Key Takeaways
- Patience is the ability to accept your life situations
- A patient person can tolerate setbacks calmly
- The key to patience is in practice
- Patience is tied to perseverance, wellness and self growth
How to be patient when stress has become second nature to so many adults. Whether it is at work or at home, we are surrounded with triggers.
Losing patience is sometimes easier than maintaining composure. At the end of the day, however, patience is good quality.
It makes us kinder and easier for people to deal with. Patience even improves our relationships and our own personal growth.
Read this article to find ways to be more patient. Keep in mind that we all have different stressors. Hence, our road to patience may also look different than everyone else.
What is Patience And Why It’s Important
SUMMARY
Patience is the ability to accept and tolerate the situation you are in. It is an important life skill that affects our performance and experiences in life. Patience is even linked to other traits like perseverance.
We cannot learn how to be patient till we know what it means.
Our parents, teachers, schools, history, and society all teach us that patience is an admirable trait. We have also heard of stories about patience and victory.
What does it really mean to be patient? Patience is the ability to accept what is happening around us. It is the skill to tolerate delays, issues, problems, or even suffering.
Patience is an internal understanding to wait instead of reacting in anger.
Not everyone has patience. Think of the last time you had to wait an hour for a ten-minute job. Or the time that you were in a problem and could not wait for it to get better.
In reality, very few people practice patience in these situations.
Impatience is actually even rewarded. Sometimes we see people who create a fuss get their way.
However, a small victory does not make their behavior alright. Whether we like it or not, patience leads to bigger wins in life situations.
Following are some reasons which highlight the importance of patience in our lives.
1. Better Relationships
Patience makes you a good partner in any relationship. Let us first look at romantic relationships. Fights, arguments, differences of opinions are a part of any romantic relationship.
One of the differences between a healthy and unhealthy relationship is how you deal with those fights. Hence, a couple that patiently listens to each other and tries to overcome the difficulties is healthier.
Learning how to be patient helps you navigate these tough times. Even when you and your partner are in a good space, patience helps you grow. You allow the other person to make mistakes, which helps them open up more.
Our tempers usually get the better of us. When we are patient, we can resolve conflicts and gain mutual respect. Added to that, patience allows us to accept each other’s imperfections rather than trying to change them.
2. Self growth
Patience nurtures self-growth. We live in a world that is rapidly growing. With each new year, we learn new skills, new values, and new mottos to survive. However, going through so much change can get difficult.
In these times, patience is our best friend. If we want to make ourselves better, we must be patient with ourselves. We cannot change overnight, no matter how much we want to. Sustainable change requires patience.
Take, for example, your workout routine. Even the people that work out regularly did not develop the habit quickly.
It takes patience, especially when you are frustrated and want to give up. Patience ensures that you stick to what is good for you in the long run.
3. Long term thinking
Life comes with many setbacks. Learning how to be patient not only helps us deal with the setbacks but also allows us to grow from them.
Patience, or tolerating the setbacks with a calm mind, helps us look at the learning opportunity in situations.
For example, when we are stuck in a long line. Frustration and anger can easily cloud our brains and judgment. However, if we are patient, we realize that there are better ways to channel our time.
We may finish certain tasks on our never-ending to-do lists. While in line, we may even brain dump all the things we need to do the following week.
We can even take this time to organize the work that is waiting for us back at the office or home.
The long-term vision is even useful to plan the next few years of your life. You may have a job you hate.
If you patiently look at it, instead of quitting, you may find other ways to turn it in your favor. You may use your patience to critically evaluate what you want next.
4. Personal wellness
Anger and frustration are the opposite reactions to patience in a lot of ways. These are negative emotions that take a toll on our well-being, both physical and mental.
Staying physically and mentally fit requires effort. When so much of our energy goes into anger and frustration, we waste our resources.
We engage in these negative emotions to the point that we cannot see how they harm us.
Patience allows us to take a step back. It helps us evaluate which situations are worth our anger.
If something is not worth it, patience allows us to take a healthier approach. Initially, it may feel difficult, but it is better in the longer run.
5. Perseverance
Patience is also tied to perseverance. Perseverance means to continue to do something, even if there are difficulties and setbacks. We cannot aim to persevere if we do not have patience.
Often, the best habits are born out of perseverance. This includes gaining mastery over any task or skill. Hence, skill-based tasks always require patience as well as perseverance.
