Wait

How to Press Pause Between Impulse and Action

If you’ve been with Dog Lover’s Guide for long, you know that my pup Pants is enthusiastic. She doesn’t just love chasing flies – she body slams windows to catch them. She doesn’t just bark her hello’s to dogs across the street – she yodels. And when I was teaching her to lie down, she threw herself onto the floor with a picture-rattling thump. The girl is in it to win it, even if she doesn’t know what it is.

I SEE FRIENDS

So learning wait was hard for her. Also called stay, wait is one of the three commands that I call life savers, the other two being leave it and come. Leave it once saved Sammy‘s life when I dropped an entire bottle of my blood thinners on the ground in front of him. Come saved Brie’s life when she spooked at a loud noise and bolted. All three of these commands enable your dog to attend to you rather than to the instincts that may get them lost, injured, or killed.

Pants, bless her, wasn’t strong in the wait category. As soon as I put her into a sit, she was vibrating. She couldn’t wait for the next trick, which meant the next treat! So when I said, “Wait!” and then she had to sit there while I walked away? Boring. No thanks. Gonna go body slam a window instead.

Pants isn’t alone. I also don’t like waiting. Grocery store lines? Gross. Hold times? Ugh.

But just like for our pups, the ability to wait is a healthy and necessary skill.

Meet Arnold. He’s an avid gamer, and his computer is pretty good, but a new one just came out that’s way faster – and shinier – and he can’t stop thinking about it. He wants that computer so bad.

An artist’s rendering of Arnold. (Sean Do, Unsplash)

But Arnold also has some credit card debt. He made a goal at New Year’s that he was going to be debt-free at the end of the year. Thanks to his hard work so far, he’s paid off half of it and is on track to meet his goal by December.

If Arnold buys this computer, he’ll max out his credit card and be back where he started in January. But if he waits, he can pay off his credit card, and then save up cash for the computer.

This decision requires Arnold to practice wait on himself. Waiting is hard. We as a species aren’t very good at waiting. We struggle to understand future consequences. We automatically choose one dollar today over five dollars next week. We steal from our future selves.

So how do we teach ourselves to wait?

A Little Challenge

Let’s start with what I did for Pants. An important rule in training is to start just outside the dog’s realm of ability: make it challenging, but fun. Too challenging, and it becomes frustrating, and your dog’s brain will fall out. For Pants, this looks like spinning in circles, giving paw, rolling over, backing up, and sticking out her tongue – in other words, running through all the tricks she knows because she doesn’t know what I want.

For humans, it often looks like getting frustrated and giving up, then telling ourselves that we’re not capable of whatever we set out to do, or that the general wisdom of behavior change just doesn’t work for us.

Because Pants isn’t known for her chill skills, we started really small. I put her in sit, I said, “Wait,” and I took one step back. She didn’t follow, and I said, “Good girl!” Next, I tried two steps...and she happily trotted over to me to see what I was doing. Whoops. I needed to slow it down more.

I said wait, but she heard PARTY!

What does this look like for humans? Arnold really wants that computer. Maybe he’ll say, “I’m just going to wait one day. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow.“ Instead of acting on his immediate impulse, Arnold is pausing, letting those big want or craving feelings be present without taking action.

How Does It Feel to Want?

Have you ever tried to just notice the feeling of wanting or craving something? Sometimes I’ll do a mindfulness exercise that looks like this: I really want a pumpkin spice latte, but I don’t rush out and get one. I just try to notice what it feels like to want it. Where is the craving in my body? What does it feel like emotionally? Most importantly, what does it feel like to sit with the want without taking action? To just let it be part of my experience without trying to solve it or make it go away? How long does it take for the craving’s intensity to fade?

You’ll notice in this exercise that I’m not saying no to myself. I just approach my craving with curiosity and get to know it, rather than giving it the driver seat. Sometimes I do the exercise and then go get my pumpkin spice latte. Other times I discover that I didn’t really want it after all. Either way, I just wait for a moment, giving a little space between impulse and action.

What’s Your Why?

The second part of waiting is illustrated by how much Pants loves treats. Reader, it’s just kibble. It’s not even quality kibble. But Pants loves it, and will perform all manner of absurdities to earn it. At this point Pants will wait in a down/stay even when I’ve left the room, because she wants that kibble.

We all have our why for doing something. My why for a pumpkin spice latte is because it’s delicious, and I get to see my lovely barista pals at the coffee shop when I go. Arnold’s why for getting the computer is to engage in a hobby he loves and be more competitive at it. These are all understandable reasons for acting on the impulse.

So what’s your why for waiting?

For Pants, it’s the treats, the good girl! she gets, and the fun of training.

For me, it’s saving money, or managing how much sugar and caffeine I’m putting in my body.

For Arnold, it’s getting out of debt, keeping his promises himself, meeting his goals, and building the skill of buying things on cash.

Pants is pretty good at wait now, but it’s taken time and practice to get her there. It took patience, trial and error, lots of mistakes, and curiosity to find the path to make her successful. Don’t forget to give yourself those things too, especially the room for mistakes.