When was the last time you said or thought: “I can’t take this anymore…I am done with it…When is it going to end…This is taking too long…”? Not so long ago, right? You are not alone; we are all in the same boat. We all want things to happen faster. Our western culture and education system has ingrained in us from a young age to achieve our goals, get results, move to the next level, or climb the corporate ladder. There is nothing wrong with having ambition, except if that said ambition narrows your focus to a point of impatience.

When I was a kid, I was very creative. I spent my time either outdoors or in my father’s workshop building things. It could be a giant kite that would lift me up into the air or an enormous treehouse that I had to take down by order of the local police (yes, it was that big and apparently illegal… which I of course didn’t care about at my age!). I would spend time in the workshop cutting metal, welding, and building furniture. I even rebuilt an entire airplane completely over 3 years with two friends. Yet, in all my endeavors, my biggest setback was my impatience. I always had clear visions and knew how to plan and execute them, but then I wanted to be finished before I started. This didn’t change when I started my military career as a fighter pilot. I wanted to become one of the top fighter pilot instructors. As you can guess, it takes time to reach this high level of mastery flying airplanes at a speed that pushes your mind and body to the edge of physical and mental capacities. Even now, typing with my two fingers (yes, I have never learned to type with all 10 fingers… I tried to acquire this skill… but haven’t really succeeded… yet!) I am impatient to reach the end. Impatience is probably running in my DNA. I am not proud of it. I sought to find tools that would help me to become more patient and shift my mindset into being present and enjoying the journey.

I don’t know about you, but my experience and observations suggest that only when we become older (and probably wiser), do we focus on being more aware of the feelings and sensations we have in the moment, and understanding that patience is the key to greater happiness, joy, and gratitude for life. I guess this is the reason why we say that “patience is a virtue”, a proverb referring to Psychomachia’s poem (Battle of spirits or soul war) which dates back to the fifth century. Having patience is a quality (or skill) that can serve all of us well. The next five tips will help you to become less frustrated, stressed, and upset when life is slowing you down.

Know your triggers

If you look back the last time you were impatient, what was the trigger? Where you caught in traffic on your way to the office? Was your friend late again for the lunch or meeting? Was it the same noise of the trash that wakes you up every Monday morning? Was it the same tasks you must do every day? Was it something your friend or coworker said that upset you and left you feel the urgency to reply or prove them wrong? What is it for you? Make a list of all the triggers that you can remember. You will see that often, there is a pattern. One of them could be recurring situations or events (being caught in the traffic). Another could be words or actions from other people. Identify these triggers. You will discover that there are not a lot. When you know them, you will be able to create a game plan that alleviates the feeling of frustration, anger, or animosity you feel. Find ways to change the process around the event, maybe you can listen to a podcast when you are on your way to the office. When someone says or does something that generates the urgency for you to react, focus on taking a few deep breaths and ask yourself the following three questions:

1. Is it REALLY SO IMPORTANT that I need to address it now?

2. Will my reaction or response benefit BOTH OF US (or the group)?

3. Do I have 100% control about it?

If you have a “NO” to one of those three questions, just let it be. Give it to the universe to resolve. It is simple. Time will work in your favor.

Journal

Writing and journaling was something I avoided for probably 4 decades. I still struggle sometimes. When I was a child, I was dyslexic and couldn’t write or express myself properly. When I was in 5th and 6th grade, the teacher would beat me, almost every day. I was afraid to go to school and petrified to write. When people told me to journal, I always found excuses to not do it. The turning point for me was when I hit a wall in 2017, and had to rebuild a new life and career. I was so anchored in this fixed mindset that it took a ‘forced” life-changing event (thank you Universe) for me to understand that I can learn anything and start all over again. It is important to acknowledge that our mind and body are capable to change, adapt, and grow. It was my big shift from fixed-mindset to open-mindset. Writing and journaling was the first two things that I challenged myself to do regularly. Every morning and evening, I journaled and this was one of the best habits I have ever established in my life.

If you sit every day for a few minutes to write a few words about events or situations that have happened during the day whilst thinking about the FEELINGS and SENSATIONS you had at the time, you will discover the thought patterns that are not serving you. You will clearly identify the triggers that we mentioned before. You will become aware of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Only after identifying the triggers and becoming aware of your reactions, will you be able to create new habits and ways of thinking and responding. You will see that often the impatience was the cause of your frustration, anxiety, or rash reactions. You will be able to find ways to mitigate these reactions. It is not going to be an overnight fix. But with time, you will get better, and patience will become second nature.

Play

If I look back over my life I can see that I worked hard and didn’t play hard. I was so focused on starting the next project, reaching the next goal, and getting to the next level professionally that I forgot to have fun. I was the guy in the squadron that would skip his vacation to work instead. Work was my life. Reflecting on that, I must say that it didn’t serve me well. Good life balance requires playtime. Well, guess what, patience needs playtime too. I am a strong believer that if you want to nurture certain qualities and learn or improve new skills you must get hands-on. Intellectualizing skills, ideas, or concepts is only half the work. You must practice it with your physical body; even verbally, if, for instance, you want to become a great public speaker, or through action, by doing it. Now, how can you practice patience? I will give you a few ideas:

• Reserve a block of time every day to learn a new skill that requires patience; be consistent (if I would have started typing a year ago, I might be able to type with my 10 fingers, right!?)

• Puzzles or word games are great for building patience

• If you like to work with your hands, build something that will take time to complete (I remember when I was young building plastic model airplanes… that was something I struggled with, and they didn’t look so great, as you can expect!)

