By Dawn Norton

The Law of Gestation might sound pretty straightforward. When most of us hear “gestation,” we immediately think of the time it takes for a fetus to develop from conception to birth—whether it’s a human, an animal, or even a plant. There’s a natural space of time that must pass before development is complete.

But there’s another meaning of gestation we don’t think about as often: the conception and development of a plan or idea in our minds. And this is where many of us get tripped up. We mistakenly believe that once an idea is born in our mind, it should instantly take shape in the world. We try a thing or two, and when it doesn’t magically appear fully formed, we scratch our heads, wonder what went wrong, and often… give up.

The truth is, it’s not that the idea was bad. It simply hasn’t had time to grow into its full form yet. When a seed is planted in utero, we know that in the case of human babies, a fully formed bundle of joy will arrive in about nine months. It’s been proven billions of times. No expectant mother gets to 38 weeks thinking, “This isn’t working! I’m going to be pregnant forever! This baby will never come! I might as well give up!” No—she KNOWS the gestation period is nearly over, and that the hardest, most uncomfortable part is still to come. And after all that discomfort, she will endure life-and-death labor to bring that child into the world.

In the same way, a brilliant idea may be on the doorstep, nearly ready to arrive—but you may still face days, weeks, or months of discomfort and labor before you can embrace it fully, turning thought into creation. The key to success is waiting it out, holding steady in faith, knowing your work and waiting will pay off. After all, we wouldn’t dig up our garden seeds every few hours to see if the vegetables had sprouted, because we know eventually they’ll grow into a harvest for our table. Luckily, with gardening, evidence appears relatively quickly.

Our goals and dreams, however, can take months or even years. Personally, I’ve had desires that manifested quickly—like wanting to see a blue butterfly and spotting one later that same day. Or wanting a bag of tomatoes, and someone gave me some that week. But I’ve also set big, serious goals that took much longer.

For example, I once set a money goal: to earn in one month what I was averaging in an entire year in real estate sales. Don’t be too impressed—this was in a town of just over 500 people! But I set the goal. After about six weeks with zero signs of progress, I nearly gave up. Thankfully, I was too stubborn to take the goal off the bathroom wall where I’d posted it. Every day I looked at it, even as it began to feel like a cruel joke. The silent phone seemed to mock me too, but still, I wouldn’t remove it.

The delay brought me serious doubt. After a few months, I even set a quit date for real estate. I stopped chasing the goal; I just wanted to reach that day and be done. But then something funny happened on the way to giving up. Three weeks before my quit date, the phone started ringing. Then it rang again. And again. By the time my quitting day arrived, I had four deals moving forward—and there was no way I was walking away from money staring me in the face. Two months later, those deals all “coincidentally” closed in the same month, and I fell just a few hundred dollars short of the goal. No complaints there.

I considered that goal achieved—and then I kept repeating it, again and again. Since then, I’ve reached it many times with far less effort and angst. That initial annual income has multiplied many times over. The greatest lesson I’ve learned has come from embracing and understanding the Law of Gestation.

Remember: anything worth having is worth waiting for. Things take time. They can’t be rushed. If we stop digging up our garden seeds and instead wait expectantly—just like every mother does—we can be confident our goals and dreams will come to fruition.

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