When you look at the personal development, lifestyle design, blogging, location independence and online business communities around the blogosphere, it all seems so easy.

Everyone can articulate themselves eloquently (Naomi Dunford notwithstanding – <3 you, Naomi!), people are making plenty of money, living in exotic and glamorous locations and even blogs which have only been going for a short period of time seem to have it all figured out.

The problem is that people, like 80's rock legends Queen, want it all. And they want it now.

Everybody seems to be making money online. Well, everybody except you and me. Success stories such as Pat Flynn, who created a six figure online business in a year, are great inspiration. But with great inspiration, they also bring great expectations (not the book!).

Suddenly, creating a successful business is a panic. If Pat Flynn can do it in a year then I only have 11 months and 13 days left. Crap, I better get moving! But what do I do next? What product do I promote? What keywords do I target? What’s my passion? Arrrrrghhh!

It sounds crazy, but that’s a common reaction to a success story. It’s why so many people simply give up after a month or two. Some may even make it to the six month mark but more often than not, people quit. Wanting success and wanting it now is just too much pressure.

Why people lack the patience to build something awesome

I blame marketing. We’ve all been raised on television commercials (or adverts to us Limeys) telling us how this superawesome new product is going to change our life instantly. We’ve all seen the infomercials promising us six pack abs in 30 days with just 6 minutes a day. Most of us in this niche have seen the sales page that promises to take you from rags to riches in mere weeks. We’ve seen all of this marketing and guess what? We bought it.

When somebody buys one of those stupid electric muscle stimulator things because some really buff guy is modeling it on TV they get it stuck into their head that this guy got that physique by using said stupid device. Even when, on some level, you know that he has blatantly hit the weights, follows a very strict diet and performs regular aerobic and/or anaerobic exercise.

We want to believe it’s possible to achieve amazing things in a very short time. For a very, very small percentage of people… it is. But for the vast majority, then it isn’t as easy as all that.

If it was easy, everyone would be doing it (and it wouldn’t be as much fun)

Why do you feel like you have to do everything and be everything you want to do/be right now? That’s an awful lot of pressure for one person. I’ve been as guilty of this as anyone. I’d start a niche website, build some great backlinks, target the right keywords, promote a high quality product that I believe in, and then expect the money to come rolling in immediately.

As the Wright Brothers sung so beautifully (I’m quoting a lot of lyrics in this post), “Time, goes by, so slowly. And time, can do so much.“

I know you want it now. I want to have enough money per month right now to quit my job. I also want to be conversationally fluent in Spanish right now too. In the past, I’d lose patience with these goals when I wasn’t progressing quickly enough (in my opinion).

I’ve since come to understand that because of clever marketing and copywriting mavens, I’ve underestimated how long it takes to become successful. Maybe you have too? It’s not easy to achieve greatness. To become a superhero is bloody hard work and will take a real concerted effort on your part.

The biggest key to this is perseverance. Can you push through when things try your patience? Will you resolve, right now, not to quit when things get tough and you don’t get exactly what you want immediately?

How to increase you patience tolerance in 30 seconds (or less)

Okay, so I’m a dirty snake oil salesman tricking you into buying into this article by making you believe that lack of patience can be “cured” in 30 seconds. If you were told the same thing from multiple sources, constantly, day-by-day, for weeks/months/years… wouldn’t you be inclined to believe what they are saying?

Still, there are a few things you can do to increase your patience and hopefully you can use them to push through the tough times in life, love, business or whatever it is you’re striving for right now.

1. The reward is in the journey, not the destination. It sounds like a damn cliché but it’s so true. When you get the thing that you worked so hard for, that’s it. You’ve got it. You may savor it for a moment or two but pretty swiftly you’ll be on the next big thing in your life and that achievement will get lost. The sense of achievement you get throughout the journey you took to get this point, however, is something you can take and use again. You will evolve as a person, improve characteristics like determination and resilience and the confidence you get from knowing that you can do what you want to do and achieve it is literally invaluable. Enjoy the journey. Let it take you where it takes you and you’ll be surprised where you end up.
2. Stop complaining. The natural reaction when we lose our patience is to express it verbally. Complaining is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere. Start a No Complaints Challenge and just see how differently the world looks when everyone but you seems to be bitching and moaning. You’ll get a new found focus and clarity that can be channeled into your business, your language learning, or your relationships. When I struggled to earn money as a hosting affiliate I’d complain (mostly to myself) and by putting myself into a negative mindset, I convinced myself I couldn’t succeed in that market. In reality, if I had kept building links and adding regular updates to the site, plugging away at it over time, then I could have gotten better results. If your online business is suffering, hard (but smart) work is usually the cure.
3. Get rid of your misconceptions. I, like many internet savvy geeks, have built up a tolerance to marketing fluff but there are still many people that spend a fortune buying exercise equipment, books, guides, membership subscriptions when they just don’t need them. Instead of believing everything you see/hear/read, you’ll need to learn to judge things yourself. If something seems too good to be true… it is. Learn to master your own intuition and judge your actions on your own thoughts and feelings. The whole point of marketing and advertising is to influence your mind, making you believe that the product in question will solve all of your problems quickly and completely. By all means increase your knowledge, but at the end of the day, you are the one who needs to be in control of how you live your life.
4. Don’t underestimate yourself. I believe that the majority of people reading this have the ability to be awesome at whatever they want to do. You really can become the person you strive to be. But don’t underestimate yourself and definitely do not put the person you want to be up on a pedestal. You’re not that far off being the man/woman in your dreams. It’s hard to not be overly critical of yourself but once you do make the shift into believing you are enough, you’ll get that empowering feeling that comes with knowing you can do this. Just by reading this article, wanting to improve and wanting to be a better husband/wife/speaker/entrepreneur you are already ahead of the curve. Why rush the process?

Give me the conclusion, before I lose my patience!

The conclusion to all of this is quite simple. Don’t rush the process of trying to achieve great things. Wanting it all and wanting it now is a surefire way to overwhelm yourself and cloud your mind. You might not even know your mind is clouded until you start to become aware of the things I talk about on this blog, but when you get the clarity I always talk about then you’ll know exactly what I mean.

The common phrase, “Good things come to those who wait.” isn’t entirely accurate.

I’d actually change it to “Good things come to those who wait, as long as you’re working hard to achieve those good things.“.

I know it’s not pithy, it doesn’t roll off the tongue and I’m not likely to be quoted for hundreds or thousands of years to come, but it also doesn’t sugar coat it. You will not get to where you want to be if you sit around, rest on your laurels and just wait for something to happen. Get out there, work hard on your goals and for goodness sake, enjoy the journey!

What do you think? Has marketing and advertising convinced you things are easier to achieve than they are? Are you overwhelmed or struggling to achieve anything because you want it right now? Answers on a postcard (or just in the comment box below).