, exercise, or do something creative.

Try not to think about your problem, tell yourself to be patient, and let go of your worry.

Do something nice for someone.

Rest, eat right, and take care of yourself.

Takeaway

Learn to accept your waiting room experience as an opportunity to build character and learn to “actively wait.”