How many times have you told yourself  or been told ‘Be Patient!’?

Patience is often described as a lack of action; ‘buy those shoes now or be patient and wait for them to go on sale.’  More times than not though, when people are struggling with patience and wishing for more of it (right now!) it has to do with too much activity, not too little – ‘why won’t this work? I’ve been struggling with it for hours!’  ‘I’m ready to strangle David, he’s been whining nonstop’, ‘Why isn’t this traffic moving, I’m already late!’ etc. and so on.  Not all activity is physical, sometimes it’s passive like listening or worrying in the earlier examples.

So what’s the secret to getting back in the groove of patience?  Simply stopping.  Stop what you’re doing and switch to something else.  Getting frustrated because the computer keeps crashing and you can’t get that report done? Stop working on it,  do another task and come back to this one later.  Even if that report was due yesterday – frustration never creates much value anyway.  Caught in traffic? Stop worrying and start thinking about what you want for Christmas so you can get your list out to friends and family early – worrying does not make lights turn green or cars move (really, it doesn’t.)

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