If you can't be patient, you won't ever achieve the things you want in life.
In a world where instant gratification is the norm, impatience has become a way of life, so much so that people don't think they have time to practice patience.
Impatience has been linked to cognitive and social incompetence and an inability to cope with the frustrations of life. Take a step back and think about how you move throughout your days.
If you're finding it hard to be patient, keep reading. Take a deep breath and relax. Everything will come in due time.
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Patience is the secret to success.
It is an essential requirement for the attainment of any goal. Every successful person in this world got to where they are today because they deployed hard work, energy, and patience. When they encountered a setback, they didn't give up. Instead, they persevered, realizing that there are no shortcuts in the pursuit of success.
Unfortunately, too many people become impatient and throw in the towel when they don't see results fast enough. If they fail, they assume that it's because something isn't worth fighting for. The mind tends to forget that all big successes in life are actually made up of thousands of small milestones.
Whatever it is that you want in life, you've got to be committed and dedicated to following through. I guarantee that you will encounter challenges along your journey to success. All that matters is how you choose to respond to them. You may not want to hear this, but if something is hard, it probably means that it's important.
Let me give you an example. It took years before I started making any money in my business. I had to invest insane amounts of time, patience, energy and emotional labor into the process. Eventually, the results started pouring in, faster and bigger than I could have ever imagined.
This was due, in large part, to the culmination of my efforts. Had I tried to rush the process, the success I have today would have never come about. It's all well and good for me to sit here and preach the importance of patience. Logically, you may understand why patience is important. However, do you grasp this concept on an emotional level? This is where people struggle.
Let's face it, there will be days when your patience is tested.
In his book, The Power of Patience: How This Old-Fashioned Virtue Can Improve Your Life, M.J. Ryan says that impatience is the “fight” component of the fight-or-flight response. This is why we engage in impatient behaviors, like getting angry when a page doesn't load fast enough, honking at cars, or making rash decisions without thinking.
When things don’t turn out well or as quickly as you would like, it's easy to get reactive. At the end of the day, it all comes down to your expectations. The question remains, “What can you do to stop the act of impatience from causing unnecessary stress and frustration in your life?”
The good news is that patience is a skill that can be learned. True patience requires a shift in mindset. It's a habit that you can learn and master, with practice. Let's talk about 7 ways that you can cultivate more patience in your life.
1. Recognize Your Triggers
Before you can practice being patient you need to recognize what triggers your impatience. If you try to suppress your impatient feelings it will only cause you to be more reactive. The next time you are triggered, step back and ask yourself, “What is annoying me right now and why do I feel this way?”
As Paulo Coelho says, “Why is patience so important? Because it makes us pay attention.” Behind every emotion that you experience, there is a story that was imprinted onto you. I encourage you to start tracking your emotional state throughout the day.
This is a great way to identify the situations and people that trigger you to lose your cool. Once you have an awareness of what you feel and why you feel it, you will know how to better manage and diffuse those triggers the next time that they show up.
2. Embrace Discomfort
Once you've identified what triggers your patience, now it's time to sit with your impatience. It's not your negative feelings that are overwhelming. Rather, it's the stories that you tell yourself that are attached to those feelings. A lot of people are so afraid to feel anything, for fear of what is going to come up if they do.
What people don't realize is that when they numb negative emotions, they are also numbing positive ones as well. In actuality, all of your emotions contain lessons that are designed to help you grow. When you allow yourself to fully feel the sensations associated with impatience it allows you to connect to your body intelligence.
This is a huge step towards accepting and surrendering to its presence. What is happening in your mind when something doesn't go your way or when someone frustrates you? How does your body respond? Does your heart beat faster? Do your muscles tighten? By forcing yourself to sit with discomfort, you will eventually feel empowered to try and change your response to it.
3. Reframe Your Attitude
When you are frustrated it can feel like life is stacked up against you. In order to change anything in life, you first have to change yourself. Telling yourself that you don't have patience is a story in and of itself. I encourage you to start examining the stories that you are telling yourself around why you are impatient.
Are your thoughts really serving your highest good? You may not realize it, but you have the power to shift your state in an instant. Remember that it's your beliefs that create your emotions, not your experiences. Therefore, if you can reframe your attitude towards a situation or person, you will be empowered to change the meaning that you ascribe to it.
Reframing your approach to life, in general, will allow you to approach life's challenges with more resilience. Choose to be the person who takes control of his or her attention and who actively chooses to think about the best possible outcomes in every situation. When you master your mind, you master your life.
4. Give Up Control
In my experience, patience is one big lesson in being comfortable with having zero control over how things turn out. As I've said many times before, the only thing that you have control over is your inner world. People who need to be in control are usually very impatient.
They may spend their entire lives trying to predict and plan every single outcome. If and when something doesn't go according to their plans, they drop into overwhelm. This obsession with controlling everything usually stems from fear of what will happen if they don't have control.
If you can relate to this way of thinking, I encourage you to let go and trust that no matter what happens in life, you will be okay. By surrendering to the need to control everything and allowing yourself to have faith in the process, you allow life to happen for you, instead of to you. In the words of Steve Maraboli, “You must learn to let go. Release the stress. You were never in control anyway.”
5. Master Your Emotions
I believe that self-control is one of the most important contributors to your success and happiness in life. Everything else will fall into place once you have done the work on your inner world. Impatient people struggle to control their emotions. They allow frustration, overwhelm and anger to take over their lives.
Most people think that the emotions that they experience and how they feel are dictated by external circumstances, so much so that they become paralyzed by them. It's actually your perception of what is happening to you that dictates how you feel.
Your emotions are fully in your control, even when everything feels like it's working against you. When you change your interpretation of a situation, you are better able to master your emotions. Don't be a victim. Instead, become the creator of your world.
6. Practice Mindfulness
A huge part of being impatient involves wanting to get to the next thing, instead of dropping into the present moment. If you are constantly rushing to get somewhere else, you will never be able to fully arrive wherever you actually are. Developing the skill of being mindful is one of the best ways to cultivate more patience into your daily life.
Mindfulness-based practices, like meditation, allow you to become more aware of the here and now. Studies have shown that people who meditate have larger volumes of gray matter in the areas of the brain that regulate response control. That may be why meditators have a more positive outlook, are more emotionally stable and are more mindful.
Once you start to recognize that this moment is all that matters, you will have a greater sense of appreciation for what is going on around you. Being mindful allows you to deal with stressors more effectively, which in turn, supports your happiness and overall well-being.
7. Slow Down
The beauty of technology is that it has allowed us to do everything with more speed and efficiency. However, it has also created a culture of impatience. If people don't get things fast enough, they panic.
Interestingly, research shows that when we are feeling intense emotions such as anxiety, fear or anger, our bodies send more signals to the brain, which then heightens the experience and warps our sense of time. So 1 minute of waiting in serious frustration can feel like 5 minutes.
If you are the type of person who likes to rush through everything and is never able to focus on one thing, pause and slow down. Patience is not about waiting. Rather, it's about learning how to pace yourself so that you don't get overwhelmed. Getting impatient won't make things move along any faster, which is why it's pointless to get all worked up over nothing.
If you want to achieve success in life, be patient.
As the philosopher, George Savile once wrote: “the master of patience is the master of everything else.” The only thing standing in the way between you and success is patience — or lack thereof. I promise that you will get to where you want to go in due time.
In the meantime, do your best to keep calm and be patient. The best things in life usually happen when we least expect them to.
Do you want to learn how you can master your online business? CLICK HERE to join my Online Business Mastery Accelerator program!