If you want to know how to become more patient , you’ll love this article.
Between long lines, gridlocked traffic, and slow walkers, there are plenty of chances for the average person to be impatient each day.
We all know how it feels to be infuriated by a situation and powerless to do anything about it.
Unfortunately, though, being impatient can make you behave badly and feel unhappy.
If being stuck in traffic for an hour ruins your whole day, then you need to work on overcoming your impatience – otherwise you are going to have a lot of ruined days.
Similarly, if a coworker’s failure to complete a project quickly throws you into a temper tantrum, something needs to change – otherwise your impatience will alienate friends and colleagues.
Fortunately, there are ways to address impatience.
The ability to patiently endure a frustrating situation is a skill like any other, and it can be learned.
By following the simple steps in this article, you can become a more patient person – the type of person who behaves well and feels good in the face of the inevitable tedium we all experience.
How To Become More Patient Person:
1. Put Impatience in Perspective.
First, let’s be realistic about impatience.
Lacking patience does not make you a bad person.
If you are impatient with a slow store clerk, for example, it is probably not because you hate store clerks – it is simply because you are eager to be somewhere else.
If you look closely at your incidents of impatience, you will find a positive motivation of some kind behind each of them.
Generally, you will find that you are trying to accomplish something positive but your efforts are being frustrated by forces beyond your control.
2. Study your Problem.
Before addressing your impatience problem, you need to understand it. Spend at least one day (but preferably a week) observing yourself to find out:
- what makes you lose your patience,
- what you do when you are impatient, and
- how people react to you when you are impatient.
Record your observations in a journal – an actual physical journal, a file on your smart phone, or a scrap of paper.
In a typical entry, you might record that (a) you became impatient because the elevator was slow arriving, (b) you tapped your foot, looked at your watching, and made an irritated grunt because of your impatience, and (c) a woman standing next to you looked at you and suppressed a laugh because of the way you were acting.
The act of writing down these incidents might be enough to make you more patient, because it will help you realize how you act inappropriately when impatient, and how this makes others react poorly to you.
After the fact, when you have calmed down, you can objectively analyze the incidents.
3. Identify Problematic Situations.
By reviewing your record of impatience, you can identify the situations that are most likely to make you lose patience.
For example, you might find that you typically become impatient when waiting in line.
Other problematic situations could include (a) when a subordinate produces poor work, (b) when someone performs an annoying habit, such as tapping, or (c) when you have to do tedious tasks at home or work.
Look for patterns in the data.
What factors in each situation make you impatient? When does your impatience typically lead to bad behavior? Are there certain people who frequently trigger your impatience?
SEE ALSO: This Is How To Find Joy In Life Even When Eveything Sucks
4. Overcome Problematic Situations.
Once you have identified your problematic situation, you can start working on curbing your impatience.
There are two primary methods for doing this:
First, you can arrange your daily schedule to minimize your chances of encountering these impatience-inducing situations.
For example, if waiting in line makes you impatient, plan to take your lunch to work each day instead of waiting to be served at a deli.
Or, if you find that a particular person is causing you to be impatient, you might be able to minimize your exposure to that person.
Second, identify ways to address these commonly recurring situations.
If, for example, waiting in line is your primary impatience trigger, then ask yourself how you could make waiting in line less frustrating.
Having a book to read, or music to listen to might help you avoid impatience.
5. Simplify Your Life.
In addition to identifying situations that cause you to be impatient, you should examine your lifestyle to see if there is a fundamental cause for your impatience.
You might find that you are simply too busy.
If you have to rush from appointment to appointment all day long, you are bound to become impatient regularly.
Are you over-committed, trying to do too many things?
If so, practice saying “no” to requests for your time. Prioritize your activities and eliminate activities that are not important to you (1).
Are you a victim of information overload? Do you read too many newspapers, books, articles, and other materials?
If so, try going on an information diet; go for a week or two without reading anything and examine whether doing so makes any difference.
Take specific actions today to reduce the number of places you have to be, things you have to do, and materials you have to read.
6. Rehearse Your Day Mentally.
The technique of visualizing will help you overcome impatience before it even arises.
Imagine yourself having to face a particular problem, then think of ways you could respond. Take a quiet moment (e.g., in bed at night) to work through your visualization technique.
Think of future situations that are likely to cause you to feel impatient. Mentally practice behaving in a patient way in these situations.
This can be a nightly exercise.
For example, the night before a family reunion, you might mentally practice how you can be patient when your least-favorite brother-in-law launches into a fish-that-got-away story.
When the event actually happens, it will still be unpleasant, but it will not cause the level of impatience on your part that it normally would.
SEE ALSO: How To Solve Problems In Life [All Of Them]: The Definitive Guide
7. Be More Philosophical.
In addition to the practical steps listed above, work on adopting an improved attitude about impatience.
Next time you are in a situation that would normally cause you to be impatient, say some helpful things to yourself (2).
For example: “Waiting like this is just a part of life. There is nothing I can do to speed things up, so I will just enjoy relaxing for a few minutes until this is over.”
When your impatience is a reaction to others’ behavior, you can tell yourself: “He/she is not trying to inconvenience me – this is just the result of inexperience or accidental errors.”
While speaking to yourself might sound odd at first, doing so really will help you adopt a more productive attitude about the situations and people who test your patience.
Conclusions
Take the time to follow each of the techniques in this article, even if they seem foreign to you at first. As you implement these keys, you will find that you really can choose to be more patient.
By taking the actions necessary to overcome impatience, you will improve your experience in life, while avoiding behaviors that alienate others.
There is enough stress in life without the self-imposed stress of impatience.
Instead of having a reputation for being impatient, enjoy being a happier, more pleasant person.
I want to thank you for taking the time to read my article about how to become a more patient person. I sincerely hope its contents have been a good help to you.
