4 Tips To Cultivate More Patience in an Impatient World

written by Nina Cashman

Photo by Andrew Stickelman on Unsplash

Are you overly critical of yourself when you don’t see your goals develop quickly enough? Join the club. Even though we all innately understand that our biggest dreams will require a lot of time and energy to fully manifest, most of us get a little impatient when we don’t see instantaneous results.

We all know that immediate results aren’t typically part of the “let’s try something new” equation. Yet, we live in a world where we can order just about anything with the simple click of a button, only to find it on our doorsteps the very next morning. Most of us are incredibly impatient, and why wouldn’t we be? Waiting is not a common component of our everyday lives.

So often, impatience leads to giving-up and completely abandoning our goals, only to feel skeptical about the very dreams and aspirations that used to inspire us. So, who couldn’t use a little inspiration to stay-the-course with our biggest goals from time-to-time? Here are a few tips to do just that.

Tip # 1 / Believe in Your Ability

Great ideas are a dime a dozen – we ALL have a lot of amazing concepts firing-off in our heads. Yet the courage, commitment, time and risk involved with actually figuring-out how to bring a great idea to life, can seem overwhelming. Why? Because so many of us don’t fully believe that we are capable of getting the job done.

The more I work with people as a career and executive coach, the more I notice self-confidence as the highest indicator of success. It’s not those with the greatest skill level who seem to be consistently knocking it out of the park – it’s actually those who are willing to give something their full attention and focus with a full personal belief that they can, in fact, figure anything out.

The common denominator they all have is a little voice inside their heads, which reminds them of their capability, regardless of the circumstances. The lesson? Yes, it takes time and commitment to absorb new information and learn how to apply it, and when our hearts fuel our brains with a pure belief that we really can figure things out, then guess what happens? We really do.

Tip # 2 / Test, Learn and Try Again

While the concept of “failing forward” is certainly not new, there’s no denying that it offers a great reminder that if we aren’t failing, we probably aren’t trying very hard.

Because failure is so deeply connected with our emotions, it offers some of the most memorable wisdom for us to carry forward. As with any scientific experiment, our own sensory observations of what does or doesn’t happen when we actually try something different, offers the most believable data for us to gain a deeper understanding about our world, and ourselves in it.

The journey towards our biggest goals will never be a straight line. It will always have a lot of twists and turns, unexplored scenery, puzzling conversations, and rest stops along the way. And, the further we intend to travel, the more likely we are to experience mechanical issues.

So, how long are we going to sit alongside the road cursing a situation before we simply figure-out how to get back “on the road again?” – thanks, Willie Nelson. Besides, unconventional stories make for interesting people.

Tip # 3 / Notice The Little Wins

It’s human nature to fixate on our most unproductive moments, and yet, there are always little wins buried within our biggest mishaps. Simply put, these are called life lessons.

Success rarely shows-up in one full sweep. Big achievements are often comprised of a lot of little lessons, and many small wins. The likelihood of attracting more wins, or better yet, bigger wins, increases at the same rate we are capable of directing attention towards anything and everything that is going well… big or small. Taking the time to notice our life lessons, even amongst our hardest times, builds little wins that become energetic building blocks for bigger wins.

Tip # 4 / Relax and Be Open

Sometimes it’s easy to fixate so hard on our end goals that we completely lose sight of aligned opportunities that are directly in front of us. We become so uptight about controlling the way our perfect pictures should unfold that we checkout of the present moment, where the greatest possibilities reside.

Opportunities are like stepping stones – they may not look exactly like the visions we’ve conjured-up in our heads, yet they are all around us, and it’s up to us to notice them.

In the end, patience is not only required for the full development of anything valuable, it is even more important when it comes to how we deal with ourselves and our own performance.

Remember, when we step-out of our comfort zones to push new boundaries and try new things, we aren’t typically going to be naturals right off the bat. Yet, we often miscalculate imperfections as inadequacies, or we exaggerate slow progress as “signs” of incompetency or impossibility.

There’s a reason most religions consider patience a virtue – it’s because at the core of them all, there is a deep understanding of human fallibility. Yes, the old adage that nobody is perfect. Yet despite our imperfections, our ability to persevere with confidence and vigor rests within our ability to give ourselves the space to learn and grow with as much patience as possible. So, as health psychologist Gene Eberts once said, “don’t just do something – stand there.”