Why It Took Me 12 Years to Do This

​There is a theme I have been noticing lately. Both in myself and in my clients.

It is practicing patience.

We want what we want NOW.

The dream job. The partner. The success. 

Now. Now. Now.

And why shouldn't we? Everything else we want we get immediately.

Amazon has same day delivery.

We watch an entire tv season by streaming it on our computers in one sitting. 

What we want, when we want it.

All of this is wonderful.

Except...

Except...

How is it hurting us otherwise?

While technology allows things to come to us more quickly, what about experiences? 

The experience of love?

Websites like match.com have built a business around this. Want to meet the love of your life? Find them NOW by scrolling through a database to choose from. You could be on a date with them tomorrow!

But can you expedite love?

Can you speed delivery a sense purpose?

And what about success? Can that be overnighted to you?

To answer these questions, I turn to one of my greatest teachers, yoga.

I've been practicing yoga for 12 years now. 

And this week, I was able to do a pose for the first time. 

It's called Crooked Sage or Eight Angle pose. (Pictured below via yoga journal - not me in the picture!)

I would say that 12 years is a pretty long time to achieve something.

Could I have done this pose in my first year of yoga? Probably not.

It took a whole set of experiences for me to lead up to it.

I had to build strength. Confidence. Determination. 

I had to fall down countless times so that I could know exactly what felt right and wrong to get myself up into the pose.

There was no way for me to get into this pose unless I practiced patience.

Unless I trusted that everything comes in due time. 

And what about if we look to the greatest life teacher of all? 

Nature.
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” - Lao-Tzu
Nothing in nature happens immediately.

It is all a process. 

Things are nurtured. They take time to grow. There are cycles. Seasons.

How do you apply this to your life today?

How can you practice patience today?

To me, the answer always comes back to trust. Faith.

Walk the path one step at a time. 

Do the work.

Trust that what you are meant to discover or achieve or experience awaits you.

It just can't be delivered via Amazon Prime. 
** 
“Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds.” - Malcolm Gladwell from Outliers