The Waiting Room

How long have you been in the waiting room?

Waiting to be ready.
Waiting to be recognized.
Waiting for permission.
Waiting to be affirmed.

Many of us tell ourselves the same story:

Once I have more experience.
Once I feel more confident.
Once someone notices my work.

Then the raise will come.
The promotion.
The better opportunity.

But the longer I observe leadership and career journeys — my own and others — the more I see how easily readiness becomes a moving target. And how waiting for recognition or external validation can leave us in limbo, waiting for something that may never arrive.

In this episode of Creative & Resilient Voices, I reflect on my own struggles with readiness and recognition, the hidden cost of waiting, and what changes when we decide to step forward before certainty arrives.

Sometimes the barrier isn’t readiness, recognition, or permission.

It’s the belief that those things have to come first.

What might change if the next chapter of your life doesn’t begin when someone else confirms you’re ready…

but the moment you step forward in faith?

About Dr. Kenya Nyota Lee
Dr. Kenya Nyota Lee is a storyteller, leader, and strategist whose work explores creativity, resilience, leadership, and the deeply human process of becoming. Through essays, conversations, and community gatherings, she creates spaces where women can reflect on their journeys, recognize themselves in one another’s stories, and step forward with greater clarity and courage.

Read and subscribe: creativeandresilient.substack.com

Connect on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kenyanyotalee

or send an email to kenya@kenyanyotalee.com

or visit www.kenyanyotalee.com

Subscribe to Creative & Resilient Voices on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you listen.

Your story matters. Your creativity in all its forms is sacred. Your resilience is your superpower.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to Creative Storytelling. Are we a hope? We explore what it means to live, live, and create with intention. Because our lives are static. We're always unfolding. And in that unfolding, we discover just our creator.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

We have all had that experience of having to wait. In the doctor's office at the DMV, you sit and you wait and you wait and you wait and you wait. You hear everyone else's name being called but yours.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

