Yeah, if it's something you really want, you'll feel better knowing you're putting in the effort. Girls will also respond better when you're talking to new girls regularly; I think they can sense whether or not you are.
Just don't be too patient with them. You do need to get the date quickly, and when you have her on the date, do do your best to pull her if you can. The tendency is that if penetrative sex has not occurred on the first date, you will probably never see her again.
Possibly you do and possibly it works, but they tend to get more testy and/or just totally deprioritize seeing you. If you do get a girl on repeated dates before sex, it's likely she's trying to slot you into the husband/boyfriend/provider role (which you don't want if you know how their brains operate).
Re. the lays you've lost, your analysis in OP could be a bit off. It's likely not that you were impatient with them per se, but that your thirst and lack of time for game led to a lack of outcome independence, which can throw your vibe off and lead to poor decisions.
The importance of outcome independence (and to a lesser extent moving fast) cannot be overstated. I've heard of a social experiment in which an average-looking guy stood on a daytime street corner approaching average women asking them point blank, "Will you have sex with me?" LOL. Obviously it was just research so he didn't really care how they responded, and the result of that outcome independence was that something like 1 in 20 of them actually accepted!
I don't recommend being that blunt, mainly because many of the ones who didn't accept were overtly hostile, but it shows that it's really not that hard to get laid from cold approach if you're casual, move fast, and detach yourself from the outcome with any one girl. You can improve your results with better game, but it's just icing on the cake.