How To Be More Patient
Now that we know the importance of patience, we can look at ways to be more patient. There is never a right or wrong time to learn patience. Similarly, there is no limit to who can learn patience.
How to be patient is important for young kids and older adults. Every age group comes with its own stressors and setbacks. Patience is required to go through them all.
For example, kids need the patience to grow up. We all remember being very young and wanting to grow up fast.
It is also easy to remember the times when we desperately wanted to learn everything as quickly as we could.
Similarly, older adults also struggle with patience. We have so many stressful situations that follow us through life.
Some common situations that test a person’s patience are paperwork, bank work, long lines, bad service, and more.
In reality, all these situations are harmless. Whether we are kids or older, everything needs to take its time.
One cannot learn to ride a bike in a day, just as one cannot avoid doing paperwork throughout their life.
Since the only way to get through these situations is to actually go through them, patience is a desirable trait.
We can adopt some of the following ways so we can be more patient.
1. Breathing exercises
As basic as this may seem, breathing exercises help you master the art of patience. Let us understand this through an example.
Remember the last time you reacted to a situation immediately with anger.
When we are in the middle of a frustrating situation, our anger often gets the better of us. At that very moment, all we feel is rage.
Hence, we feel we have to let it out. However, imagine in the same situation if you took some seconds to breathe.
Essentially, this allows you some time to deal with the situation. The time that you breathe, you are stabilizing your blood flow and your emotions. This time helps you gain patience over the present situation.
Breathing helps us focus on something other than what we are feeling. This diversion is often a good step in maintaining composure.
After that, patience becomes significantly easier.
2. Force yourself to wait
We can even become more patient by making ourselves wait. The key is to not respond or react to something immediately. Impatience is the enemy we must fight in these situations.
This does not mean that we cannot have a reaction to anything. It is only natural to get angry, upset, or disheartened.
For example, losing a job that we worked very hard for. Our initial reaction will most likely be dejection.
However, we can try to wait before expressing that reaction. If we force ourselves to wait before we get into an emotional downward spiral, we may have another happier experience.
When we wait for a better thing to happen to us, we learn patience. Waiting is also extra time to enjoy other things in your life.
For example, if you are waiting to get your results, you can use that time to learn another skill.
In 2014, Psychological Sciences published an article on anticipation consumption of experiential and material purchases.
Their study is particularly interesting because it shows that when people wait for an experience, they find more pleasure.
A study like this helps us understand that when we force ourselves to wait for a good experience, even the waiting period feels pleasurable.
When we are merely waiting for a product, the pleasure we derive is lesser.
3. Prioritize your life
When you think about all the things in your life that take your energy, you may realize the importance of each. We all do things that we must do to survive as adults. This includes work, rest time, social time, chores, etc.
However, we sometimes also invest our energy in things we do not need. For example, we may sign up for too many events and instead of bringing us happiness, they stress us out.
These are items on your list that are not important. If going to the mall is not necessary for you this week, you can shift it to next.
When we adopt a ‘must do everything’ attitude, we are inviting impatience in our life.
Patience is understanding that even if we would love to go to the mall this week since it is not important, we can schedule it for the next week.
This helps us understand our priorities and be more patient with our desires.
This is also true in dating and relationships. Patience often takes us a long way in our search for a life partner.
We can prioritize what we need to do before we indulge too much of our energy in someone else.
4. Be mindful
Another trick is to take account of the things that make you impatient. For some people it is unnecessary communication, for some others, it is long waiting periods. There is no rule book for what makes us impatient.
However, when we start becoming mindful of what makes us impatient, we actually learn to be more patient.
You can start with identifying the activities that you avoid because you feel you don’t have the patience.
For example, shopping at a particular store, dealing with a specific cashier, etc. You can then be mindful of why they make you impatient. What is it exactly about these situations that bothers you?
The next time that you are in such situations, you will be more aware of your reaction. When you expect certain things to happen, you have a more controlled reaction to them.
Next, you can even note all the things that interrupt your workflow. Impatience very often stems from such interruptions.
When you know that getting calls during lunch hour upsets you, you can actively keep your phone away.
5. Reframe how you think
We all internally label some situations as more frustrating than others.
This internal label then makes us lose patience with the situation even before we encounter it. One of the easiest examples for this is – paperwork.
Most people hate it. Paperwork or excessive paperwork can very easily frustrate people. However, it is an unavoidable part of adult life.
It is therefore time to think of other ways to label such situations.