• Read a long and challenging book that will force you to digest it little by little

• Learn to play an instrument or if you already know-how, move to the next level of difficulty

Check your energy level mentally and physically

We can have two types of impatience, recurring and non-recurring. The first is a repetitive situation or event that triggers our impatience (like the traffic we talked about before). The latter is often triggered by the energy levels you have at that moment. I remember when I was painting all the fences around my house. It was a long project. As you can imagine, I wanted to be finished before I started. My goal was to finish it all within one week. So, I worked without breaks, painting all day long under the California sun (which I love). I didn’t eat or even drink much, I just pushed through. I wanted to get it done fast and reach my goal at the end of the week. Well, after one day painting for 12 hours straight, my focus wasn’t there anymore. More and more droplets of paint were falling on the protective plastic. I moved faster to finish and get something in my stomach. I was impatient to finish the day. I turn around quickly unaware of my surroundings and guess what happened?! My left foot tipped the one gallon of paint on the floor. I was so mad… it took me an hour to clean up the mess… on an empty stomach.

When we are tired or exhausted, it is normal to have less patience. We reach those states because we don’t take care of ourselves first. We forget to eat, drink, or take small breaks to move our body and distract our mind. Notice if you can see patterns during the day where you are less patient. Is it when you are hungry? How much water have you drunk the few hours before you became impatient? How do you feel when you do not exercise or stay sat for hours in front of your computer without a break, staring at your screen hoping to have a breakthrough from the blackhole you set your mind in? Do you recognize a pattern?

If yes, make sure you give yourself the right nutrients throughout the day (and not only early in the morning or late at night with nothing in between), drink plenty of water, and move your body every hour for a few minutes. Have a walk, stretch, do some pushups or some breathing exercises. I can guarantee you will feel the transformation if you pay attention to your level of energy mentally and physically. If you feel tired, low in energy, and low in creativity then there is a high probability that if an unexpected or unpleasant event occurs, you will lose patience. Pay attention to how you feel mentally and physically and take the appropriate action to hold yourself to a high standard.

 

Reality check

I left Switzerland for good on December 31st, 2017 following a family tragedy in 2014 that snow-balled into a situation I couldn’t recover from in my personal and professional life. I asked for help and knocked on many doors from family members, friends, and legal entities. They all stayed locked and nobody helped. I won’t get into more detail because it is a part of my next book project (where I am learning to be patient!). A few years after I left, I hated Switzerland for what happened. I lost everything because of some mischievous people. It took me time to reframe the story and see what really happened. I decided, alone, to leave a very toxic environment and dysfunctional system to get back my freedom, and be able to do what I really love to do which is helping people. I was blessed to be able to live in the country of opportunities. I got my happiness back and met amazing new people. I felt alive again.

Too many times we create a story around a fact that does not reflect the reality. We want to believe that story. For me, it was the “victim story”. Whatever circumstance or event that frustrates you or makes you impatient, consider approaching it from a different angle. Ask yourself these questions:

1. Is the story I am telling myself true?

2. Is that story true?

3. What three positive things came out of it?

Asking those three questions will help you to change your perspective.

Another reality check is to look at the big picture, your purpose. Take a god-sight view of what is happening. If the task in hand frustrates you because it takes more time than you think or you must redo it, think about the bigger picture. Will it have a big impact on your long-term objective or purpose?

I remember last year accidentally deleting 4 edited videos that I shot for an online course. It was 4 days of hard work… gone with no backup (it would have been too easy). First, I was livid and upset. Then I did a reality check. Over the 6 months that I spent building the course, these four extra days that I needed to redo the videos would not jeopardize the project at all (big picture). So, no point in getting upset. On top of that, if I reframe my story, it was a good opportunity to practice more (skill up), make a few content changes that would increase the value, and shoot even better videos than the first time (new positive perspective). After processing these thoughts (not a big deal from a broad perspective) and reframing my story (positive story), I was okay with having patience and redoing them.

What you need to be aware of is how you frame your story first before thinking about the big picture. Your level of anxiety, anger, or frustration will drop drastically. The more you practice it, the easier it will be. At one point, your mind will automatically process situations and events through a lens of positivity, gain, and broader viewpoint and your level of patience will increase.

 

Final words

Let’s summarize:

1. Know your triggers, and you will see that there are not so many

2. Journal what happened during the day from a perspective of feelings and sensations

3. Be more playful in life and try new things that require a little bit of patience

4. Check how you felt energetically in that moment (physically and mentally)

5. Reality check by observing the story you are telling yourself and thinking about the big picture, your mission and your purpose

You will see a change within you that encourages patience. They are simple changes. No rocket science behind it. But they must be challenging to implement change. So, what can you do? BE PATIENT with yourself.

One last thought about being patient. Don’t make the mistake of not saying what you think and feel, letting people get away with bad behavior, staying quiet when someone is treating you poorly (hoping he /she will change), or not respecting your self-worth. Patience needs boundaries. Being respected, acknowledged, and heard is crucial. Don’t just sit back and wait whilst hoping that the Universe will take care of everything for you or that people will change. Be patient with the situation in hand and with the people in your life, but make sure that you share your boundaries and have clarity on what you want, expect, and want to reach in your life. Patience and boundaries go hand-in-hand.

I think we can all learn to be more patient. We can all work on it. I am confident that if you implement these five tools, you will see some magic happen. Your co-workers will appreciate you more. You will have more harmony in your relationships, more peace, and calm. Your overall health, wellbeing, and happiness will improve. But like everything in life, you need to first start practicing them and then stay consistent in your practice. Start today! And finally, be kind to yourself, nothing will happen overnight. Deep transformations occur in the long run; so be patient my friend.

- Hubert
YourHPcoach

P.S. Hey guys, Hubert here!

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