Learning to be patient

Patience is precious in everyday life: it helps you to persevere, achieve goals and objectives without losing your cool. It also helps you to face those hundreds of occasions on which you have to wait throughout life! 

 

The important thing is to not to think too big but to set yourself concrete mini objectives in situations you know well.

 

The key to patience in these cases is perspective and trying to see the positive side of the situation. A long queue for example, can be a chance to talk to the child or friend you're shopping with. If you're outside waiting, why not lift your head up and really look at the place where you are. you may have seen it a thousand times but there's a safe bet that you'll discover something new. Otherwise, talk to the person next to you in the queue, even if only to complain about the wait or the lack of staff on, so you can create a friendly atmosphere even when you're having a whinge!

A child lagging behind, a slow colleague, a boyfriend who is never ready on time, an elderly person who can't find the word....despite your good will and the affection you have for your loved ones, you sometimes lose patience with them. if you can tell you're going to lose your cool, anticipate the problem by trying to talk to the person and explain why they shouldn’t be upset if you show your impatience. If possible, do something to occupy yourself while you wait. You’ll feel that you've wasted less time.

 

Rome wasn't built in a day, so don’t expect to become patient overnight. Don’t believe that by pointing out someone’s slowness you’ll make things move faster: you won't change anything. Be realistic and accept the fact that you will not change people and events do not often depend on you. Despite this, it's often possible to improve things.

Put forward concrete ways in which you can make situations clearer if you can. Focusing on the concrete ways a situation can be better (in the way you handle it or the way you occupy yourself) to take the focus away from you and your impatience, thus helping you be more patient.

 

When things are beyond your control and there’s nothing you can do, learn to let go! Easier said than done of course, but useless. You cannot save the world: your intervention or impatience will not move things forward one bit, so accept it and turn your attention away from what is making you impatient by doing something else concrete on the side. This is useful for learning to be tolerant about other people’s flaws. Patience and time are better than anger.