How To Be More Patient: 22 Practical Tips

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Following these simple yet practical tips to be more patient will ensure you don’t fall into the trap easily.

Give these tips a try, I’m sure in just a month you’ll see a transformed version of yourself where your patience levels will be higher, you’ll feel more relaxed and calm, your mental state lighter, and stress levels to a minimum.

If that’s something you’ve been longing for, let’s dive deep into the article!

How To Be Patient: 22 Tips

1. Shift Your Attention

Shifting your attention is an effective way to be patient which people have been using for centuries. It works most of the time and implementing it isn’t difficult.

Let’s say you’re in a tight situation, you can feel the heat increasing, you know sooner or later one is going to pop up, and then you’re going to lose your patience.

Right before the moment takes place or when it’s time for you to speak, simply say, ‘Not Now’ and walk away. Do something else.

Shift your focus from the argument or conversation to something less stressful. Here are a few things you can do:

Read a fiction novel
Solve Sudoku/Jigsaw puzzle
Take a walk
Listen to soothing songs
Lock yourself in a room and meditate
Watch Your favourite series
Cook a simple & tasty meal.

By simply shifting your focus to something else, your mind will immediately start processing the new thing at hand, thus you’ll calm yourself and be patient.

2. Focus On Why You’re Impatient

The root cause of why you’re Impatient? The minute you ask yourself that, you’re reasoning out the problem.

Maybe your friend was supposed to meet you an hour ago or you’re lacking sleep and there’s traffic on the way home.

Identify the root cause, find your why this will help you rationalise if the reason to get impatient is a good one or not.

Once you understand the reasons, you can adjust accordingly so that your patience levels increase for the moment.

3. Find Triggers That Affect Your Patience

If you’re arguing with your friend one day on The Big Bang Theory, then again tomorrow you do the same thing.

Then the day after that you still repeat the same situation. This is nothing but a trigger response.

Similarly, you miss your bus for 5 days then 10 days, you’re likely going to lose your patience and get frustrated. These are recurring events that cause problems in your life.

Find those triggers and make sure to eliminate it or avoid it. So in the first example, you can try to avoid talking to that friend about The Big Bang Theory, as for the bus problem, get up 10 – 15 min early.

Reduce your problems, that’ll reduce triggers and that will help you be more patient.

If your recurring problem is something that can’t be avoided or eliminated, accept the fact that there’s nothing you can do about it and try controlling your emotions.

4. Help and teach Those Who Make You Impatient

You’re likely Impatient cause someone is incompetent in doing the work or the work is being done slowly or they are making many silly mistakes and laughing at the same time.

Your friends may upset you by coming late for a party or ditch you to hang out with another friend.

You can lose your patience at any time, there are so many occasions for someone to piss you off.

In such situations, instead of getting hyper and exerting your anger on them, try helping them learn from their mistakes.

For example, your friend may not think it makes a big difference to you if he comes late on an occasion, maybe your work colleague doesn’t know how to get the work done fast, and efficiently with zero errors.

These problems can be easily solved if you help them, teach them how to do the task properly, easily so that they don’t repeat the same mistakes again and you don’t lose your calm.

These are mistakes that can be improved if both parties understand each other, not get angry at each other.

5. Think Of The Bigger Picture

Will getting impatient today will matter in the next 2 years? Does it even matter in the next 2 hours? Most of the time we crib about things that aren’t even that relevant.

We get furious on matters that are irrelevant to us in just a few hours. There’s only one thing that happens every time we lose our patience – we improve our bad habits and be a worse version of ourselves.

We get more angry, rigid, irritating, and all those bad habits traits. No good comes from screaming at the front person, instead, think of the bigger picture.

Think of the things that matter in 2 years, your well-being, happiness, success in personal and professional life, and financial wealth. Focus on these things and eliminate Bad Habits. It’s the easiest and most practical way to learn to be patient.

6. Be Human

We often lose our cool because we see the other person do silly things or behave in an illogical manner. People are different and they have different problems.

Some are good at dancing while they suck at math. Some are great at math but pathetic in extracurricular activities.

Perhaps you got frustrated seeing your colleague take 3 hours to do the work, but don’t be rude, he’s probably learning to do it faster and will slowly improve.

What I’m trying to say is that you can get irritated quite easily if someone isn’t up to the mark.

Instead of talking bad about them or treating them, show some empathy, make them feel good, teach them how to do it fast while being efficient, focus on the positives and ignore the negatives.

There are a lot of humans on the planet who focus on negatives and ruin everyone’s life, don’t be that human!

7. You’re Just Uncomfortable

Uncomfortable situations often lead to anxiety issues. This increases panic and stress and will often lead to a hyper state of mind.

Perhaps you’re an introvert and sitting with multiple people at once is making you uncomfortable. In such circumstances, you learn to find a way out of the problem.