You can reframe how you feel about it. For example, you can say that it is not pointless paperwork. It is the way you may finally get to the finish line of your work.
If you are exceptionally bothered by slow cashiers, you may feel they take forever to ring up your order.
You can rework this by saying, he is not slow just to make you wait longer. He is merely doing his job.
These are small yet significant ways to become more patient. This method particularly works if you put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Then, you can reframe your thinking by keeping them in mind.
6. Add purpose
Patience comes easier to those who add meaning in situations. We can get annoyed at something when we find it pointless.
For example, waiting for a call back from an interview. It is easy to think that it’s just a meaningless waiting period.
In our minds, we think that the purpose of an interview is to assess our skills. However, we do not assign any purpose to the waiting period. Hence, we have a low level of patience for it.
In reality, this period is important because it allows the interviewer to think about our profile. This is necessary to evaluate how fit we are to do the job.
Once we assign meaning and purpose to something, we understand it better.
This understanding leads to immense patience. Another example is that of lifestyle changes. Sticking to a healthy diet may seem like punishment. This is however not the real purpose.
The purpose of a diet is to make you healthy. Adding this purpose to your diet or exercise routine makes it a lot more tolerable for you.
7. Grounding exercise
Grounding exercises are generally used to help with anxiety and stress. However, you can also use them to become more patient.
Grounding exercises help you focus at the moment. They keep your reactions in control by keeping you focused on where you are.
When you feel an impatient response coming up, you can practice grounding exercises to delay it.
This includes stating facts of the situation you are in. For example, when you feel a lack of patience waiting for your order to arrive in a restaurant. You can start looking at your environment.
You can play little games like naming all the green things you see around you. You can count the tiles on the floor underneath you.
The point is to get so immersed in your environment that you get distracted from the impatience bubbling inside you.
8. Look for the good
When we immediately react to something, even if it is not coming from impatience, we tend to focus on the surface. Patience requires us to give things a little more time and attention.
We can take a second to appreciate all the good things that come from a situation. It takes time, but we can try to find some positives that help us accept the scenario. For example, being stuck in traffic jams.
On the surface, it is a frustrating situation. Like many others, you may just want to reach your destination on time.
However, traffic gives you the time to listen to music, read a book, or even finish other smaller tasks that you don’t usually get time for.
Looking for the good in a situation does not change it or make it better. However, it does give you the chance to improve your experience of it. This will make you more patient as a person.
9. Journaling
When you think about how to be patient in the long term, you may need to include some habits in your life. This includes daily habits that allow you to practice patience.
Journaling helps you to keep a track of your life. When you sit down to write about everything that is happening around you or what you are feeling, it becomes a record of your life.
Hence, when you focus on the negatives or when you feel like nothing is going right, you can refer to your journal to gain some objectivity.
It also helps you identify the exact source of your triggers.
For example, you may realize that you get impatient in a long line because you do not enjoy making small talk with others around you.
This is a good realization, as you know what you can avoid the next time.
10. Devise personal strategies
These strategies are what personally works for you. When your goal is to become more patient, you need to find a formula that mainly works for you.
This may include anything from journaling to seeking professional help.
A personal strategy is based on your individual triggers. If you lose patience with slow cashiers, you could devise a strategy for yourself.
You could specifically bookmark some videos or social media pages you check out when you are in line.
However, if your goal is long-term patience, this strategy could include practicing waiting. You could set smaller challenges for yourself throughout the day.
Over time, this will show you how to be more patient.
11. Manage your expectations
As people, we are easily annoyed when things do not happen as we plan them. This is not anyone person’s fault. Often, a series of events leaves us disappointed.
Here, it is important to remember that impatience is not always the opposite of patience.
Some situations may not make us impatient at all. However, there is still room for us to practice more patience.
The only requirement is that we have to put in sincere effort to do so. One of the ways is to manage our expectations.
For example, we may plan ten chores for one weekend. We may finish nine of them, which is good. However, one incomplete chore makes us feel bad. This is the result of taking on too much.
When we plan and manage our expectations as per reality, we have little to lose. If we only plan eight chores, but that is realistically possible, we will feel satisfied when we finish them.
Expectation management is not easy. In the long term, we plan our life for ages.
For example, a lot of us plan to reach certain milestones. The more unattainable these are, the more we lose patience when things don’t go our way.
This method to raise your level of patience particularly works with life plans, lifestyle changes, change management or even long-term sustained patience.
