How to Develop More Patience

I often get people who ask me how to become a more patient person — they get easily frustrated or angry, impatient and annoyed, and it’s not always good for their relationships.

I’m very familiar with impatience, because it’s been a companion of mine for life.

Some ways that I’ve noticed I get impatient:

• I want myself to make progress (on a project, learning, habit, etc.) really quickly, and I get impatient when it takes longer than I’d hoped (i.e. wanting results immediately)
• I get frustrated when I’m teaching something to someone and they don’t get it right away (i.e. a fear that I’m not doing a good job of teaching)
• I get frustrated when other people aren’t moving as quickly as I want to move on a project (i.e. more wanting results immediately)

Do any of these sound familiar? Let’s take a look at how to become more patient — but be warned that developing patience takes … a bit of patience! I know that’s ironic, but I want to set up the expectation that it’s not an immediate switch for most of us. It takes practice.

Why We’re Impatient

Before we can see how to shift ourselves to a more patient mindset, we have to understand why we’re impatient.

Often we’re impatient because we want what we want, and we want it now. We want results as soon as possible. We want quick progress. We want to be through the part where we’re learning, to the part where we’re good at something.

In other words, we don’t like to be in the messy growth phase. It’s like not wanting to go through the construction phase, just wanting the finished home. Not wanting to be a beginner, just an expert.

If we’re unwilling to go through the growth phase, and experience the discomfort of that, then we’ll be unable to experience the growth.

But beyond this impatience to get to the finish line already … we also want other people to act the way we want them to act — to move quickly, to do things the way we like, to learn quickly, etc. Just like we don’t have grace for ourselves to go through the growth process, we don’t have grace for other people who are growing as well. We expect them to already do things perfectly.

A Shift in Mindset

So understanding this, how do we develop more patience? The answer lies in developing some grace for ourselves and others who are going through a growth process (hint: that’s all of us).

And that means learning to develop a tolerance for the discomfort of being in the growth process. It’s not comfortable being a beginner and messing up a lot. It’s not comfortable when there’s a mess when you’re building something. We want to get out of that discomfort — and that’s a big reason why we’re impatient.

How can we learn to tolerate this discomfort?

We can learn to see the beauty in growth and learning.

Can we find beauty in making mistakes? This is where learning takes place.

Can we find beauty in being a beginner? This is the place where so much is possible.

Can we find beauty in messiness? This is where creativity happens.

Can we find beauty in not moving as quickly as we want? In slowness, we can deepen our curiosity.

How to Practice

Start by committing to developing this new mindset of seeing the beauty in growth, learning, slowness, messiness.

Try to notice whenever you’re feeling impatient. When you want to move quickly, when you want results now, when you want people to learn or move as quickly as possible.

When you notice the impatience, pause and breathe. See this as a chance to find beauty in the messiness.

Then slow down for a moment, and reflect on what beauty you can find in the growth, learning, messiness, mistakes, being a beginner, going slowly.

Find grace for the other person’s growth process as well — what beauty can you find in it?

with love,

Leo Babauta

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