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How to Be Patient in 5 Simple Steps

By Operation-Meditation

Do you fly off the handle faster than you’d like? Are you quick to lash out when things aren’t happening as you think they should?

When you’re impatient, you’re not the only one that suffers. Everyone around you does. Stress and tension heighten, good situations turn to bad and bad ones get worse. By becoming more patient, you’ll be able to keep your perspective on things and not say or do something you’ll later regret.

So, how do you get patience?

1. Define Your Triggers

The first thing you need to do is figure out what your triggers are. What takes you from nice to nasty in two seconds flat? Make a list of things that send you over the edge.

If you can’t pinpoint them right away, you may choose to keep a journal. When you get angry or frustrated quicker than you think you should, start writing down your feelings. As you write, you’ll begin to see some thoughts emerge as to what specifically upset you about the event.

A journal is also nice because it allows you to see trends and patterns. You can look back over past entries and see if it’s the same specific issue that makes you impatient and gets under your skin, or if there is a theme amongst the issues that you didn’t necessarily connect before.

2. Assess Control

Once you’ve isolated what triggers your impatience, ask yourself if it’s something within your control. For instance, if you get impatient with your daughter when you’re helping her with her homework and she isn’t getting it, ask yourself if there’s anything you can do to change the situation.

Perhaps you can hire a tutor or talk to her teacher for some extra help. Or, maybe there is a learning program available that she would be able to use to help her better understand her studies?

If there’s something you can do to change it, do it. But, if there isn’t, you really need to let it go.

3. Breathe

What’s the first step to letting it go? Breathe.

When you start to feel your blood pressure rise and your face start to flush, take some nice deep breaths. You need to calm your body down so that you don’t react impulsively.

If you have to, walk away for a minute or two. No one says you have to stay in a fire pit to learn to deal with the heat. Step away until you gain your composure.

If you practice deep breathing daily, like through meditation, you will learn to calm your body and clear your mind. You’ll ease your frustrations, stress and anxieties which will give you a higher tolerance level, thus leading to more patience.

4. Change Your Perception

Another option is to change your perspective. Instead of focusing on what is going wrong that is leading you to be impatient, focus on what is going right.

Sticking with the same story above, helping your daughter with her homework, instead of getting upset that she doesn’t understand what you’re trying to teach her, be thankful she’s trying to learn at all.

If you change your perception, you switch from a negative mindset to a positive one. The result? There’s nothing to be impatient about.

5. Take It One Step at a Time

Don’t be too hard on yourself when you’re trying to become more patient. Unfortunately, patience can only be learned through practice, which means repeated exposure to situations that would normally send you into orbit.

Remember that change takes time so cut yourself some slack. Take it one step at a time. Perhaps the best way to sum it up is to be patient with yourself. You’ll get there.

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