You try to be productive and peruse a pile of magazines, trying to find an article that speaks to you, or you check emails on your phone, or you listen to a podcast, or you watch the informational videos on the large screens. You try to fill that time while you wait. You may see people get called up before you, but you were there first. And what is that feeling that you have that evolves the longer you wait? It goes from patience to anxiety to frustration to neglect to anger to righteous indignation. This is what it feels like to be at someone else's mercy, to feel like you have no control. We spend our lives waiting, waiting for permission, waiting to be recognized, waiting to be ready, waiting to be affirmed, waiting for someone else to confirm that you are prepared for the next chapter of your life. There are points in my life and during my career that I have found myself doing some iteration of waiting. And then recently I had an epiphany that felt more like a release. I realized that waiting can be like a chain, not a visible one, but a psychological tether that quietly keeps us from standing still, standing in one place or space in time, even when something inside of us knows it is time to move on. And today I want to talk about that chain, where it comes from, why so many high-achieving women experience it, and what happens the moment we realize we don't have to stay in the waiting room. Hello and welcome to Creative and Resilient Voices. I'm Dr. Kenya Nioda Lee. This podcast is a space where we explore leadership, creativity, and the deeply human process of becoming, especially for women navigating growth, transition, and those quiet moments when life begins asking something new of us. Today's episode is a personal reflection. It grew out of an aha moment I had recently when I was attending a mastermind focused on scarcity mindset. I heard a phrase that resonated so deeply for me. The phrase was waiting to be ready. When I heard that phrase, I felt it immediately within my core because it describes something I had been doing for a very long time. Waiting to be ready, waiting for permission, waiting to be recognized, waiting to be affirmed. Now let's first talk about this idea of readiness. We tend to think readiness should come before action, before we can make a change, before we pursue an opportunity, before we share our ideas, before we step into leadership. We tell ourselves we need more experience, more credentials, more proof, more certainty. And in many ways, that mindset makes sense because preparation matters, learning matters, and growth matters. But the more I reflect on this idea, the more I realize something important. In our minds, readiness requires certainty. In our minds, readiness requires absolute control. I was reminded of research often discussed in the Harvard Business Review that explores how women and men approach job opportunities. What researchers found was fascinating. Many women apply for roles when they meet nearly all of the qualifications. Say if there are eleven qualifications, they meet 10.5 of those qualifications listed. And men are more likely to apply when they meet some of the qualifications. Women often interpret qualifications as hard and fast rules, and men often interpret them as guidelines, which means some women are more likely to wait to acquire more qualifiers, more credentials, while others step forward confident that they will grow into the role. And when I reflect on that pattern, I see how easily readiness becomes a moving target. Because every time we achieve a qualifier, we start believing we need another and then another and then another. It becomes or turns into some sort of cyclical limbo. It reminds me of the myth of Sisyphus, who, for imperpetuity, would have to roll a boulder up a mountain all the way to the top, only to have it roll back down to the bottom again for him to start over. Then there is this waiting to be recognized. The deep realization I had on this is that I was not only waiting to be ready, I was also waiting to be recognized, waiting for someone else to see what I believed might be possible for me. I was waiting for someone to say, Kenya, you're ready for that promotion. Kenya, we recognize how fabulous you are. That waiting makes sense when you think about how many of us were conditioned as children to understand achievement. From childhood, we are taught to seat recognition, you know, getting the gold stars, getting the straight A's, getting the awards, getting on honor roll. It is the pursuit of approval, the pursuit of accolades. We learn that progress often follows a sequence. Work hard, do excellent work. Eventually someone will notice. Eventually, someone will say, you're ready for the next step, and here it is. But the reality is, institutions often have their own systems of recognition, their own hierarchies, their own definitions of legitimacy. And sometimes those systems are not designed to see every form of leadership or every kind of contribution clearly or equally. A few years ago, I was having dinner with some colleagues, and I was recounting an experience I had to them, where I volunteered to assist a team of leaders, move a project forward during a time of crisis. I stepped in, got things organized, and helped to execute resolutions. In private spaces, I received the, oh thank you, Kenya, we could not have done this without you. But in large public venues, I was never mentioned, and it enraged me. My colleague at dinner, known for her stab you in the gut honesty, which I really do appreciate, uh, asked a very sharp and poignant question. Well, is that why you did it? To get recognized. I sheepishly replied, well, no, but it would have been nice to have been publicly recognized. And I felt ashamed at first. But then I went home and I meditated on this. And I realized I needed that gold star. I did not get the gold star. And then I realized all of the extra work and the assignments that I have accepted over the years, up until that point, it was because I wanted to be the person everyone could rely on. I wanted the gold star. I wanted the straight A's. I wanted the award. I wanted and waited for that recognition. Which, my friends, if I'm being completely honest, it didn't come. And what was frustrating was I saw people around me getting recognized, promoted, and getting raises. This waiting to be recognized was frustrating, it was exhausting, and it had a toll on my mental well-being. Then there's waiting for permission. I initially pursued my doctoral degree because I was told quite clearly that without it, I would not go very far, particularly within the realm of higher education. And I'm grateful for that journey of pursuing the degree. I love my studies, I love my research. The experience shaped how I see leadership, systems, and organizations. But the truth is, the letters after my name did not magically open doors. And even today, when people call me Dr. Lee, I am somewhat a bit taken aback. Because the title itself was never the most meaningful part of that journey. The lens I gained was the way I see systems, uh, the way I've been trained to listen to experiences, to recognize patterns. And I experienced something very powerful during my doctoral research. I was facilitating focus groups with women of color administrators in higher education. And what struck me most wasn't just the stories themselves, it was the energy in the room. There was this moment when the women began to see that they