If that’s not a feasible option, try thinking of something else, something happy and satisfying, physically you’re in a room full of people but mentally you’re thinking of sitting in a forest gazing at trees.

Remember that uncomfortable situations make us stronger individuals, sometimes being in uncomfortable situations and trying to control your urge is the best way out of the problem.

8. Write It Down

Follow this rule, every time you feel like you’ve lost your patience, write it down. Write down what troubles you, this keeps your thoughts organized in a book.

Use a book, a piece of paper or a notepad in your phone to write down every time your patience has skyrocketed.

After a few notes, you’ll start seeing a pattern, common triggers, this will help you to understand how you lose your patience and will keep you aware to not fall into the trap again.

Just by accepting that you’re committing a bad habit, you can reduce it.

You will also be able to look back at the notes and reflect on it once you’re calm.

Following this strategy will prevent future endeavours with anger, heated argument and of course you’ll be more patient.

9. Accept What You Can’t Change

Whining about something you can’t control is being useless at its best. You can’t change what you can’t control. In such situations, you ought to be patient, there’s no way around it.

Perhaps you’re waiting in line at the bank or you’re hoping to get done with your exams in 5 days. Such things are beyond your control, spending time thinking about how you could solve these problems will only waste your time.

Accept It, accept that you can’t change what you can’t control and if you can’t change it, you shouldn’t spend time thinking about it. Accept it and move ahead.

Repeating positive statements like ‘I am Patient’ or ‘I won’t Stress myself’ or ‘My tolerance levels are better than this’ are a few things you can attempt to do under such hectic uncontrollable situations.

10. Practice Mindfulness and Start Meditation

Mindfulness and Meditation are like golden tickets for avoiding negative Habits and inculcating good habits.

Meditation can effectively lower cortisol levels (stress hormones) and make you feel joyful.

Things that we wish could happen often don’t and things that we wish never happen tend to burden us. In this heat, Mindfulness comes to rescue us from our sorrows and sufferings.

Doing 10 – 20 minutes of meditation every day can keep you calm, happy, positive, and patient.

It will also improve cognitive abilities, mental and physical strength and make you more aware of your surroundings.

And here’s an interesting guided meditation for beginners. Try this out, in my experience, it’s quite simple and effective.

Meditation Room Supplies is a PDF and MP3 file that focuses to help you achieve relaxation and get deep with your daily meditations. The easy strategies discussed in the PDF will help you relax, thus increasing patience!

If you wish to reduce stress, get happier and find happiness through meditation, I highly recommend Meditation room supplies.

11. Get Productive

Sometimes you have to be patient, everything can’t be done at speed. Let’s say you’re waiting for the plane to land, in such cases you can’t speed up the plane but you can do something productive to not waste your time.

Read a book or reply to emails, listen to podcasts or improve your English by reading or playing an English learning game.

There are many ways to fill up your time instead of wasting it being impatient. Time is precious and neglecting its value is wrong.

Being productive can mean talking to the person next to you, after all indulging in conversations is great to build confidence and communication skills.

New opportunities may open doors just by talking to people or doing productive things.

12. Repeat “I am Patient” 10 Times

It does work, I use it all the time. By saying affirmative things, you’re bringing positivity to your mind. Keep repeating, “I am Patient” 10 times, even more, if 10 seems less.

You’ll instantly feel good and energetic. Instead of blindly saying it try believing it and saying it.

So every time you say I Am Patient, believe you are patient and see the effect it has on you. This will eventually improve your patience levels and reduce stress.

13. Eat Healthy Nutrition Rich Foods

Foods can put a smile on your face or keep you upset all day. What you eat is what you portray to others.

So eating healthy foods that provide essential nutrients to your body is a crucial aspect of a good lifestyle. When you’re anxious, instead of surrendering your hand for unhealthy high sugar foods or junk foods, try eating fresh fruits and vegetables.

Food affects our mental state, this decreases our patience and makes us uncomfortable. Foods high in sugar also increase dopamine which isn’t a good thing!

They will refresh you and keep you happy for long periods, unlike junk foods.

14. Focus On Getting A Good Quality Sleep

We can’t ignore the benefits of good quality sleep. When I say good quality I mean at least 6.5 hours and a max of 9 hours. I sleep for 7 – 8 hours every day and it keeps me fresh and active.

The days I sleep late or when I sleep for 5/6 hours, I feel lethargic and bored all day. Sleeping more will also reduce your body fat, keep you healthy, reduce stress and improve mood swings, reduce health-related risks too.

Some tips to experience Good Quality Sleep

Make your room dark.
Avoid using a phone or anything that emits blue light 30 min to 1 hour to bed.
Reduce your room temperature, a cool room will put you to sleep faster.
Inhale for 3 seconds and exhale for 3 seconds to calm your body and mind.

15. Learn To Be Disciplined

Many qualities make an ordinary person amazing and inspiring, one of these qualities is self-discipline.

