Epi 87: How to Practice Patience - Mini Mindset Reset
Do you lack patience? Being patient is a massive struggle for many people, but for women, especially. Some of our impatience is due to our many roles and responsibilities, and some lead back to our habits and routines.
Jill from Manchester, England, wrote in and said, “Thank you for creating the mindset resets, Danielle. I’ve been following the podcast and am a part of the Instagram community, and everything you talk about is helpful. But, there is still something I struggle with, and I am hopeful you can help give me some insight! My problem is: I’m incredibly impatient. It doesn’t matter what it is, I always want to be in the next place, doing the next thing, and I hate waiting! I want everything to happen on my schedule, and when it doesn’t, I get upset. I realize after listening to you that some of this is a trauma response from my past and perfectionism, but I need help to calm down and learn to wait. Can you help me?
Of course, I have a few tools to help with impatience! But, first, we can all experience impatience. Minor and significant irritations, disruptions, and slow-moving goals add to our discomfort, and that is often when impatience roars its not-so-pretty head.
The first place to start anytime you begin to feel impatient is to slow down your thought process and pick up on the thoughts and physical feelings of being intolerant.
Impatience has a language that all of us have said. So that sounds like: “This is taking forever.” “I wish this would hurry up.” “I’m so annoyed by this.” “I don’t have time for this,” to name a few. These statements probably sound familiar, and yet, if we don’t have an awareness of what these statements and thoughts are below the surface, we can’t do much to change them or the root, which is impatience.
So if you find yourself saying or thinking these statements or something similar, stop and check in with yourself. What is happening at the moment? Are you uncomfortable? Are you forecasting how something will play out? Do you feel displaced or infringed upon? What is truly happening?
Impatiences can also have physical symptoms too. That feels like tension in your muscles, restlessness or jiggling your feet and legs, clenching your hands, being short of breath, elevated heart rate, irritability, and even area.
Become clear about what is happening because we cannot address or fix what we do not know is happening.
Next, work to shift your perspective about the situation. Most situations that make you feel impatient are the ones that cannot quickly or easily be changed. So instead of focusing on what is not happening, feeling powerless, or concentrating on what needs to be changed, you can change the narrative of the moment.
A great tool is to ask yourself: Since I cannot remove myself from this situation or change it immediately, how can I improve the moment or work for me?
Getting into a space of mindfully creating active solutions breaks the tension and resets your thinking.
Another way to tackle impatience is to create a personal strategy to counteract any triggers you have when it comes to lacking patience. This pre-work will help you be mindful and aware of the things that tank your thought process. So, grab a piece of paper or a journal and write a list of things that trigger your impatience. So that list may be traffic or having to wait, or maybe a person in your life could make you feel emotionally impatient. Write the list, and then offer yourself a firm strategy for how you will deal with that individual situation. This helps us create a toolbox of behaviors that will always serve us.
So a solution could be that you are going to take three deep breaths, examine why you are frustrated and then explain how you feel using I language, not you language. So, I feel. I need. I want. I am. I think. Not, you always, you are, can’t you just, etc.
Another solution may be to say, “I’m feeling a bit off at the moment, and I need to take a break.” This allows you to walk away.
Whatever works for you, create your list of common triggers and then offer workable, viable solutions to which you know you can stick to, even in the heat of the moment.
The final way to address your impatience before I hand over another quick, easy-to-use strategy is to adjust your expectations. Let’s face it; you will always be frustrated and impatient if you are constantly upset with others, situations, places, or things that cannot possibly meet elevated or unreasonable expectations. On the other hand, if you continuously feel disappointed or let down, this leads to impatience, and it is time to re-think your expectations.
Some examples of this would be: if you feel impatient with, say, a weight loss goal, you must remind yourself that the weight you are working to shed didn’t come on overnight, and therefore, it’s going to take time for it to come off.
If you find yourself impatient in traffic, you may need to change your expectation of the time you need for your commute. For example, if you know you are leaving during a heavier traffic time and your destination is 35 minutes away. Still, you are only giving yourself 40 minutes, you are setting yourself up for frustration because the expectation cannot be met.
Or perhaps, you are easily upset by your partner’s lack of attention to detail, continually overlooking the dishes, the laundry piling up, or they are always late. Finally, suppose you are becoming impatient but not addressing the issue. In that case, the expectation of finding a resolution is nearly impossible because the other person doesn’t have all the information they need to help solve the impatience and meet the expectation.
With those factors of impatience on the table, let’s talk about reinforcing patience!
We live in a bigger, faster, more world. And to get out of the habit of impatient thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, we must slow down our responses. We build and practice patience by not giving into the urge to act and react to every moment.
In order to put all of this into practice, I want to offer you a practice called WAIT.
W in the wait practice stands for watch. Watch what is happening within; watch your thoughts, feelings, and actions. Give yourself a moment to pause and watch everything occurring internally and externally.
Now to the A in Wait. Accept. Accept the moment as it is. Accept your feelings and the situation without immediately pushing against it or trying to change or react. Accept.
The I stands for investigate. As I said before, get to the root of why you feel the way you do. Is this situation pulling forth something from the past? Is it that you are uncomfortable? Are you creating a story around the moment that makes you uncomfortable and impatient? Are you forecasting how something that hasn’t occurred yet and making yourself mentally and emotionally tank?
And lastly, the T, which stands for Tend. Tend your feelings, tend to the moment, and tend to others with compassion.
By learning to control your impatience, you enable yourself to approach situations with a greater sense of calm, balance, and ease than you do if you approach something with discomfort and impatience. In addition, by not giving in to the urge to react, you change the thought process and offer yourself emotional and mental rewards.
These little nuggets add up to significant results if you practice them! If impatience is your natural go-to, remember it will take a bit more time to change your habits, but it can be done with a small amount of effort and a lot of focus. Wanting to create change is always step 1.
I hope this gives you some tools and insight into how you can make this shift!
Thank you so much for the question, Jill! I challenge you to find the method that best works for you and helps you reset your mindset.
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