The Link Between Control and Impatience

When’s the last time you felt impatient? Impatience is a terrible, uncomfortable place to be in for most people. It makes you feel out of control and can cause you to second guess your original decisions. Many entrepreneurs struggle with impatience, especially those who have a team. People, relationships, and team members can test our patience and make us feel like we’re not getting our needs met.

At the root of impatience is fear—a feeling of frustration and being out of control. We become afraid that we might lose something. We create a story or consequence in our mind around not getting the thing we’re being impatient about.

How can we navigate this uncomfortable emotion?

In today’s episode we discuss:

• The relationship between patience and impatience in business—and how impatience creates a weird set of emotions in people, because they feel out of control and unsafe

• How my mother used to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve because of her impatience and anxiety about waiting for Christmas Day (because it made her feel out of control); and how she’d get livid if someone wouldn’t honor this tradition

• How impatience can show up during the hiring process and cause you to hire the wrong person

• How from a mindset perspective, we feel impatient because we don’t think we’re going to get our needs met

• How we live in a “now” culture of instant gratification where we can get things mailed to us immediately (thanks, Amazon Prime)—and if our shipment doesn’t come in a couple of hours, then we’re pissed

• How Jeff Bezos became one of the richest people in the world because he leveraged everybody’s impatience

• Whether or not there’s ever a good time to be impatient

If you’re ever feeling impatient, just ask yourself, “What am I afraid of?” If you release attachment to the idea you have in your mind, then you won’t be so tied to the outcome that you feel impatient about. Just accept the situation and surrender to it.

Episode #274 – Control & Why People Can’t Find Themselves