When teaching, coaching, or leading individuals, practice patience. When you give them an assignment to complete, be clear and concise on what you are looking for as an end result. Once they turn in the project, review with them thoroughly and let them know what they did well and what still needs improvement. Remember when you are teaching that people learn in different ways, so you will have to teach through different mediums. Some people learn better by reading, while others prefer to listen to it, see it performed, or learn by doing/experiencing. Once they “master” a subject, they should be able to describe how they came to their conclusion. Regardless of how the individual learns best, it is up to you to give them to tools to succeed.
If (when) they ask you questions, don’t just blurt out an answer. Ask them a question back. Make them think of how they would solve their own problem. Even if what they are thinking is incorrect, it still teaches them that they need to try to find a solution before coming to you. If they have not encountered that situation before, give them more leniency and answer more quickly. If you have reviewed the subject matter with them previously, make them work harder to find the answer. If you always give them the answer, you reduce their ability to figure out the answer for themselves (on this topic and future topics). You are teaching them “learned helplessness.” You are teaching them that if they get stuck, they can come to you and you will solve all of their problems. In this case, you will not be able to scale your teaching to reach more individuals, as you will soon reach capacity by spending all of your time helping this one person.
Ultimately, teaching requires patience. If you do not have time to be patient and teach others, find someone else who does, otherwise you will be not be doing justice to whoever it is that you’re trying to help in the first place.