Embracing Patience: Writing, Resistance, and the Long Road to Self-Discovery

I originally sat down to write a quick update. Something to explain why I’m behind on my Q1 goals (yes… I know it’s Q2), maybe clear the air for anyone wondering where things are with the book. But as I started thinking through what I’d actually say, I realized this wasn’t just about missed deadlines. It’s about everything I’ve had to learn — or unlearn — in the process. Mostly, it’s been about patience.

When I began writing this book, I thought I had a solid plan. Sixty days. First draft done by February. Second draft polished and submitted by March 31. That was the goal. I like goals. I like structure. And, for a while, I believed that if I followed the process, stayed disciplined, I could treat writing like any other project.

Today is May 1, and I’m just now wrapping up the last chapter of the first draft.

What’s slowed me down isn’t just life, although life certainly had its say. It’s been the slow, messy, uncomfortable realization that writing isn’t something you conquer. It’s something you surrender to. And surrendering has looked a lot like learning patience in the most unglamorous, necessary ways.

I used to think patience meant waiting. Sitting quietly, trusting things would work out. I don’t think that anymore. Patience isn’t quiet or passive. It’s the daily decision to show up even when it’s hard. It’s wrestling with a blank page and still writing anyway. It’s stepping outside with a voice memo app (more on this in a later post) and talking through ideas because sitting at the keyboard feels too overwhelming. It’s allowing the process to be nonlinear, letting myself brainstorm in the car, take notes mid-lunch, dictate a thought at 6am in the dark before the rest of the house wakes up. It’s accepting that I might not know what I’m doing today and still doing it.

I’ve read more about the craft of writing in the last few months than I have in years. Some books are about structure, others about language. But what’s moved me the most are the ones that talk about Resistance or clear examples of prose — the kind Steven Pressfield or William Zinsser has written about. That invisible force that shows up every single day when you sit down to create something. I used to think that once I “got going,” I’d be free from it. But Resistance doesn’t go away. It just evolves. It meets you wherever you are. And the only thing I’ve found that works against it is patience. That and starting. Again. And again. Being pigheaded and ruthless.

Because starting is the hardest part. Not just once, but every time. The blinking cursor feels personal almost to offense. Even when I know exactly what I want to say, it sometimes refuses to come out in a way that makes sense. I’ve had to teach myself that writing badly is better than writing nothing. That I can always fix a rough draft, but I can’t edit a blank screen. It’s simple advice. It’s also maddeningly hard to live by.

Along the way, I’ve had to change my relationship with time. I used to measure my productivity in output. Pages. Word count. Deadlines hit. But real writing doesn’t work on that clock. You can’t sprint your way through it and expect depth. I’ve started to see time differently. Not as something to fill or manage, but as something to prioritize with purpose. What matters gets space. Everything else waits.

Reading Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman hit that home for me. We all get the same twenty-four hours where we must also face our finitude. It’s not about having time, it’s about choosing how to use it — and accepting the trade-offs that come with those choices. That means sometimes waking up early to write before my family is up. Sometimes stepping away from work during lunch to get a few paragraphs out. Sometimes it means not being fully present in one space because I’m thinking about an idea I don’t want to lose. None of it is ideal. None of it is clean. But all of it is honest.

And if I’ve learned anything about patience, it’s not just about waiting for something to happen. Patience is about holding space for what’s already happening. The thinking, the dreaming, the quiet conversations with yourself. The stops and starts. The parts that feel like nothing and end up meaning everything. I’ve come to see patience as movement, not stillness. A kind of trust that shows up in action, not in delay.

I won’t pretend that I’ve mastered any of this. I still fight resistance every day. I still fall behind. I still beat myself up for not being consistent enough, focused enough, fast enough. But I’ve stopped using those setbacks as proof that I’m not meant to do this. Now, they’re just part of the process. They’re the price of admission.

Somewhere along the line, my definition of success shifted. At first, success meant being published. Measurable outcomes. Proof that the effort was worth it. But now, success is showing up. Writing when I don’t feel like it and capturing a thought before it drifts away. Saying something in a way that might help someone else feel less alone. That’s more than enough.

I don’t know when this book will be done. I don’t know if I’ll publish it. But I do know that I’m already changed by the process of writing it. And maybe that’s the point.