12. Prepare yourself
Prepare yourself for the minor and major stressors of life. Patience does not come easy because our lives are also not easy. With maturity and responsibilities, our patience also starts to run thin.
However, it is in our control to prepare for such trying events. We can outline a list of triggers that tests our patience. Further, we can prepare for such events with some backup.
For example, if you know you get low on patience during family holidays, you can take with you an extra book or your earphones to help you deal.
Similarly, if you are aware that you don’t like a rush at the grocery store, carry with you a precise list of what you need.
Preparing ourselves helps us control our reactions. This way, when things do not flow the way we want them to, we know what we have to do.
13. Ask for help to be more patient
Sometimes we may need help with how to be more patient. This is because often we are not sure of our own emotional triggers. Hence, we can rely on people we trust to make us more patient.
Help comes in all shapes and forms. You may reach out to people to physically help you with a task you cannot accomplish.
For example, getting a personal trainer at the gym. If you fear your lack of patience will make you quit, you can reach out to a trainer.
The key is to identify what you need help with. You may even just require moral support to get through some tasks. It is up to you to decide when to reach out for help.
14. Accept the situation
Patience grows with acceptance. Often we neglect to accept the setbacks and difficulties we face. We try to get past them so quickly that we forget to actually accept what happened.
For example, a person trying to quit unhealthy eating habits. He cannot change his habits as quickly as he would like if he does not accept that his habits are not helping him.
Once he accepts that his eating junk is causing him issues, he can deal with the changes with a lot more patience.
Acceptance of any situation increased our understanding. This in turn shows us how to be patient in the next steps we take.
15. Express gratitude
Gratitude means thankfulness. Patience is a positive emotion. It comes from a more peaceful place in your mind.
When we focus on all the things in our life that make it difficult, we are not at peace.
Gratitude allows us to look at the positives around us. When we feel impatient over some big things, we can express gratitude for what we already possess.
Expressing gratitude is a way to gain more patience as well. It reminds you that good things do in fact happen to you.
It is also a reminder that even if you have to wait, you have so much you can still be grateful for.
16. Build your confidence
When you build your self-confidence, you begin to feel self-assured. For example, a master at chess. She patiently waits to make the right move when she feels confident about her game.
Any such skill, or life challenge, requires confidence. When you trust yourself and your skills, you can afford to be patient with your moves.
Your self-confidence gives you the faith that you will eventually find your way out of your struggles.
17. Exercise
Lastly, you can have an exercise routine. This includes yoga, working out somewhere like a gym, practicing meditation, or going for runs.
Exercising allows you to put your life on hold for some time every day.
This is very beneficial in learning patience. We are forced to put our to-do list aside so we can do our exercise routine.
This is also a good time to silently plan our life. It puts a pause between us and our other emotional frustrations of the day.
TIP
You can call this your ‘me time’ for the day.
How To Be Patient in a Relationship
As we saw so far, patience is not easy. It is, however, very necessary. In our relationships as well, patience can help us navigate through situations.
We do not learn the rules of a relationship overnight. Additionally, every relationship you enter may require different things from you.
Sometimes your patience might be tested and other times it may even get rewarded.
The key is to be patient as much as you can. In this way, you can set a strong foundation for yourself.
You may experience lesser fights and a deeper level of connection with your partner as well.
Love and the relationships that are based on love require persistent effort. You cannot promise to love someone one day and give up on them the next.
This will only get you temporary and short-term satisfaction.
As a patient person yourself, you may still require more patience from your partner. This is a sign that you want your relationship to grow.
Patience means you have an inclination to see where the relationship is headed.
There are some tips that you can note to be more patient in your relationship.
1. Listen and respond
One of the best tips you may receive for your relationship is to listen to your partner. You can practice patience when you wait and listen.
When you listen to them, you can pick up on things that they are trying to tell you.
For example, even if you know they have had a bad day, you can listen to them talk about it. They may give you some details about their personality that you didn’t know before.
Listening is a good exercise in any relationship.
When you listen and take your time to respond, you automatically build patience. Your partner gets the assurance that you are interested in their life.
When it is their turn, they will show you the same patience you showed them.
2. Do more things together
It is not necessary for a couple to share all similar interests. One of you may like movies and the other may like hiking.
If you try to always accommodate the other, you may eventually start feeling burdened.
Here, you will have to find ways to be more patient with what they like to do. You can start by doing some other things together.
