Opinion: Active waiting takes strategy, produces outcomes

You wait to hear if you got a new job. Should you call and see if you’re still in the running or give it a few more days? Should you apply for other jobs or wait to see if this, your dream job, comes through?

You wait to hear if you’ve closed the sale. You know that the decision hangs on one person. Should you call or would you be considered a pest? Part of you already has spent the money. The other part of you knows you won’t get the sale, and you better move on.

We’ve all been in the waiting game. It might be waiting for sales, answers or even the results of medical reports. It is hard. It is stressful. We wonder how we are going to get through the anxious times. Somehow we do.

Have you ever noticed that a seven-day vacation goes by in no time, but that a two-day wait for an answer from a client seems to take forever?

It is the same phenomenon we have always experienced.

I remember growing up in Virginia. I liked school, but by about April enough was enough and I was ready for summer. I had dreamy summers as a child. I read, played with my dolls and played games with my friends.

Then August came, and I realized that school was around the corner. I hadn’t read all the books I had planned on. I hadn’t cleaned out my closet. I hadn’t helped my mother like I promised. The last few summer days were a whirlwind of shopping, cleaning and getting my head around another school year looming.

I don’t think much has changed.

This time of year is what I always refer to as the second New Year. It is our chance to start over.

A resolution

Let’s make a resolution for this second New Year: I resolve not to wait any longer.

This may seem a contradictory statement, but it isn’t. I suggest you stop waiting and start moving on.

If you are waiting to see a client and the time is getting long, leave. Come back later. While you are waiting, you may be missing 10 better prospects.

If you are waiting to hear about a job, stop right now. Hope for the best, but keep beating the bushes. Until you have that offer letter in your hand, you do not have a new job. Keep reading the want ads, go online and network.

I spent 17 years as a corporate recruiter. You may think a candidate is great. The manager may think he or she is “the one.” Then, a number of things can happen. A superior may decide his son or daughter might be better suited for the position. Word may come down from on high that there is a hiring freeze. Someone may decide that it would be more cost-effective for a consultant to perform the tasks. Stop waiting.

How many times have you mentally spent a commission or sale profits only to discover that you didn’t get the sale? Even though you haven’t spent a real red cent, you feel crushed and broke.

My husband, John, is a certified public accountant and lives by laws, numbers and facts. When I start going off in a thousand different directions, he always says, “In the absence of fact, imagination runs riot.”

This phrase has always comforted me and brought me up short on my dream castles – and my dream dungeons.

When I was going to casting auditions in Los Angeles, I would often audition 10 or more times before I got a part. It always felt like I would never get cast again until … I was. The day before I was cast on “Cheers,” I had told a friend that it looked like nothing would ever happen and I might as well get a day job!

Waiting is not easy, but it is essential. Here are a few tips on how to spend your waiting hours:

• Keep busy moving toward your goal.

• Don’t allow your mind to run riot. My friend, Debbie, quotes Aunt Eller in “Oklahoma,” the musical: “Don’t let you mind run on it!”

• Don’t drag others down with your anxiety. Verbalize hope, not despair.

• Pray and affirm for the best outcome.

• If you are waiting on someone else, have an exit strategy. For example, if you are waiting on the results of an interview, set up a new one.

• Read positive literature – hard copy and online.

• Don’t live by the phone. Live your life.

Sure, waiting is hard, but do you remember Christmas when you were a child?

It is always worth waiting for!

Sinara Stull O’Donnell is a professional speaker and writer through Springfield-based SinaraSpeaks. She is the author of “Be The Star Of Your Life: Are You Ready For Your Close-Up?” She can be reached at sinara1@sbcglobal.net.