Have You Lost Your Patience? Get Your Patience Back With These Brilliant Hacks
The capacity to accept, tolerate or delay problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious.
Patience is something that has really helped me with my career. It’s something that’s helped with my relationships, dealing with my family at times as well as my mental and physical health.
When you lose patience with yourself, you’re usually setting yourself up for a failure and it is wise to begin leaning into patience like it’s your friend.
We might need patience when we’re grappling with fear or anxiety.
We might need patience when we’re feeling overwhelmed or when we’re feeling any big emotions.
I have found that sometimes we don’t allow ourselves the time to just sit in that big emotion. Sitting and experiencing your big emotion is healing and teaching you acceptance and surrender. Remember that next time you are in this situation to meditate on it or let out your experience in a journal, you will feel so much more in control.
Patience is a brilliant skill for moments of personal grief or any collective grief. Allowing space and time to navigate through your grief, instead of trying to rush or even ignore the process, is a much safer way to heal. When you encounter painful moments, my advice is to take as much time as you need and to be patient as you flow through the ups and downs of that process..
We also need patience when we are managing any sort of responsibilities. Whether we are talking about responsibilities with work or with children, sometimes when we are in the heat of a moment we can lose control of a situation and then feel tremendous guilt afterwards.
Repeating the words “I am patient, I choose to remain patient” as you focus on mindful breathing can really de-escalate a situation.
I’ve had a bit of loss in my life and an example I’d love to share is when my sister-in-law’s cat passed away. That cat and I had a really special bond and I loved her so much. I used to look after her every time they went camping or whenever they went on holidays and we had a beautiful bond. On the day she passed away, I cancelled most of my appointments to honour myself and my emotions and allowed myself time and space to grieve and to allow the big feelings to pour out of me.
Some of the things that helped me were:
- journaling
- meditation
- infrared sauna
- magnesium salt bath
- crying as many times as needed
Relationship Patience
Patience with relationships is also a big one. I used to date somebody that was addicted to pot (marijuana) and that required a lot of patience for me to remain hopeful that he was going to quit as he promised each year.
If you are in a relationship with someone that has a bad habit or an addiction, it does require patience. Sometimes people forget that the partner without the addiction or the bad habit is the one that can actually experience a lot of the suffering. It becomes two people suffering and if this is you I urge you to seek support and if you have faith in your partner that they will get through this, lean into your patience as they transition through this or as they work through any programs that they have to go through or if they work with a therapist or with a coach.
Family & Friend Patience
Patience with your family can be tricky for some. We can’t choose who we have as our blood family and we have to sometimes instil patience, understanding and acceptance that our family are who they are and they probably won’t change. It is not our responsibility to ever change somebody. Self care is important as it allows you to pour from a full cup and helps with the patience you may need to tolerate any family members that rub you up the wrong way.
Friendships can be similar. Sometimes a friend may do something that makes you feel a big emotion. Everybody is on their own journey and everybody is doing the best they can with what they know. Have the patience to allow them to experience their journey, as I mentioned earlier, it isn’t our responsibility to fix, change or improve someone, that’s what the professionals are there for.
It is beautiful that you do want to help and that you do want to guide and that you do want to advise, but again, having that patience to allow people to go through their own journey is a beautiful respectful thing.
Career & Business Patience
In business, having patience to allow your mission and vision to come to fruition and allowing the time it needs to build the success that you’re after is imperative. Having patience with going through all of the motions such as: the bookkeeping, the HR, the staffing, the admin and the list goes on right? Understanding that these are just things that have to get done and being grateful for your business is one of the best things to do when you lose your patience. Ask yourself: ‘Why did I begin this business in the first place?’ and re-connect with your powerful why.
I think if you’re a parent you may relate too because you may lose patientce with your child. With children driving you mad, it’s great to pause in the heat of a big moment and ask yourself, ‘what do I need right now?’ and that simple question can re-connect you to your patience.
Something useful is to begin a gratitude practice. I have a gratefulness meditation on my youtube channel and I highly recommend you do this each day for 10 days as your own Gratitude Challenge! You can do this meditation at the start of your day when you’re laying down. Turn your alarm on half an hour before you usually wake up, press play and just listen. You could also get out of bed, take a seat somewhere and enjoy this meditation. I uploaded it with the intention that you have something tangible that you can use to start your day right, especially if you’re going through things.
Please remember to be patient with others and yourself, as you start shifting changing and transitioning things. Rome wasn’t built in a day!
When you’re learning something new, always be open and patient with however long it takes. Repetition is the mother of all skill when you’re learning something new. A lot of people fail because they give up too easy and they lose patience with themselves.
Finally, another great thing that you can do if you are really struggling with patience is hypnotherapy. It’s an alternative therapy that I offer and is outstanding for bringing in patience to people’s lives.
Patience takes practise and practise makes perfect.