For example, if you cook together, you may not feel upset when they go off to another thing on their own.
Patience is the key to accommodating varied interests in your relationship. When you do things together, you may even start liking new things.
More importantly, because you do them with someone you enjoy, you may even do it for longer.
Some couples love to work out together for this reason. It makes them tolerate the pains of working out even more. This time together even serves as a bonding time for the two of you.
Another way to spend time together is to keep your phones away. You can build a lot of patience if you actually spend time together, away from your phones.
It forces you to interact with your partner without the escape or excuse of your phone.
3. Show empathy
There is no point in listening to your partner if you cannot empathize with them when they need it.
Empathy makes you put yourself in their shoes. This allows you to understand where they come from.
Empathy is an excellent way to build patience in a relationship. For example, if your partner has a hard time remembering occasions.
It is easy to feel offended and lash out at them, or express your anger.
However, you can even try to empathize with them if they try to explain. You may realize that they don’t wish to forget, they are just not good with dates. This empathy helps you patiently respond to them.
Empathy helps with many things in a relationship along with patience. Patience, however, is a strong goal to achieve.
The more patient you are, the more you can actually help your partner.
4. Compromise
You do not always have to be right. Many arguments, fights, and even breakups can be avoided if you give up your need to be right. Often, fights are not about who is right or who is wrong.
Fights are a way to express everything that has been going wrong. When you stop trying to be the winner in the argument, you can see a new way of thinking.
This time that you would spend in trying to win, you instead spend in resolving the issue at hand.
Eventually, this makes you a more patient person. You may have to deal with the frustration of letting things go.
However, you gain the patience to deal with difficulties together.
5. Take your time
Relationships can also be stressful on some occasions. These are the moments that test your patience.
When you have the option to instantly react to the situation or take your time with a response, you should choose the second option.
Take your time, count to three if you need to, and then respond. Often, we say hurtful things to each other because we don’t stop to think before we say it.
For example, the next time your partner says you never do anything special for them, do not immediately retort.
Take your time and then ask them why they feel that way. Or tell them if you disagree, but after you have thought about what you need to say.
This actually builds your patience. You begin to have a little more respect for what your partner has to say.
Taking small steps like this goes a long way to make room for patience in your relationship.
6. Be realistic
This is good for people who expect their partners to be perfect. Perfectionism is not a realistic expectation.
You may think your partner’s flaws are their cons. However, they are just a part of them.
We are all imperfect people. If someone has a flaw, it does not mean that is a point against them. It is only realistic to make mistakes and mess up sometimes.
When you set realistic expectations with your partner, you will learn how to be more patient with them.
For example, if they forget to buy the right groceries, instead of yelling at them, you may accept that they have a hard time remembering.
This is a much more realistic expectation. You may even start making a list for them to make your lives easier. In this way, when they forget something without a list, you will be able to be more patient with them.
7. Communicate
Last but definitely not the least important, is communication. Patience is a learned art. You cannot learn patience till you effectively communicate with your partner. Patience also needs to be expressed correctly.
When you communicate, you also let your partner see you for who you are. It gives them the space and confidence to be themselves around you.
This true communication leads to patience when one of you is behaving differently.
Often, we get angry at people because they behave differently than what we expect. Through effective communication, you can understand your partner deeply.
Hence, if they are ever having a tantrum, you can patiently deal with it till it passes.
How To Be Patient With Kids
It is very easy to lose your patience around kids. Children, especially young children, do not follow a predictable behavior pattern.
Sometimes they listen to the adults around them, but sometimes they like to do what they want to do.
Kids learn patience when they see adults around them practicing the same. Along with that, they are also more prone to express themselves freely around patient parents or elders.
However, it is still not easy to be patient around kids. They are often internally loud, create messes, and even delay schedules. In such cases, learning how to be patient is in fact even more necessary.
You may even wonder when it is important to be patient with kids. Firstly, if you are a parent or expecting to be a parent, patience may be one of the first things you will have to learn.
Secondly, professionals like teachers, babysitters, doctors, etc., that interact with children on a daily basis benefit from maintaining patience.
This not only helps them do their job better but also makes it more fun and safe for the kids.
Lastly, even if you are someone whose friends, siblings, neighbors, and more have kids, you may learn how to be more patient with them.
Whether or not you realize it, it helps you build a better relationship with them.
