Ep 108: The Power of Patience

Do you feel stressed and anxious when things don’t go according to your timeline? If the answer is yes, you’re not alone. Patience is something we all struggle with, but when we cultivate patience over time, we open ourselves up to a host of benefits. 

In this episode, I share real-life examples where patience can make a difference, and I walk you through some simple strategies to help you practice it daily.

Cultivating patience takes time, and that’s okay. It’s all about making progress, not perfection.  Each moment of patience is a step towards becoming your favorite you.

Click HERE to get the full show notes.

Transcript

Hey, this is Melissa Parsons, and you are listening to the Your Favorite You Podcast. I'm a certified life coach with an advanced certification in deep dive coaching. The purpose of this podcast is to help brilliant women like you with beautiful brains create the life you've been dreaming of with intentions. My goal is to help you find your favorite version of you by teaching you how to treat yourself as your own best friend.

If this sounds incredible to you and you want practical tips on changing up how you treat yourself, then you're in the right place. Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of using all of the words available to me in the English language, so please proceed with caution if young ears are around.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Your Favorite You.

Today, we are going to talk about something that I've been working on cultivating for quite some time, perhaps the past 51 years.

I come from a long line of impatient women. My maternal grandma may have been the most impatient woman to ever walk the planet. If she were still alive, she would be so proud of the work that I'm doing with this podcast. 

And as a tiny aside, I went to a psychic within the past year who did not know that I had a podcast, and she said that there were two older women trying to come through and that they were sitting together, laughing at me because they thought I was talking to a wall. And I figured out these women were actually my grandma Peg and John's grandma, who we call Gigi. Apparently, they were having a lovely time together, laughing hysterically at me, doing what they thought was talking to a wall. So now that I think about it, my grandma Peg also made herself known at another one of my readings and was very impatient during that reading as well. So it seems like she still might be impatient.

I digress quite a bit there, but all of this to say that she knew that I thought she was ridiculously impatient when she was alive. So I'm not saying anything today that she did not hear from me when she was still here on Earth.

When I tell you that Grandma Peg did not want to wait for anything, I mean that she did not want to wait for anything. And if she was annoyed or frustrated, believe me, we heard about it. She would sigh, she would roll her eyes, she would tisk. Subtlety was not her strong suit.

But as much as Grandma Peg's impatience could be frustrating at times, I've come to realize that impatience is a trait that many of us struggle with, of course, myself included.

In our fast-paced, instant gratification society, we've been conditioned to expect things immediately. We want our packages delivered the same day. We want our meals ready in minutes. And we want our questions answered with a quick search of the Googles.

But what happens when things don't go according to our timeline? That's where patience has to come in. So patience is a virtue for a reason. It allows us to maintain a sense of calm and perspective in the face of delays, setbacks, and frustrations. And when we cultivate patients over time, we open ourselves up to a host of benefits.

The first benefit that I can think of is reduced stress and anxiety. When we're inpatient, we often experience heightened stress and anxiety. Our heart rate increases, our muscles tense up, I don't know about you, but my shoulders become earrings that are so high up. Hopefully, you know what I'm talking about. Our mind races with worst case scenarios.

By practicing patience, we can learn to manage these stress responses and maintain a more relaxed state of being. More on that later.

So the second benefit is improved relationships. Impatience, of course, leads to irritability and short-temperedness, which can strain our relationships with other people. When we're patient, we're better able to listen, to communicate effectively, and to empathize with those around us.

I can personally remember so many times when Jack and Owen were younger, we were trying to get out of the house for the day to begin. Well, at least I was, the kids would've been perfectly happy to stay home all day. But I can vividly remember losing my patience with them, me having a meltdown, which of course led to them having a meltdown. And then the repair that I had to do in order to get us calmed down again took way longer than it would've taken if I had just taken some damn deep breaths and been more patient. Can anyone relate to this scenario?

Okay, another benefit of patience, enhanced problem skills. When faced with a challenge, our first instinct may be to react impulsively, or to give up altogether. Patience allows us to take a step back, assess the situation objectively, and come up with a thoughtful solution.

The way that this works scientifically is that when you get impatient, your body goes into what is called sympathetic activation, meaning your body goes into a fight, flight, freeze, fawn, or fix response. And when our emotions are high, typically our intelligence and problem solving is low.

So if you can, take a step back, breathe deeply to activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which is the one that helps you calm down, so that you can come up with new ways of thinking about the problem and potential solutions.

