I don’t know about you, but patience is not my strong suit. In most situations, I want to move forward in action. A few weekends ago I had an amazing experience that powerfully drove home to me, once again, value of patience, especially when it comes to finding creative and effective solutions to our problems.

The beautiful wood lot next door to our house was recently cleared to put up two more homes. We knew it was going to happen sooner or later. On window that faces lot, we had a beautiful stained glass piece, however, window showed through about 8” on either side.

Now, with lot cleared, every time I went by window, instead of beautiful greenery, I noticed raw earth, scraped by bulldozer. It made me cringe every time. I am a big believer in tremendous benefit of setting up our environment to support us. This includes all kinds of environments, like clients, friends, beliefs, food, etc. But in this case it was my physical/ social environment.

We had to do something to change that view out window. I came up with idea of a lightweight translucent plastic roller shade that would go behind stained glass. Definitely tacky, but I was adamant I did not want to see construction for next six months or look into someone else’s window for years after that.

Although this idea wasn’t greatest, I didn’t see any other option and my perspective, as an impatient, action-oriented person was “Let’s just put up shade.”

Fellow “action” friends take note: sometimes action can be premature.

How many people do you hear complaining about their job, where they live, how little money they have, or how they can never take a vacation?

How many times have you heard those same people, when they hear about someone else who made a lot of money from an idea, say,

“I could have done that!” But yet, they didn’t.

And they continue to complain about where they are in life.

A friend of mine owns a dog grooming business, and she buys supplies from another pet business in town.

One day, as she talked to owner, she found out that owner’s husband made liver treats for dogs—he bought liver at wholesale, cut it into thin strips, dried it, packaged it, and retailed it to pet businesses. Eventually he got a contract with a distribution company and was doing very well with what started out as a simple side business.

My friend was upset when she was talking to me. She explained that she had had that idea several months earlier, but didn’t follow through because she didn’t think it would fit into her business.

“I could have done that!” she said, with some resentment in her voice.