Patience: Learn it or Lose it
The superpower you wished you had
Howdy readers & personal development enthusiasts!
We welcome 2025 with a new topic on patience.
How many of you have this resolution in the new year?
I want to have more patience with….
My kids
My co-workers
My partner
Etc.
If you are like me and most people you have a hard time with this.
You say you want to have patience, but…
You get so mad that you yell your head off
You get so irritated that you say something sarcastic that you regret
You get so frustrated that you feel like you are going to explode.
Most people try to find some on-the-spot methods to deal with this.
Among these, breathing and taking a step back - literally - are most effective.
But are these enough?
The problem with having patience is exactly this: having it or not having it.
Where do you get patience? You cannot buy it at the supermarket? You cannot borrow it.
It’s a very binary way of looking at it, right?
And that’s why most people feel really bad about not having patience. It’s that one thing that we say we want to have but have no clue how to get it.
The way we refer to patience - having it - we assume that one has it already and just has to uncover it.
How? That’s the unknown.
The way I look at it and I encourage my clients to do the same is as a behavior.
Or a skill that you learn & develop & work at just like any other skill.
Let’s break down patience:
Patience is the ability to:
Listen
Understand
Accept or make room for another perspective or behavior
Breathe
Take a step back
Engage
Make time to think about stuff
Etc
So how about instead of resolving to have patience, would you resolve to acquire patience? Or to develop patience?
How does that sound?
What changes in your confidence in showing patience when you consider it a skill rather than a fixed thing?
I can practice & learn how to listen
I can practice & learn how to respond
I can practice & learn to make room
I can practice & learn to think about stuff.
Patience is a skill, not a virtue.
How does that sound? I hope that this way of looking at it makes it easier to implement.
There you go! That is patience!
Good luck!