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how to overcome impatience
Being patient is a necessity to a life of achievement because it is the nature of things and the law of time that you cannot immediately reap where you have sown. Anything worthwhile takes time to grow and mature. So your dreams too require this time of nurturing and growth. Patience is ideal. Practicing patience has an immediate, in-the-moment payoff. You can curtail anger, lower stress, and avoid and resolve conflicts. Your brain can better engage its executive functioning areas and come up with sensible solutions when it is not clouded by the anger and anxiety that impatience breeds. Here are five steps to help you stay patient when you are about to loose your cool.
- Make a Conscious Effort to Slow Down
The first key to developing patience involves literally slowing down. We often become impatient when we are within an urgent state-of-mind; rushing frantically through the day. In this frantic state it’s easy to become impatient when things don’t go to plan or people and circumstances just get in your way. If you feel yourself getting impatient, take three or four slow, deep breaths. Exhale for twice as long as you inhale.
In order to slow yourself down begin by becoming more mindful of yourself, of other people, and of your surroundings. When you are more mindful of the moment, you will literally slow down because you instantly become more thoughtful and introspective within each moment. This also provides you with more clarity-of-mind and as a result you begin to cultivate more patience. Gratitude can also encourage a more patient approach to life, people and circumstances. This works because whenever you cultivate gratitude you are no longer obsessed with what is causing you uneasiness or tension. You instead focus on the things you appreciate most about your life and circumstances, and as such this slows things down and allows you to be more patient in the moment.
- Journal Your Thoughts and Feelings
Taking some time daily to journal your thoughts and feelings will help you become more reflective. This likewise will allow you to observe yourself more objectively. You may for instance reflect on how your day unfolded. This time of self-reflection and journaling will help you make sense of the day’s events while also allowing you to learn from how the day unfolded. As you reflect and learn you begin to understand more about yourself in various situations and can then make adjustments moving forward to help you cultivate more patience in certain instances.
- Practice Empathy and Compassion
When dealing with other people we can often get impatient when they do or say something that doesn’t quite meet our expectations in that particular situation. We experience tension in such instances because we are simply too focused on ourselves and on our own needs. In other words, we are lacking compassion and empathy for the other person, which is why we grow impatient. Sometimes all that’s needed on your part is to become a little more compassionate. Take time to empathize with what the other person is going through. Just maybe they don’t understand things properly or just maybe something is wrong that you are not aware about. No matter what it is, try to get down to the bottom of it by showing the person a little more compassion.
- Manage your expectations
Your expectations of any situation impact how you see things. Typically if things unfold that go against our expectations, then it’s easy to become a little impatient. On the other hand, when things go as we had expected, then it’s subsequently easy for us to stay calm, cool and collected. It’s important that we keep an open mind when it comes to our expectations. In fact, in order to cultivate more patience it’s helpful in some ways to expect the unexpected. In other words, don’t box yourself into thinking that things should only be one way. There are always numerous ways that things could unfold, and you must be mentally ready and prepared to deal with all of them in a patient manner.
- Avoid Using Patience as an Excuse
When it comes to achieving goals, some people have a tendency to use patience as an excuse for indulging in procrastination and perfectionism. This is not patience, but rather just a poor excuse that sabotages your progress. Yes, patience is important. However, when patience consistently leads to bouts of procrastination and perfectionism, then you must at that moment realize that you are fooling no one but yourself. Use patience for self-reflection, for gaining clarity, and for making the most of opportunities. That is after all where patience will be of most value.
