How To Be More Patient: 9 Ways To Build Patience

When people or life in general seem to be pushing the limits of what we can tolerate, remaining poised may seem impossible for some people. Getting a little frustrated once in a while is normal. At the same time, though, patience is a useful skill that can contain this and minimize the amounts of time we lose our cool.

Even if some of the situations you deal with seem impossible to remain cool in the face of, patience is still possible.

Why is patience important?

Patience is a useful skill when it comes to navigating the challenges of daily life. No one is immune from the possibility that something will come up that pushes their emotional limits. If something like this arises, having the skills to maintain your composure can make the difference between success and failure. Even if failure is certain or has already been realized, patience can help with coping and persisting.

Being patient also offers many benefits for day-to-day life. If someone is more patient, they are more likely to have better health – probably because they have less stress in their life. Patient people also tend to have better opportunities when it comes to finding and keeping a job, upward movement in their career and maintaining relationships. 

How to be more patient

Building patience is possible. Yes, certain factors that might be outside of your control like your childhood or temperament, which can affect your ability to remain patient. However, these do not mean you can’t build your patience, they just mean you might need to do a little bit of work.

Here are some ways you can become more patient.

1. Think it through before acting

By thinking before you act, you give yourself the chance to truly consider the appropriate response and think logically rather than emotionally. Impatient responses are often the result of impulsive actions. Thinking before acting helps control this impulsivity and increases our ability to respond in a more controlled manner.

Ask yourself questions, analyze the situation or simply take a moment to acknowledge what thoughts come to your head before you react. One question I recommend is asking yourself how the most ideal and patient version of you would respond. The answer to that should give you guidance for your best course of action.

2. Consider potential consequences of impatience

Acting in a manner driven by emotion and a lack of patience can sometimes have consequences. Losing your patience might ruin friendships or bonds, embarrass you or even hurt other people. Ask yourself how you would feel if someone responded to you the same way you want to respond when feeling inpatient. There is a good chance others might feel this same way or worse because of your rash actions.

Even people’s jobs and livelihood have been affected by a lack of patience. Keep these things in mind when feeling like you are losing your cool. Remember that it’s not worth it to potentially cause yourself trouble; being patient can pay off.

3. Take time to calm down

Not every situation requires an immediate and extreme reaction. Some situations actually require the complete opposite of that, but that’s not really the point here. The point is you should be taking time to calm down before you react (whenever possible).

Sometimes you may not have the luxury of being able to “get back” to something and you need to address it right away, in which case you should consider other strategies to be more patient. But you may find many opportunities where you can create distance between yourself and the situation, even if only temporarily. Take advantage of this – create some distance and address things when you are more calm.

This can help you get over some of the emotions you may be hyped up with. Taking a break and distancing yourself provides time to recompose and return when you’re thinking more clearly.

4. Relax

This may seem obvious but it actually works. Of course it’s not always this simple but a little willpower can be surprisingly helpful for many people in a pinch. If you lose your patience you can try just calming down. Obligate yourself to do this by taking control of the way you feel. Do not allow the impatience to win. Try giving yourself an order like “calm down” or “take it easy.”

5. Focus on something else

Taking your mind off the source of what is making you lose your patience can be a great way to regain it. If you find yourself stuck thinking about something that you just really want to overreact to, try shifting your focus to a more neutral external stimuli.

Think about your breathing, for example. You don’t have to breathe deep or overthink it, just draw your attention to it. Think about the feeling of your clothes, your feet on the ground or just the ceiling or temperature of the room you’re in.

6. Understand your emotions

Feelings often have reasons. Understand what you’re feeling that is making you lose your patience and why you’re feeling it. Once you understand what this is, make an effort to address your feelings in an emotionally mature manner.

7. Choose to ignore/accept

Sometimes things are the way they are. Not everything needs your reaction. Sometimes ignoring really is the best strategy. It might seem hard if you’re dealing with a major life hurdle but life isn’t always fair.

Take a few moments to just accept things and be okay with ignoring them. Make a choice to let it just be and you live your life despite it. Remember, accepting something doesn’t mean you have to celebrate it, you can simply choose to take it for what it is and move on in life.

8. Practice patience

Put yourself in controlled situations where you have the opportunity to gradually build patience. Start off with something small and start taking on larger challenges. These situations should have easy outs and be low-stakes. Use them to build your ability to tolerate patience testing situations.

Consider reading a book, for example. Maybe you tell yourself you want to finish 10 pages in one day. Do that for about a week or until you feel it starts getting easier. Then you might want to go up to 15 pages a day. You can work on your own pace here, or do another activity you think would help you. Knitting, learning a new skill online or sitting and doing nothing – all of these have the potential to help.

9. Understand that many things aren’t big deals

Losing your patience might be the result of thinking something is a big deal even though it really isn’t. Often, people lose their patience because they emotionally overreact to an external issue. But why is it such a big deal? The answer is it probably isn’t.

It’s okay to feel emotions and to have a preference for the way you want things to go, but that doesn’t mean they will go that way for sure. Ultimately, if you view many of life’s situations with dismissiveness you might start finding yourself not reacting as easily. Small problems that many people place importance on are often not that important. Before you react, question how important something truly is. How much or for how long will it affect your life? You may find that, a lot of times, it’s not much.