“Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.”

Do you find yourself constantly speeding to work, rushing through the grocery store, and generally snapping at people who can’t keep up? How does this make you feel inside?

Patience problem

The thing with not having any patience is it clouds your entire life. 

You are so busy rushing from one thing to the next, expecting immediate gratification, that you are often not only disappointed but also emotionally and physically depleted.

What happens when you yell at others to hurry up? You’re met with resistance, that’s what happens. They yell back—more stress. Or, they go even slower! Or it becomes a fight and wastes time. Does this resolve the issue in the end? No. It only makes matters worse.

Patience stories

We believe what we tell ourselves, and if I keep saying I don’t have any patience, well then I won’t. The first thing I needed to do was look at the story I was telling myself and change it. I began by saying to myself, “Patience is a virtue I practice daily.” It was a way to shift my mindset. Maybe I couldn’t jump straight to “I am the world’s most patient person” immediately. So, I found a middle group that shifted my old thinking into a different kind of habit.

I had to write this down. And, whenever I found myself

a) telling myself I am not patient or

b) in a situation where I was feeling impatient and starting to get frustrated

I’d repeat the mantra “Patience is a virtue I practice daily.” Thus, I could accept the situation as a learning experience for practicing the virtue of patience.

The other thing about patience is it allows you to slooooow down and actually experience the world. I used to be so concerned about getting to the next wherever I was going—finish a project at work, order off the menu, find a parking spot—that I never actually lived.

I mean, I certainly wasn’t paying attention to where I was in the moment, or even being in the moment. I was too busy focusing on something else. It’s like I was not living at all. I was simply doing.

There is a huge difference between doing and living. Many of us wind up confusing the two. This is especially true in western cultures, where output of an action, product, or thing is given so much value. It seems it is given much more value than say, actually sitting there in the parking lot waiting for the person to pull out and enjoying the moment—like noticing the birds chirping in the trees, or the sun in the sky.

Sometimes we need to realize we have a patience problem and challenge the assumptions that got us there in the first place. Otherwise, we live a lesser life. We live a life in constant stress, we act a diminished version of ourselves, and most importantly, we don’t actually live and enjoy our lives.

Here’s an exercise for you to try:-

What is the story you tell yourself about how patient you are? If you realize you say to yourself you’re the most patient person in the world, that’s wonderful! If you realize you often tell yourself you’re not patient at all, then consider a different statement you could be telling yourself instead.

One of the other stories I used to tell myself that was absolutely sabotaging was “I don’t have time for this.” I would think I had to hurry to make the yellow light, because I don’t have time to wait at the red light. So, I’d rush ahead. I used to say “I don’t have time for this” when a slow person was entering a store, so I’d rudely rush right past them instead of even considering if there was a way I could help them.

Or, I’d say I don’t have time to make small talk with my colleagues in a meeting and would just focus on the work at hand. Needless to say, this didn’t help me develop strong bonds with people if I didn’t have time to talk with them and learn something about their day or what’s going on in their life. I realized after a while that I had a patience problem. The way I realized this was because I was so stressed and anxious all the time. And, I was constantly angry. This is not an enjoyable way to live your life.

I challenged that story I was telling myself and I rebutted it.

Now, when I’m feeling a little impatient I realize I actually do have time for it. And, this makes me calm and relaxed instead.

It’s okay if I have to wait for a minute. I have time for this. It’s okay if my kids take time to arrive at the dinner table. I have time for this. It’s okay if I spend some time to connect with my co-workers before we begin the meeting. I have time for this. In fact, I have an embarrassment of riches of time! And so do you.

The last thing I’ll talk about here is a little exercise that I like to do to bring myself off the ledge whenever I am having “a moment.” It’s called count backward from five.

I know most people have heard of just count to ten if you’re upset about something and that will help. I never did find that very helpful. It was like I was just counting up on my frustration! Then, one day I learned the count backward from five technique. Just start counting: five – four – three – two – one. It has a strange calming effect. It is as if whatever it is that is bothering you is dissipating as you count backward. Usually, when I start counting backward from five I notice even by the time I get to three that something has lifted. I feel a shift in my agitation. By the time I get to one, I’m kind of over it. Try it. You may find it really helps you get through a moment.

In the end, learning how to change your story and your habits when it comes to patience will help you heal from unnecessary anxiety and stress in your life. Will life still be stressful? Sure. But, at least you aren’t inflicting more of it on yourself with a patience problem.

Surprisingly, when I learned to finally create healthy habits around patience, I began to get a lot better at compassion too. That’s because compassion requires patience.

That crying child that you wish would stop? Having patience with that and slooowing down enough, makes you pause just enough to consider this child is in pain or frightened. You’ll realize you were once a child and when you felt pain or were frightened, you wished for comfort.

Maybe instead of yelling at someone wishing they would shut up, you smile at them instead and say, “It will be okay.” In a way, you are also saying this to your inner child in some small fashion. It will be okay and you are okay.

Hope this helps 🙃 Take care !


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