1. Tips for momentary patience
You can breathe in and out before reacting to something they did. For example, if they break something expensive, you may get very upset.
However, if you focus on your breathing, you may stop yourself from having an extreme reaction.
You can even walk away from them for some time. It is possible to lose patience if you are always around your kids. Stepping away gives you a good buffer to regain your composure.
Try practicing what you want to say in a different voice or tone. You can even try to sing it to them.
The aim is to divert yourself from your initial reaction and focus your attention elsewhere.
Next, you can have small talk with your child. This will help you start conversations with kids from a young age. Remember to make it a conversation where both you and the child can participate.
Lastly, you can assign a ‘feel good’ mantra for yourself. You can repeat this to yourself every time you feel like you will lose your patience.
Many people say ‘I’ve got this’ to themselves to ensure they remain calm.
2. Tips for long term patience
In the long run, your patience even helps your child develop patience.
Long term patience is even more difficult to maintain because there are many small and big setbacks when children are concerned.
One thing you can start doing is setting a good example for the child. When you realize that the kid is actually learning from you, you force yourself to be more patient.
You may try to include more habits in your life that make you patient. It could be regular breathing exercises, meditation, mindful thinking and slowly learning to be more and more patient.
Often, we are impatient with kids because we have other issues that are merely spilling over.
This is a sign to take care of our own underlying issues so we can be more patient with kids.
Over time, we can start maintaining rules and boundaries with the kids. This works in a way that you learn to deal with their nature and unpredictability and they learn to work within a set boundary.
Lastly, patience with kids is not a lot different than patience with other aspects of our life. When we practice patience in our overall life, we may not find it so difficult to extend it to children.
How To Be Patient With Yourself
Developing patience for your own self is a necessary life skill. When you have to remain calm in the face of adversity, it is your patience with yourself that will help you.
There are many ways to cultivate patience towards yourself. When you start thinking about yourself in kinder ways, patience is one of the primary things you will learn.
In some ways, patience and kindness towards yourself go hand in hand.
If you are learning how to be patient with yourself, you can apply some of the following ways.
1. Aim for progress over perfection
Progress is a much kinder long term goal to work for. When we chase perfectionism, we ignore the smaller wins we make.
In fact, small errors also feel like big failures. However, failures are as much a part of life as a success.
Focusing on how well we are doing allows us to appreciate our journey. We can be patient when we see that we have come far from where we started, even if our goal is still far.
Occasionally, when we are focused on perfection, we discredit the progress we have made. It becomes a frustrating and stressful situation.
However, when we focus on our progress, we learn to patiently work towards more.
2. Practice patience
It is not our fault, but we live in a world that works on instant gratification.
For example, when we click on good pictures of ourselves and upload them on social media. The instant validation we get satisfies our need for approval.
Similarly, we see influencers and other professionals get quick results and a good life. We are surrounded by constant reminders of all the things we do not have.
In such a lifestyle, it is only natural to feel impatient.
However, we can still learn to practice patience. We can remind ourselves that we are working towards our goals.
Also, we can try to ignore the media that tells us we must accomplish more. We can focus on practicing patience instead.
One of the ways to do this is by not seeking instant gratification or instant results. We can take our time with achieving our goals and follow our own personal timeline.
There are some small and simple ways we can learn to practice patience. We can let the person next to us take our cab if we are not getting late.
Similarly, we can enjoy some time with our thoughts before we share them publicly.
3. Reduce our stress
Relaxation techniques work very well to reduce stress. Every once in a while, our impatience is the result of our stress. When we reduce this source, we can free up our minds to be more patient.
Stress is a part of life. Even small daily hassles can give us stress. Whether it is daily chores like doing dishes or important things like work projects.
If we are stressed about it, our plate becomes too full to relax at all.
Hence, if we reduce our stress, we have less on our plates. We can reduce our stress by planning our days and weeks better.
Additionally, when we feel overworked, we can ask for help.
4. Avoid multitasking
Multitasking is when you try to accomplish too many things at once. Sometimes we multitask without being aware of it.
For example, calling someone while we are cooking. Essentially, they are two different tasks – calling and cooking.
Multitasking is a way to save time. However, it also makes us impatient. This is because we start expecting efficiency even in simple tasks.
If we don’t tick off many things from our to-do lists at once, it feels like a waste of time.
When you are learning how to be patient, this task can really set you back. You will have to force yourself to do one thing at a time.
