Developing patience can have significant long-term benefits for you, your family, your friends and your health. It seems the most common and quite possibly the easiest way to lose patience is around people, especially our children. It is possible to develop extraordinary amounts of patience with little effort. Really, the bottom line of patience is an awareness of yourself, your situation and your thoughts. Once you’ve mastered this, having patience is easy. But how to you develop awareness?
Awareness comes from the realization that there is something at work which is larger than ourselves. Each of us is not the center of our own universe, but rather a small part of something very large that works in harmony with what we present to it. In other words, you get back what you give. If you are impatient, you’ll attract a million reasons to be impatient. You’ll be surrounded by disgruntled people, situations that do not flow properly and bad energy. Change your reaction and you’ll experience magic.
Here are 5 tips to develop more patience in any situation.
1. Become Aware of Your Impatience
Throughout any given day, each of us experiences many different emotions and feelings. The first thing you must do to begin developing patience is to recognize impatience. If you are feeling stressed or frenzied, figure out what feelings and emotions are present. Do you feel anxious, guilty, angry, resentful or impatient? Once you pinpoint the feeling, then look to see what is causing it. Decide if the feeling is necessary and how much your could improve this moment for yourself and those around you if you choose a better feeling.
One example that I can think of is with children. My child takes forever getting himself into our vehicle. I could become impatient, yell, physically put him into the car, berate him for lollygagging and create and entirely unnecessary situation. Sometimes I do become impatient when this happens, but I think about why I am in such a hurry that would require me to squash my son’s playful moment of lollygagging. As adults, and for the benefit of quality of life, some of us should do much more lollygagging than we do. Therefore, when I become aware of my feelings, I either stand there quietly and wait, knowing that he will get himself situated at some point, or I lollygag with him, fully enjoying this fleeting moment of joy.
2. Bring Yourself Back to the Moment
The moment you are living, right now, is the only moment you can control. What happened yesterday cannot be changed, and what’s happening tomorrow hasn’t yet arrived. When you feel yourself losing patience, try to figure out what’s causing it. Are you in a hurry? Why? What do you expect from rushing something or someone? Do you believe 5 extra minutes of time that could be gained by rushing is really going to make or break you? Bring yourself back to right now and be here, in the moment. No matter if you are at work, at home, with your children or with your friends, this moment is precious. Live in it.
3. Breathe and Count
The whole business of counting to 10 when you are stressed or impatient works wonders, but only if you actually do it. Counting to 10 actually can help you come back to the moment. It stops the racing thoughts and gives you a quick time out, a breather, a mini-meditation session. Counting to 10 will allow you to stop and regroup your thoughts and actions, hopefully giving you the benefit of choosing an emotion that feels better and improves the situation.
4. Assess Your Situation and Create a Distraction
One great way to develop more patience is to avoid situations that may cause you to become impatient. Whenever you blow your cool, assess the situation that you are currently in and figure out if you can safely remove yourself from it, or if that option is worth it. If you’re sitting in rush hour traffic, attempting to make it to work on time, your impatience will not make traffic move any faster. In fact, if you’re in an angry and bitter mood, your time will seem even longer. You don’t have much choice, unless taking the day off is an option for you. So, create a distraction. Turn on the radio, watch the clouds or put in a CD on developing more patience! If you can avoid the situation, walk away.
5. Blow Off Steam
If you are looking for ways to develop more patience, chances are you are looking for ways to improve your overall quality of life. Everyone has tough days. If you’re experiencing a day where you just can’t bring yourself back to the moment and be cool, go and blow off some steam. Do some exercise, dance, take a bubble bath or go roller skating. Figure out if you need to find an activity in which aggression is acceptable, like boxing or football, or if a relaxation technique would be more suitable. Either way, you must take a break from whatever is causing your impatience. When you must return to the situation, you’ll find you are better able to be patient with whatever is going on.
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I encourage you to leave comments about your experiences with developing patience and further advice that you may have for others. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Original Articles. Constant-Content.