Wait The Right Way And You Will Succeed
How to use your powers of manifestation when obstacles and delays occur.
Everyone is waiting for something.
Ask the person next to you. ‘What are you waiting for?’
They’ll hit you with quite a list.
A student recently told me, he’s waiting to graduate, to move to San Francisco, start a relationship, for his big break, and to find the meaning in it all.
That’s his list of desires.
You have your list of desires.
Some of your desires are measurable, such as qualifications, career promotion, business success, travel, or fitness.
Other desires are less finite, such as positive change, happier times, emotional maturity, and inner peace.
The chances are that your most cherished desires are not easily, or quickly obtained, and that they are rarely granted to you without some form of sacrifice.
You’re no doubt aware that sacrifice is integral to your powers of manifestation, e.g., you need to give up smoking to get fit, late nights to have early morning focus, specific leisure activities to succeed academically, alcohol to create good health, selfishness to find true love.
You may be less aware that the way you wait has equal impact on your powers of manifestation.
Waiting the right way is an art. It enhances your quality of life, your creative power, your chances of succeeding, and the level of satisfaction and joy you experience, once your desire is granted.
Waiting the wrong creates the opposite.
Here are the 3 common ways we wait.
1. Passive Waiting
It is passivity that dulls feeling.
― Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others
Passive waiting is a disempowered state of existence.
Passive waiting means that you spend more time dreaming, wishing and yearning, than you do strategizing, planning, visualizing and acting to manifest your desires.
Passive waiting is a defocused state that has value, on one condition; that it’s temporary. Holidays, leisure time, and fun are important, but when prolonged, they become excuses for inaction and embed future-focused thinking.
Future-focused thinking distracts you from seeing the connection between your current reality and your desired reality. You feel that the object of your desire is separate from you temporally and spatially.
Prolonged passive waiting is the domain of immature people with poor impulse control. They cannot withstand delayed gratification and often fall into a collapsed state that incites pessimism, resentment, and a victim mentality. Psychologically, the adult has left town, and the child is in control.
Being stuck in the passive waiting state occurs for many reasons:
Belief in fate over free-will, or that life owes you, or that being desirous is evil, or that someone else will grant your desires for you. In all of these cases, personal power is surrendered to something, or someone else.
Fear of making mistakes, or of being rejected, or of not being able to follow through. You are not dealing with your fears but preferring to find refuge in inaction, and in things not happening.
Poor health means you lack the physical, mental, or emotional energy to achieve your desires.
Confusion about your desires, or allowing too many competing desires to create diffused energy. Your desires become ever-shifting targets.
“A natural response when people feel overwhelmed is to retreat into various forms of passivity. If we don’t try too much in life, if we limit our circle of action, we can give ourselves the illusion of control. The less we attempt, the less chances of failure. If we can make it look like we are not really responsible for our fate, for what happens to us in life, then our apparent powerlessness is more palatable.”
— Robert Greene, Mastery
Passive waiting leaves you open to meaningless distractions and detours.
You lack the energy, focus, and confidence to remain connected to your desires; you get easily pulled into other people’s schedules, agendas, and desires.
You miss opportunities, or see too many opportunities, but feel paralyzed to act on them.
Passive waiting results in an inability to manifest your desires.
Success is unlikely because you are waiting for it to happen to you.
2. Impatient Waiting
“Time works in his favor; he learns to master his impatience and avoids acting without thinking.”
― Paulo Coelho, Warrior of the Light
Impatient waiting is a disempowered, destructive state of existence.
Impatient people want an easy, fast road to achieving their desires. They tend to cut corners, perform substandard work, and neglect things that need time, such as relationships, learning, and personal development.
The fervor to push for what you want no matter what, throws you off balance. You ignore your health, intuition, circumstances, good advice, and the signs telling you, “THIS IS NOT THE RIGHT TIME.”
Impatient people burn in the fire of their own desires.
“Genius is eternal patience.”
— Michelangelo
In an instant gratification world, we need to proactively oppose the energy of chaos and urgency to be able to center ourselves in patience. We need to step aside and discern which actions will get things done and which will perpetuate the instant gratification mindset. Only then are we powerful.
Impatience is the opposite of persistence and perseverance. Anger, weakness, ego inflation, and naivety are the basis of impatience.
Impatient people think in black or white, now or never, do or die terms. They ignore subtle forces and the middle ground. Things must happen now, in this way, at this time — or it’s all over.
An inflated ego believes that everything depends on it. I will achieve this; I will succeed. I will make it happen. I comes before everything and ignores the ecosystem to which it belongs — to the interdependence of all things. This is a panicked way of living.
The inflated ego never reads an obstacle as a sign to find another way or to wait. It only reads it as an impediment to its own will and desire. It sends you plowing ahead through the obstacle, crashing and burning.
