Patience, waiting and wasted time..

[safff]

So I've taken a few steps lately to put myself on the path I want to tread and the stars are starting to align.

I think it was Abe Gubegna that said :

"Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running"

I have my plan in place and have given long and hard thought as to how I want to do things. I'm always a huge endorser of not waiting to tomorrow for anything - if I want something, I will change something today to point me in the right direction. But my situation at the moment (and of the past few years) has required a little bit of patience to build a career as a backup plan more than anything but to also fund my journey. Ive finally gotten to a point where my slowlane job as of today will pay well enough to fund my ambitions for the next step and with my car paid off, bills consist of the roof above my head and a few essentials.

Things should start moving much more rapidly now; but having finally gotten to where I needed to be to really launch things, everything feels like it's close enough to touch and honestly I am a little excited. But the point of this post is a question really. What do you guys do when it seems like the only option is waiting? You're waiting to get close enough to catch something, you're jogging far enough ahead that anything is a while off catching you. I feel like I've exhausted my planning and possible actions at the moment, and what comes next requires cash, which is on it's way in a few weeks. I've planned how and where it will be utilised, and in turn what value that can generate and so on, if anything I've obsessed a little over it! My brain is going too fast to switch off and I'm not getting much sleep which sounds silly, and as a result I feel like I am wasting time sat here waiting for the pieces to fall into place and not really achieving much.

So my question is, what do you do in between bouts of making things happen? How do you spend your downtime in a way that feels productive? Something that doesn't detract focus from the big picture.

Is there a real difference between 'being patient' and 'being unproductive'? I'm starting to feel that every moment not spent moving forwards is a moment wasted at the mo - what is your take on that statement?

Sorry that may not make the most sense, there's not really a right answer, Plus I'm operating on minimal sleep . Just thinking out loud mostly as I'd like to see how people tick and see whether the concept of 'always be running' is true, or if sometimes it can't achieve anything more than sitting and waiting?

 

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[Get Right]

Actually that is a pretty good post and an issue worth debating. Some thoughts:

I am a big barbecue smoker. I love designing new smokers, sauces, rubs etc. I am constantly tweaking things to make my barbecue the best. But with all that preparation, technique and effort - you have to let the pork cook and "take the smoke". You can't help it anymore once you put it on the grill. The more you poke, sauce or even look at it - the worse it tastes. "If you are lookin', you're not cookin' " (some famous barbecue guy quote)

This may very well apply to business. For instance - I have a few big deals in the works that will absolutely fail if I don't let them "take the smoke".

Is this inaction? Yea maybe. But it's planned inaction. I think that is quite different than unplanned inaction.

So how does a striving entrepreneur handle inaction? Well in my case, not to dam well But I resist the urge to "poke, sauce and look" at my business if I planned the inaction. In reality, to "kill" the time - I hold my kids a few more minutes a day. I get an extra 30 minutes of sleep in the morning. I run a little further. I cook something a little better to eat. I take pictures of things that I usually just walk by. I just enjoy "living" a little more.

I know this time of inaction will be short. In a few hours or days it will be back to the planned 200mph grind. That's the part all of us entrepreneurs love.

Good luck and tell us how it goes!

 

[safff]

Great analogy (especially as a lover of barbecue!) Great to get a different perspective, thanks for that. I suppose having itchy feet is a sure fire way to make (planned) unproductive time even more unproductive! Not to different to feeling guilty when you're dieting and having a treat on your cheat day.

Will certainly post up progress as things develop, saving it for a few months so it's not just a one liner!