How to Cope with Waiting

Source: Pixabay, CC0 Public Domain

You're waiting to find out if you were hired. Or whether that person you dated will call again. Or whether your audition was succesful.

There are countless times we must wait for an answer. How can you make the wait shorter or less painful?

As with most self-help advice, there are no magic pills but perhaps one or more of these will help:

Give yourself a specific date to follow-up. If the person said s/he'd get back to you in three days, plan to follow up on the fourth. That can make it easier to distract yourself during the three days.

Face the worst. Let's assume you'll get rejected. You can survive.There always are other opportunities, perhaps one you're better suited to. After all, they rejected you for a reason. For example, there might have been a better-suited person. Might you want to picture an even better-fit opportunity and start going after it even before you hear about this one?

Fill your time. Fill those three days with as many distracting and perhaps fun activities as possible. Catastrophizing will, of course, only make the days tougher. You probably can force yourself to distract yourself and stay busy.

Remember that factors other than you can cause delay. When it's taking longer than you expect and therefore think it's bad news, remember that factors can be at play that you're unaware of. It's not all about you.

For example, the person could be on vacation, preoccupied with other matters, maybe even a health problem, have an irrational issue with you, or simply be an inveterate procrastinator. Remember, we only see the tip of the iceberg. As Hamlet said, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

If you are low-priority or forgotten about. People forget even important obligations. And if that person does view you as unimportant, it doesn't mean that a better-suited person won't think you're awesome. You may just have to dig a little deeper to find the magic fit.

Thanks to biographer Francine Brevetti for the idea for and input into this article.

Marty Nemko's bio is in Wikipedia.