all had these shared experiences and realized, okay, I'm not the only one experiencing this. And that moment stayed with me when they had that aha moment at that time. Because something powerful was happening in that room. These women were recognizing themselves and one another's experiences. And even with those experiences and achieving my doctoral degree, I realized that part of me was still waiting, waiting for recognition, waiting for someone else to confirm what I already had sensed inside. And then it became waiting for permission to move on to the next step. I was waiting for someone else to tell me what was next and to present that opportunity to me. I have spoken to a number of women who recount stories about how their work is not recognized, but they stay in one place, waiting and waiting and waiting. The reality is we're waiting for permission to move on. I remember having a conversation with a group of senior leaders. One complained that this particular system did not readily allow supervisors to promote their hardworking staff. And I crazily said, Well, as leaders, we're supposed to develop our staff, help prepare them for growth opportunities, and even coach them in pursuing growth opportunities, even if it means losing them. Now, this particular leader gaffared and said they would rather keep the person in the same role than suggest that they pursue a growth opportunity outside of the institution. This is the lesson. If you're waiting for those around you, even your supervisors, your managers, or directors, to tell you you deserve a better role or should pursue a better role, you're waiting for their permission to go and get yours, my friends. When I reflect honestly on my own career, I can see several moments when I was just waiting. Think about it. Have you ever stayed in a job or a role longer than you should have because you are waiting to be ready, waiting to be recognized, or waiting for permission? And did that moment ever come? Can you think of moments that you yourself were waiting? How did the waiting manifest? Maybe it was a role you did not apply for, maybe it was a moment of self-doubt, maybe it was an opportunity you thought someone else deserved more than you. Looking back, I can see that waiting for readiness, recognition, or permission aren't the real barriers. It was the belief that those things had to come first. Part of what keeps us in the waiting room is fear. Sometimes waiting to be ready is really waiting for fear to disappear. Fear of failure, fear of criticism, fear of uncertainty. Our minds are incredibly good at imagining what could go wrong. We rehearse mistakes in our minds. We imagine embarrassment, we anticipate disappointment. But something occurred to me. Fear and faith both draw from the same place. Uncertainty. The difference is being fearful is looking for something bad to happen. It is looking for failure. But faith, faith is looking for something wonderful to happen, it is looking toward success. We can choose to be fearful or we can choose to be full of faith. Brene Brown said, faith is a place of mystery where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty. Uncertainty can feel like standing at the edge of something new. It can be exciting. It can feel like a mixture of curiosity and fear. Fear and faith both live in the absence of certainty. The difference is how we choose to see uncertainty. Another barrier that keeps us in the waiting room, that keeps us from stepping forward is perfectionism. Perfectionism often disguises itself as excellence, but underneath it is often comparison, measuring ourselves against someone else's ruler, looking at someone else's timeline, someone else's achievements, and concluding that we are somehow not quite ready, that we just don't measure up, that our achievements are nothing in comparison to someone else's. Perfectionism keeps us waiting because the standard or the target always moves. There will always be someone more qualified, more accomplished, more visible, and more confident if we look through the lens of comparison. Tara Moore, in her book Playing Big, which I absolutely recommend, talks about unhooking ourselves from praise and criticism. It's that waiting for recognition and permission in the form of seeking praise. Unhooking from praise does not mean we stop caring. It means we become less hindered by and less attached to someone else's reactions, may it be praise or criticism, and that can be incredibly liberating. So going back to the moment in the mastermind when I recognized the moments of my life, when I wasn't just waiting to be ready, I was waiting to be recognized. And in that moment, something shifted inside of me. Well, that shift was a release. And can I tell you something? This podcast has been on my heart for years, four years, but something held me back. I was waiting to be ready. But several months ago, I said to myself, it's it's time. What am I waiting for? Let's just do this. I just needed to step into the uncertainty and to have faith. And it was time to step into my purpose. I realized that the work that I felt called to do, my writing, convening conversations, doing this podcast, exploring ideas about leadership and becoming, does not need to wait for recognition. Recognition may come or it may not. But at some point, we must stop waiting for institutions or systems to recognize us. Not because the institutions or the systems don't matter, but because we cannot remain tethered to something, recognition, or being ready to ever arrive. For much of my life, I believed readiness would arrive through recognition, that someone else would eventually see my work, my experience, my worth, my potential, and confirm and affirm that I was ready. But what I'm beginning to understand is something different. In fact, readiness does never come from the outside. Let's just say that. I repeat, readiness does not come from the outside. Readiness is something we must recognize for ourselves. And that in that moment that we stop waiting for recognition, in that moment that we stop being ready, we step into our purpose. Quiet courage is required at the edge of every new chapter. Not certainty, not perfection, but self-trust. It's the willingness to believe that even in uncertainty, we are capable of becoming the person the next chapter requires us to be. So I'll leave you with this question: Where in your life might you be waiting to be ready? Are you waiting for more credentials, more confidence, more recognition, more permission? And what might change if the next chapter of your life doesn't begin when someone else confirms that you are ready, but rather the moment that you step out on faith. In our next episode, I'll be speaking with psychologist and executive coach Dr. Lisa Orbe Austin about imposter syndrome, perfectionism, and how these patterns show up behind achieving women, how these things keep us in the waiting room. It's a powerful conversation, and I'm excited to bring it to you. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode. Thank you for joining me for this episode of Creative and Resilient Voices. If this conversation resonated with you, share it with another. Woman on the edge of her own becoming. And if you'd like to continue the journey, join me on Substack at Creative and Resilient, where we reflect, write, and build community together. Until next time, remember, your story matters, your creativity in all its forms is sacred, and your resilience is your power.