As I get set to host another live virtual training at 2pm Eastern on Tuesday looking at the fruit called patience, I asked myself what the opposite – impatience – does to our business. Here’s what I discovered:

#1 – Impatience Causes Us to Make Wrong Decisions

The children of Israel grew impatient waiting for Moses to return from his sojourn on top of Mount Sinai. Moses had been on the mountain for close to 40 days and the children of Israel were desperate for direction. Instead of waiting, they turned to Moses’ brother, Aaron, and demanded that he build an idol that they could worship.

When Moses finally returned to the camp at the base of the mountain, he was shocked by what he saw. His anger burned. He threw down the tablets containing the ten commandments and the ground opened up. Many died that day as they fell into the pit.

Impatience leads us to make terrible decisions. The result is something that we neither plan, nor expect.

#2 – Impatience Causes Poor Health

In 2003, the Journal of the American Medical Association pointed out that impatience may lead to increased risk of hypertension among young adults¹. In 2004, a report in the Journal of Biosocial Science linked a rise in American impatience with an increase in obesity. Studies found that as Americans spent more of their income, and saved less, they also gained weight².

Impatience leads to stress and overall poor health. When we’re poor in health, we’re poor in spirit too.

#3 – Impatience Causes Us to Overdeliver

Our clients invest in a program. It can be a coaching program or a home study course. When they arrive to the check-in call, they say that they didn’t complete the homework. Because we want to see our client’s transformation happen quickly, we start to second guess what we provided. We then add unannounced items as a bonus in an attempt to get our clients motivated to complete their work. Instead, our clients become even more overwhelmed by our overdelivery.

When we’re impatient with our clients, we over-give. When we stuff our programs with too many CDs, MP3s, transcripts and action guides, our clients end up doing more of nothing. Then, we kill our revenue potential because we’ve already given everything away.

Impatience leads to a decline in our prosperity which then encourages a cash-stuck business.

Need More Patience?

I share more details in my teaching series called Fruit of the Spirit Made Easy for Entrepreneurs. If you can join me at 2pm Eastern every Tuesday for this series, I’ll share how you can use the fruit of the Spirit for financial and spiritual success.

How would you have dealt with a situation like this? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please enter them below.

Sources

1 – Impatient Nation: I Can’t Wait For You To Read This
2 – Ibid.