Did you know I was born one month premature??

Of course not! Why would you know that?! Unless you’re my mom, who occasionally reads these newsletters. Hi, Mom! Thanks for birthing me!

But it’s true!

I was born one month early, which I guess was technically the first time I exhibited a behavioral pattern commonly known as chronic impatience.

Oof, it’s true.

My whole life, I’ve felt like my heart and soul are years ahead of my body.

In junior high, I was impatient to get to high school. In high school, I was impatient to get to college. In college, I was impatient to get to graduate school. In graduate school, I was impatient to finish school so I could start my private practice and FINALLY LIVE MY LIFE.

Unsurprisingly, the feeling did not go away when I started private practice.

It’s morphed into impatience around projects and goals — a fluttery feeling in my chest that whispered things like, “You’re falling behind!” and “You should be past this part already!”

Impatience bullied me into pushing myself past my limits. It convinced me to swim against the current of the river instead of relaxing into ease and flow.

Impatience wired my nervous system to respond to urgency and tricked my brain into thinking I was lazy whenever I stopped trying to force my way to success.

For the past 10+ years, I’ve been getting to know this impatient part of me.

I’ve learned that she’s not all bad. She’s eager to grow, create, and consume every morsel life has to offer. She looks like Ms. Pac-Man, chomp-chomp-chomping her way through the world.

It makes sense that the #1 message I get from therapists, guides, intuitives, friends, partners, and baristas is, “Practice a little patience, Maegan.”

But you know how it feels when someone tells you to be more patient when all you want is to move forward?

REALLY FREAKING IRRITATING.

Alas, learning to recognize when I need to practice patience has been necessary work for me over the past few years.

And now, it’s the topic for this week’s Let’s Go Outside video! Join me (and a lovely Japanese maple tree) as we explore the answer to the question:

When it comes to my business, how do I know when to push and when to be patient?

As a business owner, patience can feel scary. Right now, especially with so much economic uncertainty, the urge to hustle harder is louder than ever. I feel it too. But I’ve had to remind myself that pushing harder doesn’t actually move the timeline up.

The thing we want will not bloom on demand.

The most powerful thing you can do in business is learn to distinguish between when to take action and when to wait for conditions to align in your favor. (← I say way more about this in the video.)

Here’s what I want you to walk away with this week:

• Most of what determines your success is outside your control. You can take all the right actions and still be waiting on conditions, timing, or circumstances that no amount of forcing will speed up.
• Over-efforting is a signal, not a strategy. When something feels like you’re swimming upstream, that resistance is worth examining. It might mean the timing isn’t right yet, not that you need to push harder.
• Patience and passivity are not the same thing. Choosing to wait for the right conditions is an active, intentional business decision, and knowing when to hold still is a skill most entrepreneurs never develop.

I know it’s scary to slow down.

But I promise, slowing down is not the same as falling behind.

Next week, we’ll talk about how to stay active and intentional while you wait. This has been medicine for me as I’ve recovered from my own chronic impatience syndrome. Stay tuned!

For now, see if you can identify ONE project, goal, or dream that might benefit from your patience. Something you’re really stressed about or “working hard” on right now that simply isn’t ready to bloom.

Use the ritual and reflection suggestions below to work with it this week.

Reflection

1. Where in your business are you working hard at something that simply isn’t moving? What does that resistance feel like in your body?
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2. Is the effort you’re putting in actually moving the needle, or are you staying busy to avoid the discomfort of waiting?
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3. What would you do differently this week if you trusted that the right conditions were already on their way?
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4. What would it mean for your business if patience were a strategy, not a weakness to be overcome?

Ritual

The Holding Object Ritual

Choose the one thing in your business that needs more patience right now. Then find an object to represent it.

Forage outside, find something around your home, or make something simple with your hands.

Place it somewhere visible — your desk, your altar, a windowsill.

This object is now holding that goal for you. You don’t have to carry it constantly. You don’t have to act on it today.

Each time you notice the object, let it remind you: you are still tending to this dream.

Attention is its own form of care. You are not abandoning it. You are trusting it to bloom when the conditions are ready.