How to develop patience using mindfulness and other strategies

A Quick Guide

Developing patience requires practicing mindfulness and implementing patience in daily life. Mindfulness meditation helps in recognizing impatience, regulating body language, acknowledging and accepting emotions, and modifying impatient thoughts. Additionally, practicing patience in situations like traffic, queues, and conversations can further enhance patience skills over time.

Introduction

Patience is a personal capacity that varies across individuals. While some people have trouble delaying what they want, others can easily wait calmly for long periods of time. This makes impatient people wonder, How is it possible that this person can wait for such a prolonged duration and that too with a calm attitude? How can I be more patient like him/her?

Rest assured, almost all of us go through times when we want things to happen immediately. Yet, we need to remind ourselves that everything will happen in its own time. It is highly likely that impatient people are so used to immediate gratification especially from their parents in their childhood, that it is hard for them to sit with the idea of waiting. Nonetheless, it is still possible to develop patience during adulthood. The only thing needed is the willingness and commitment to practice the approaches discussed below.

Learn more about: How Being Mindful Can Benefit You? 

How to develop Patience

To develop patience, the following strategies can be utilized:

Practice mindfulness meditation to develop patience

Mindfulness refers to paying attention to the present moment. Accordingly, it incorporates the awareness of internal and external experiences while being in the moment. This can include paying attention to your body, your emotions, and your thoughts.

Mindfulness is a popular strategy that can be used to cultivate an attitude of patience in ourselves. It is the perfect training for your mind if you consider yourself to be a naturally impatient person. For practicing it, Try to catch yourself when you are being impatient.

• Notice your body language e.g. you will be pacing around, tapping your foot, biting your nails, breathing quickly, running your hands through your hair, etc.
• Your feelings may include anxiety, agitation, restlessness, worry, etc.
• Your thoughts would have content of frustration with waiting e.g. ‘Why can’t things happen more quickly?’, ‘I cant wait anymore’. ‘This is taking too long’.

Through mindfulness, pay attention to all of these.

• Gently, try to regulate your body language. For example, try to breathe regularly. Make an effort to sit still and reduce agitated behaviors including tapping your foot, pacing around, etc.
• Acknowledge your feelings and accept that you are having trouble waiting.  Address and label your emotions. For example, ‘I am feeling restless at the moment.’ Or ‘I am agitated right now’ etc.
• Finally, address your thoughts and try to make them more neutral. For example, ‘I can’t wait this long’ can be modified to say ‘I know waiting is hard but I have successfully waited for longer durations before. So I can do it again’ or ‘Waiting is challenging but I believe I have the capacity to do it if I put my mind to it’. Etc.

Furthermore, notice the connections between your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors and how they influence each other. For example, thoughts of impatience will intensify your emotions and increase your agitated behaviors or vice versa.

Other strategies to develop patience: Practice it in daily life

Another strategy to develop patience is to practice it in your daily life. A few examples of it include the following:

1. Waiting through the traffic strategy

We all are in a hurry to get to our workplace or school or some other place on a regular basis. Consequently, we drive faster and try to rush through the traffic to skip the waiting part. Take an alternative approach and wait through the yellow light instead of speeding up. Notice how that makes you feel. Repeat it frequently and see whether being patient becomes easier or difficult for you.

2. Being patient with cues

Another common place where we exhibit impatience is at the supermarket or hospital or bank. In other words, all the places where we have to stand in a cue and wait for our turn. Here, you can intentionally try to choose the cue which is longer instead of going to the shortest one. You can even try giving up your turn for someone else. Notice how that makes you feel and affects your experience. Practice this a few more times and see its impact on your patience capacity.

3. Practice patience in Listening

When we have conversations with others, we have an urge to hog the talk time. We listen only for the sake of responding later on. So, try to practice patience in your social interactions. Spend more time listening to someone and reduce your own talk time. Notice any urges to speak and delay them. This will take a lot of effort but it is a great strategy to be more patient in the long run. Train your brain to be on the listening end and eventually, you will see the results.

Try to practice the above practices regularly. With time, hopefully, you will notice a gradual shift in your capacity to be patient. To learn more about mindfulness, check out the related articles.