The expression “good things come to those who wait” suggests that only “good things” will come, and all we have to do is wait. Who determines what’s good? How long should we wait? What, if anything, should we be doing, or is avoidance a conscious choice and reasonable course of action? How’s waiting different from procrastinating?
“Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness.” ― Leo Tolstoy
Whereas patience is a quality valued in the workplace, procrastination has just the opposite connotation: a weakness, bad habit or character flaw. What qualifies as patience versus procrastination depends on the perspective of the person judging the actions (or inaction). For example, let’s imagine a manager who does not resolve conflicts among employees. Consider some possible explanations from the manager’s perspective:
I need to gather information.
I organize team meetings.
I inform the owner.
I trust my employees to work it out.
I don’t want to terminate anyone.
Assuming conflict resolution falls within their responsibilities, does this manager exhibit patience or procrastination? It could be either, but who would admit to procrastinating when claiming patience leaves a better impression?
Patience preserves hope for the future, while procrastination excuses failings in the past.
When judging ourselves, our subjective perspective reflects our optimism about what will happen, not an objective assessment of our prospects or progress. What’s the importance to our career? What benefits do we anticipate? How confident are we of eventual success? It’s no wonder that when explaining our unfulfilled goals, we claim patience to delay or avoid negative judgments of our efforts: “I’m waiting for the right opportunity.”
Whenever possible, we try to protect ourselves from the appearance, responsibility and consequences of failure.
Even when we have the motivation to pursue our goals, there’s no guarantee of success. The possibility of failure exists, whether we accept it or not. We may fail despite our talent and hard work. We may fail while others we consider less deserving or talented succeed. Welcome to the beauty industry.
Full disclosure: I delayed writing this article. My goal to have this finished days before the publishing deadline seemed completely reasonable when I started. After all, I write these articles on a weekly basis, and have managed thus far. But for some reason, the inspiration to write on the topic of patience and perseverance did not strike as expected. Not for lack of trying, I failed to meet my self-imposed deadline. In fact, I’m embarrassed by how much time I spent during the weekend seated at my computer with this document open. Hours would go by with little progress as I found myself doing other tasks. Struggling with writer’s block, I questioned whether I had the patience to write multiple articles on this topic, but resolved to persevere because I made a commitment. Next week, I’ll plan ahead for the procrastination.
NOTE: Looking back, my struggle to complete this may have been the clearest indication that writing to meet someone else’s deadline does not suit me well.
An earlier version was published by Beauty Cast Network.