“Life is not about one obstacle but many. What’s required of us is not some shortsighted focus on a single facet of a problem but simply a determination that we will get where we need to go, somehow, some way”.
— Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle is the Way
Impatience can make you sick.
In my work, I’ve met many people who have never dealt with their impatience. After blazing trails to success, they are often left empty energetically and mentally.
The phrase burnout is apt. These people burn up their essential energy, known in as Jing Chi (in traditional Chinese medicine), which derives from the kidneys, and nourishes the whole body-mind over the lifespan.
Sometimes the damage is too significant to repair. The energy (Jing) bank account has run dry.
These people share the same lament. “I cannot enjoy what I’ve achieved.” Often they cannot rest. Repairing their nervous system becomes their sole purpose for the remainder of their lives.
Impatient waiting may successfully manifest a desire however it may also destroy your health, your relationships, and your spirit in the process.
3. Active Patient Waiting — The Right Way to Wait
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
— Walt Disney
Active patient waiting is an empowered, harmonious state of existence.
Active waiting means you spend your time refining and visualizing your most important desires, strategizing how to achieve them, and proactively pursuing them even if your circumstances are not ripe for manifesting your desires right now.
You use the time to develop yourself, your purpose and intention, and to gain any knowledge and skills required to fulfil your desire. You remain aware that you belong to an ecosystem of existence, that you are not an island.
You recruit anything, and anyone you believe can help manifest your desire. These may include, people, mentors, education, and resources.
“Our levels of desire, patience, persistence, and confidence end up playing a much larger role in success than sheer reasoning powers. Feel motivated and energized, we can overcome almost anything. Feeling bored and restless, our minds shut off and we become increasingly passive.”
— Robert Greene, Mastery
Rather than fantasizing about a better future, you ground your energy and your actions in the present while aligning your energy and focus on your most important desires.
Active patient waiting is the domain of a mature person who can hold a vision for themselves despite delays and uncertainties. It promotes humility, confidence, and a heroic mentality.
How To Actively and Patiently Wait
Often we are denied something that feels very important to us for a very long time, and for reasons that we don’t fully understand. We do everything in our power to achieve a desire, but we can’t achieve it.
Deal with delay, gracefully.
“Graceful makes things happen and brings light but not heat. Graceful doesn’t mean invisible, hiding, fearful or by the book. And graceful certainly doesn’t include hectoring, lecturing or bullying.”
— Seth Godin, Graceful
The delay may occur due to powerful external circumstances that need to be dealt with first, and because we haven’t managed to break embedded psychic patterns. Our psyche forces us to repeatedly experience current conditions before we can either leave them behind, or accept them as part of our lives.
In long delays we find the lessons that we need to learn from our current situation. If this is the case, desires may become a reaction against the current circumstances; they arise from impatience and a wish to escape, rather than from self-awareness and wisdom.
We may make excuses, rationalize, and hide the fact that we’re unsure of why we can’t make happen e.g., it was the economy, my business partner, or the investment advisors fault. While the rationale may be true, often it is only part of the story.
Rationalizing our setbacks sometimes denies the fact that we are not always fully in control of our destiny; that although we have free will we are not immune to fate, to the forces of life.
An inflated ego cannot come to terms with this fact. It’s too deflating. On the other hand, acknowledging that we are in a dance with forces other than ourselves brings a graceful and aware sensibility.
Pay your dues, cheerfully.
“I paid my dues, I certainly did.”
– Aretha Franklin
Sometimes we have to burn off certain karma, pay our dues and debts before the winds of change can touch our lives.
This can be a hard pill to swallow, and it can undermine our trust in life and ourselves. We may feel that life is treating us harshly and unjustly.
If we cannot wait consciously, actively and patiently then we may act rashly, with poor impulse control. We may spit the dummy and throw in the towel just before the change.
It’s important to acknowledge sore feelings and to soul search before we pursue self-destructive behaviors as a solution.
Ask the right questions.
‘The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.”
— Joseph Campbell
Whenever you’re faced with delays and frustrations, ask yourself questions, e.g., Did I feel connected to that desire? Did I let myself down by giving into something that went against my ethics? Did I drop the ball of confidence and fall into my fears? Did I give it my absolute best shot or was I too passive or impatient?
If we can’t answer these questions alone, it’s often wise to seek outside help, to go back to square one; yourself and the root of your desires.
Then, we can reduce the harshness of not getting what we want; we can discover a more authentic desire and engage in active, patient waiting. We can move forward toward managing our karma rather than running from it, making the most of the opportunities at hand.
In this way we create new, positive karma and our successes grow accordingly.
Active patient waiting manifests SUCCESS
Success is inevitable when you have all the components of active patient waiting in place. You maintain your physical and mental health, keep your desire in your mind’s eye, acknowledge and balance your fears and doubts, and not to forget, you have to enjoy your life in the process.
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