Whether it’s the discipline to follow your morning routine or a healthy diet or to work smart. The key element to success is and will always be Discipline.

The more disciplined you are, the more patient you’ll be. Self-discipline doesn’t mean your life is going to be as hard as a rock, no time for joy and work all day every day.

It’s about developing a good routine that will keep you productive. Focusing on improving discipline will bring new good habits and kill those bad habits, bring more focus and make you mentally stronger.

16. Learn From Your Surroundings

Have you heard of Learner Behaviour? Learned Behaviour is something that you’re taught or you learn from people around you i.e your surroundings.

This type of behaviour is not hereditary but is learnt as you observe your surroundings. Similarly, look around and see how people react to situations that lead them to be Impatient.

Do they handle it badly or they know how to control themselves? When you go out for a walk, take a good look at how people react to situations, you’ll identify the triggers and patterns.

Emulate what they do when they’re tired and stressed. Learn how they calm themselves in a few seconds and move on with life. Observe, Interpret, Learn, Do.

17. Go For Evening Walks

A 15 minutes walk in the evening can bring immense benefits to your life. There are many scientific benefits to walking one of them is losing weight.

Cardio exercises can lead to better heart performance. Walking won’t get you a shredded, big chest and biceps, but it will surely strengthen your bones and muscles.

Whenever you feel burdened and stressed out, a small walk can be super effective for you. It clears your mind and improves your mood.

Put on your sporty shoes, slippers will work too and go out for a walk. If evening walks seem difficult, morning walks provide the same benefits!

18. Take Joy In Small Wins

Learn to enjoy the small wins you achieve, maybe you didn’t yell at your friend for coming late today or you didn’t bang the table when your colleague couldn’t do his work properly.

The line to visit the washroom was long but you didn’t lose your patience and you were calm. These are your small wins, celebrate it!

There’s a scientific reason for celebrating your wins, it makes you feel happy and this makes you continue on your patient journey. You may still be impatient but you’ve made progress, that’s important to note!

19. Be Impatient (Sometimes)

Learning how to be patient takes time and patience. You can’t always be patient, it’s impossible to keep cool even if the situation is way beyond what you expected. At such times, it’s okay to be impatient and burst out.

Sometimes being Impatient is the way to go, sometimes! It’s too frustrating, irritating, maybe disappointing, controlling your emotions may not be the ideal solution so just allow yourself to say goodbye to patience (just this time).

Rules for developing any habit are the same, be it patience or exercising, the occasional break is fine as long as you don’t indulge in the wrong thing regularly.

This may also improve your patience levels, cause now you know the threshold where you’ll lose your patience. Mostly that won’t happen and you’ll keep cool. Simple isn’t it!

20. Alleviate Stress Drastically

You don’t just wake up one day and start losing patience. Understand this concept – patience is a by-product of a situation, an emotion that occurs after something has happened, maybe a stressful situation, an irritating problem, a humiliating crisis, in such cases, you’re impatient.

By tackling the problem before you reach The Patience Stage is a smart way to get rid of problems and reduce being impatient.

Move your attention to solve the initial problem, usually, that’s a stressful problem. I’ve written a detailed article on stress management. Many tips will force you to reduce your stress levels almost instantly.

21. Practice Being Patient

It might sound simple but practicing something is the best way to learn, right? If you don’t know how to make a professional presentation, what do you do? You practice!

When you want to learn about Karate, you practice. So if you seriously want to be a master of patience, you need to practice it.

When there’s a heated argument or when people are discussing something or your friends are trying to make a point, give them time to talk, analyze their opinions, think about what you’re going to say, then start speaking.

The first time you may break out of ‘The Patience Zone’ but the more you control your urge to attack, the better you’ll react.

And don’t worry about opportunities to practice patience, I’m sure your normal daily routine has at least 2 or 3 occasions where you ought to get furious, these are golden opportunities chances for you to practice patience!

22. You Won’t Become A Patience Guru Overnight

Be patient, you won’t achieve patience if you’re not patient. How ironic! But I’m sure you get the point.

You need to train yourself over and over again to be somewhat good at achieving patience. Firsthand knowledge that you’ll surely lose patience easily, hesitate to not give up but you need to keep moving.

You can’t quit because people who don’t have patience quit, you are learning to be patient so you can’t and shouldn’t quit!

It takes time to make and sustain a habit and patience is a difficult habit, give it your undivided attention and time.

Conclusion

I practice being patient but I’m sure I’m not a Guru, I try my best to follow these practical rules but I still lose my patience sometimes. It’s natural, we all exhibit our hyperactive state of mind and get impatient.

There’s no secret mantra to completely discard being patient, even the people who meditate all day and practice all sorts of calming strategies end up breaking out once in a while.

Let me know your key to staying in The Patience Zone! How do you do it? Share your thoughts in the comments below. I’ll add them to this list!

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