It may take some time, but you can convince yourself that you will be okay even if you finish your tasks one by one.
5. Be kind to yourself
Lastly, you can show yourself some kindness. It is a difficult time to learn to be patient. Our lives and our goals do not make it easy to be patient.
However, you are trying your best. Even by reading this article, you are taking an effort to be more patient.
When you do express impatience, you can still be kind to yourself. You can tell yourself that in the future, you will take more care.
Similarly, you can remind yourself that even if you have been impatient in the past, you can still learn to grow more patient.
Often, when people seek professional help or counseling, they learn ways to be more patient with themselves. It is a part of self-growth and loving yourself as well.
How To Be Patient In Love
We have heard multiple times that ‘love is patient, love is kind.’ However, not everyone knows exactly how to be patient in love.
For some of us, it is not our personality trait to be patient. We may chase the thrills of a fast romance, falling quickly in love and living happily ever after.
In reality, it is rarely that simple or that fast to find true love.
Patience in love can define the course of your relationship. If we try to go too deep all at once, we may actually risk a good and fruitful relationship.
Alternatively, we can take our time with love.
We can start by not rushing into a relationship, even if it feels like the right move. Allowing ourselves and our significant others a chance to get to know each other is important.
When you take it slow, you may even find romance in the waiting period.
Additionally, patience allows us to grow fonder of each other. If we immediately start bombarding each other with information, we may miss the smaller, less obvious things.
It is often these small things that form the base of a good relationship.
If you are not in love with anyone right now or dating, it is only natural to seek it out. However, if you are patient with it, you will meet someone who is exactly right for you.
When we search for a perfect person impatiently, we may find someone who seems perfect on the surface. If you make yourself be patient, you may find someone who is perfect for you, not the whole world.
Quick tips to be patient in love
You can look at the following tips to learn how to be patient in love.
- Wait for someone who is right for you
- Take your time to get to know someone
- Ask questions and really listen to their answers
- Don’t force dates or time together
- Give them their space when they need it
- Don’t force intimacy
- Let things take their time
- Do not assume that they want the same things as you
- Slowly open up to them as they open up to you
How To Learn Patience
At multiple times in this article, you have seen that patience is a learned virtue. We do not automatically act patient. Learning patience requires a lot of personal effort on your part.
Following are some ways to learn patience.
1. Seek help from people you trust
2. Force yourself to wait
3. Set realistic expectations for your goals
4. Maintain daily efforts
5. If you fail, keep trying
6. Challenge yourself to be patient in different ways
7. Identify the areas of your life where you are impatient
8. Apply a technique that works for you
There is no guaranteed way to cultivate patience. The best you can do is to keep trying and challenging yourself.
You may encounter some difficulties, as we do live in an impatient world. However, your personal efforts can keep going.
How To Practice Patience
After reading so much about patience, you may have a question about how to actually practice it. Some people need help in one area of their life, and some others might lack patience in general.
An article published in the Journal of Positive Psychology in 2012 makes our work easier.
They suggest that we can learn how to be patient in three broad categories. These are interpersonal relationships, life hardships, and daily struggles.
We can learn to be patient in our relationships with others. We can practice listening skills, compromise, and show empathy to the people in our lives. This includes romantic relationships and others.
Next, we can learn how to be patient when a major setback comes our way. For example, losing our job or failing in our marriage. These are life hardships that are difficult to navigate.
We can show patience in these situations by being kind to ourselves, looking for the good in situations, asking for help, and communicating our feelings.
Patience is also cultivated through better planning and realistic goals for the future.
Lastly, if we are merely looking to be more patient in our daily life, our path is much simpler.
We can engage in deep breathing, grounding exercises, finding meaning in daily chores, and journaling.
Hence, we can see that practicing patience is also an art and a skill. There are certain steps that we must go through before we can call ourselves patient people.
Conclusion
Patience is a virtue that we learn over time. It helps us accept our life situations and navigate some difficulties and setbacks.
We learn how to be patient through our experiences and our efforts. However, if we keep trying, we will eventually be able to practice patience with ease!
Article Sources
1. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/7-tips-for-better-patience-yes-youll-need-to-practice/
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/smarter-living/how-to-be-a-more-patient-person.html
3. https://www.nbcnews.com/better/lifestyle/how-train-yourself-be-more-patient-ncna1022356
4. https://positivepsychology.com/positive-psychology-interventions/
5. https://www.healthline.com/health/how-to-be-patient
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