I’m a writer; a runner; a budding artist; a blogger; a novelist hopeful; a weight-training newbie; and I’m on a weight-loss journey. In short, I’m blessed with a laundry list of labels in my life that all require a level of patience for me to stick it out and make them work. But most of the time, I question whether I have any patience at all.

Weight loss is my biggest patience struggle right now. Even though I’m on a very productive eating plan and I workout regularly at the gym or at home, I am sooooo ready to be at my goal fitness level right NOW! I was so impatient for that to happen, I decided to try Keto Rapid Max pills (I wrote about that in this blog post) in hopes that they would move things along a bit faster. But I realized that I didn’t need the pills because if they did work fast, I’d miss the good parts of the struggle.

I actually LOVE the struggle: writing, rewriting and writing again; adding five or 10 pounds of weight because my muscles are getting stronger; pushing myself to run that extra mile; sticking to my eating and work-out plan even though my size medium uniform pants STILL don’t fit comfortably. I love the natural progression from one level to the next in my journey to reach my goals, because each progression is a new happy dance! A celebration! A toast to my future!

Quick fixes don’t seem to award me that same satisfaction. A pill might help me to reach my weight loss goals sooner; and that’s not necessarily a bad thing because sometimes seeing progress faster can aid in sticking to a workout/eating plan. But there’s a part of me that likes the bragging rights of getting to my goal by being patient. It boosts my confidence to know that I don’t need to spend unnecessary $$$$ or depend on anyone else’s plan; that whatever I want to do in life, I’m already equipped with what I need to get there.

Patience gives me peace within the struggle. When I’m impatient, I’m always monitoring my success and failures, jumping for joy with one, dumping on myself with the other, irritated if I’m not getting what I need at a certain time. Impatience is on a time limit. Patience allows me to just keep moving, learning me as I go, one step at a time – still with successes and failures but not on an impossible time limit.

You can’t buy patience; we already have it. It just needs a little room to shine.