The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

 

I love the Tom Petty song that belts out this article title as the lyrics. When my family politely reminds me, "Patience is a virtue," I quip back with, "It's not a virtue I possess, nor will I ever."  However, I have to admit I am finding the value in waiting out some circumstances in life. 

I learned the virtue of just observing and not taking action during my first Advanced Cardiac Life Support certification class. A portion of the learning was an interactive online module where the student had to choose what actions to take next to save the patient. I kid you not, I killed Omar in that exercise at least 12 times. Don't worry, that doesn't speak to my critical thinking skills as a nurse, everyone kills Omar at least a few times. Finally, I discovered the key to keeping Omar alive was in waiting and watching. I rushed too fast to throw all the fancy interventions at him; medications, advanced airways, blah, blah, blah. All Omar needed was consistent and high-quality chest compressions along with supplemental oxygen. Beyond that, Omar, the avatar, had it within himself to revive and make it onto the fictional ICU.  

That's when I learned how powerful letting circumstances happen without a knee-jerk reaction could be. Do you find sometimes your employer, school, or community volunteer group will issue an immediate new policy in response to an isolated or rare event?  Obviously, we need to consider risk versus likelihood of events and develop appropriate mitigation and intervention strategies. However, I urge you to consider how many times those strategies came out too fast without all the stakeholders and information necessary. Often, any newly implemented response has low compliance rates lack of follow-through, and is done just to reduce outside compliance risk to the organization. Creating meaningful change takes patience, it takes observing, testing, waiting, and sometimes failing. 

When I have conducted Human Resource operations, I have found it takes a lot of time to put together a complete orientation class, manual, or onboarding process. Initial orientation is the most crucial time to gain compliance among team members. I still believe what a mentor once taught me, "You can't hold people accountable for information you did not provide them." The time and energy required to organize and disseminate crucial information is immense, but the payoff is big. Conversely, quick signatures on a piece of paper marked with "In-Service" at the top rarely gain compliance or meaningful change from the signees. This is why waiting until the education is complete and ready to implement is so crucial. Signatures satisfy surveyors, but when team members are asked, the rationale of a practice or policy has not been ingrained.

The truth of my blogs is I write them more for myself than the reader. I need to put my thoughts on paper and clarify my own life goals. If you benefit from my musings, that's great too. Currently, I am between formal employment contracts. Do I rush at the first offer or wait until the one I really want opens up?  The waiting for a paycheck is the hard part. Do I trust in my worth to hold out for the position I want? What if I act too fast and pick a job that kills my creativity like I killed Omar!!! However, can my bank account sustain itself on life support any longer? Am I waiting for an external offer of employment to tell me my worth?

There is no easy answer. All I know is I'm tired of working within dysfunctional systems. I want to help organizations make functional systems that help with retention and financial outcomes. I want to help people make meaningful, sustained changes in their lives. I want to help others discover the joys of both waiting things out and rushing ahead without fear. I want to feel heard, I want to feel useful. That is the hardest part of waiting, feeling stagnant. I am in the midlife "Generative vs Stagnation" life phase, according to Erik Erickson's developmental theory. However, some days, it feels more like I'm in the toddler phase of "Initiative vs. Guilt."