As a clinical hypnotherapist I see many people in my clinic in Sydney and during consultations online who are having problems with patience and need to become more patient.
Do you get overly angry fast?
Do you want everything to happen instantly?
Do you think everything should come to you automatically when you want it?
Do other people think of you as being impatient?
Do you get bored putting in the work to make things happen?
Patience is not a mysterious quality that some people have and other people don’t; it’s a learned, practised skill that needs constant attention.
Although some people get to learn it early, others miss out on that lesson.
We all get frustrated from time to time when things don’t go according to plan or when they take longer to happen than we might have wanted. This is part of human nature.
But when that frustration becomes a way of life, it’s time for us to look at what we might not be doing.
Patience is a practised skill and a way of living
What many people don’t teach their children is that effort, plus strategy and persistence equals an outcome.
Maybe those parents were never taught that themselves so they don’t have the skill of patience to pass onto their kids.
Sure, there are projects in our lives that don’t produce the outcomes we wanted.
Perhaps the circumstances were not favourable, and unexpected elements threw the project off course. Or our strategies to achieve that project weren’t thought through or refined enough. So, there are some projects that are worthy of being aborted.
In general, however, things often don’t turn out the way we want because we haven’t put in the effort it takes to get the outcome we wanted.
We’ve been seduced by the instant gratification society, dinner delivered in 20 minutes, a credit card that allows you to buy your dream music system or instant friends on Facebook.
Patience requires life-long repetition
Since frustration is a normal human emotion we have to constantly reset and practise patience on a daily basis.
There will be other people who might not be able to perform skills as fast as you can or can know as much about something as you do and you need to learn to allow that to be OK.
And in life you sometimes have to let go of the past when things don’t turn out, and move on with your life.
Impatience is about fear: Fear of what might happen and fear of what will happen, prompting you to feel out of control and lash out at others or abandon a task.
The fear, however, is disproportionate and may be inappropriate to what you need to focus your attention on in the present time to solve a problem.
Remember I said effort was part of the formula to achieve patience.
Well, you have to put a lot of effort into becoming the best you that you can be in your life.
You have to repeatedly train your mind, thoughts, behaviour, actions and reactions to become what you want to be.
Here’s what to do to become a more patient person:
► When things are not turning out how you wanted, step back and think about what’s really happening
► Be prepared to constantly change who you are and what you’re doing
► Take responsibility for what you want to happen next
► Stay present and focus on what you can do now in this moment
► Check that the strategies you’re using to achieve your goals are the right ones
► Each day consciously make the effort to be a patient person
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