I used to half-jokingly blame my impatience on the fact that I was an unplanned child, alleging that my parents had bestowed upon my older siblings [planned] all the patience at their disposal, leaving none for me, an unexpected child.
It turns out that my impatience of old wasn’t actually impatience. It was the misconception that I could force a desired outcome to manifest by sheer force of action; I erroneously thought that as long as I kept doing something – anything – surely it would help bring about results.
The more evolved truth I now know to be true is that everything has its divine timing. We cannot force a single thing to happen before its appointed time.
However, if we back off the pedal and be the person who believes wholeheartedly that what we want already has begun to take form through our thoughts, and we combine this state of being with action in support of our desire, then what we covet will all but certainly come to fruition.
Take The Ohio State University football team, for example. Going into the Big Ten conference championship game in December, my alma mater was down two Heisman-worthy quarterbacks and looked to the third-string passer to step up to the plate, but they didn’t allow circumstances to be a deterrent. They kept being the team who did all they could with that they had, which led to a convincing blowout victory and ultimately entrée to the national title playoffs.
Somewhere along the six-week journey to winning the inaugural national Football Bowl Subdivision championship, Coach Urban Meyer said that this year was not the Buckeyes’ time, that he’d looked for this particular team to peak and be a national title contender next year. Even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, it was, in fact, this team’s time.
This life lesson hit closer to home for me recently with my creative expression. The onset of the holidays seemed to have caused a kink in the flow of my creativity, and I found myself struggling to write. It became clear to me that the more I agonized over blogging or how to dive back into the writing of my books, the more clogged my creative pipeline became. I soon realized that I wasn’t going to force anything meaningful, so I backed off and gave myself permission to honor the flow.
This didn’t mean that I took to the picket line against writing. Quite to the contrary, I focused on doing what I could with what I had. I rededicated myself to my writing practice, sitting down daily with pen and paper or my Mac, but instead of pressuring myself with the next chapter of one of my books or my next blog post, I allowed the words to flow without judgment. By being the woman who is a writer dedicated to her craft, my cellular memory quickly got back on track, and my creative fire began burning anew.
Not only am I now reenergized to write, but with my Muse fully reawakened, I even became inspired to wet my paintbrushes for the first time in more than a year, my ultimate testament of free-flowing creativity (that’s my latest creation above).
If there’s something you’ve been trying to force, try taking a step back.
Be in a state that’s aligned with your mission, and trust that things will happen at their appointed time. Easing off the pressure just might open the pathways to fruition.