The fourth benefit of patience is emotional flexibility. So most of us have a life full of ups and downs, and things don't always go according to our plan. Patience helps us weather these ups and downs with grace and adaptability. We can learn to bounce back from our setbacks and keep moving forward, even when things get tough, likely because of the enhanced problem-solving skills I just spoke about.

The fifth benefit of patience is increased gratitude and contentment. When we're constantly focused on what we don't have or what's not happening fast enough, it's easy to overlook the good things in our lives. Patience helps us appreciate the present moment and be here now. It helps us find joy and the glimmers in the journey rather just in the destination.

And just a reminder here about the arrival fallacy. We all think that life is going to be better at the destination, but with coaching, you can really learn to enjoy the journey and you can learn how to handle yourself if the destination is not all you dreamed it would be with your imagination.

So what does patience look like in action? I want to give you a few real-life examples of how patience pays off and benefits us in our daily lives.

Let's start with a simple example. Patience is essential in gardening. You cannot rush Mother Nature as much as we might want to sometimes. Plants and flowers require consistent care and attention over time to grow and to flourish. Over-watering, over-fertilizing, or expecting immediate results can actually do more harm than good. Patient gardeners know that waiting for the right time to plant seeds or bulbs or plants and allowing them to grow at their own pace is the secret to a bountiful harvest or a beautiful flower bed.

This principle also applies to skill development. Whether you're learning a new language, learning how to play an instrument, working to improve your skills in a sport, patience is key. Consistent practice and patience with the learning process allows you to develop skills over time.

I'm thinking about my friend right now who's learning to play tennis. She practices regularly and she doesn't get discouraged by her mistakes. You know what, her playing improves a little bit each week and it's a beautiful thing to witness her play improve and her confidence improve.

Okay, let's talk about patience in the workplace. Whether you're managing a team, trying to close a sale, starting your own business, patience is a key ingredient for success. Patient leaders are able to navigate challenges, support their team's growth, and make thoughtful decisions.

Patient salespeople take the time to build trust and provide value to their clients, even when the sales cycle is long. And patient entrepreneurs are able to stay focused on their vision and persist in the face of setbacks.

I'm thinking about a client of mine, Jen, who started her own business years ago. She has faced so many challenges and setbacks in the years that we have been coaching together, but she never gives up. She patiently keeps refining her product, working on her systems, updating her marketing, seeking feedback from her customers and building her team. And you know what? Today, her business is thriving. Her patience and persistence are paying off in a big way.

Next, let's talk about investing. Here, patience typically pays off big. So successful investors understand that short-term market fluctuations are normal and that long-term consistent investing is the key to building wealth. They often avoid making rash decisions based on fear or greed and stick to their overall investment plan. It's not always easy, but history has shown that patiently holding on to a diversified portfolio over decades can lead to significant compound growth.

As a parent and pediatrician, I can attest to the fact that patience is essential in raising kiddos. Kids require consistency, understanding, and a whole lot of patience as they learn and grow. Patient parents are better able to manage their own stress, maintain a positive relationship with their children, and teach valuable life skills.

Think about when your child was learning to tie their shoes or zip up a coat. It would have been so much faster for you to just do it for them. But by patiently helping them, even when it took so much longer, they not only learned the skill, but also the value of perseverance. And because of your patience, once they learned, you never had to do it for them again.

Patience is also a virtue in the daily grind of traffic and commuting. I'm talking to you, John Parsons. Impatience on the road often leads to dangerous driving, stress, and frustration. Patient drivers, on the other hand, are better able to stay calm, make safe decisions, and arrive at their destination with less stress. When I find myself getting irritated in traffic, I try to take a deep breath and remind myself that arriving a few minutes later is better than not arriving at all.

Finally, patience is essential in building and maintaining strong relationships. It allows us to listen, understand, and communicate effectively with others. Patient partners are better able to work through conflicts, support each other's growth, and build trust over time.

I think about times recently, otherwise known as times after we have both had lots of coaching, when John and I have disagreed on something. By patiently listening to the other's concerns without interrupting or getting defensive, we definitely are able to have a more productive and supportive conversation. Now, this is not how it happens all the time. I can assure you of that, but this is what we work toward.

Okay, so there you have it, folks. From growing gardens to building wealth and relationships, patience truly is a superpower that you can cultivate in your daily life.

I hope these examples have helped illustrate just how transformative a little patience can be. Now that we've seen the benefits of patience and some real-life examples, let's talk about how we can cultivate more patience in our lives.

So here are a few strategies to try.

The first one is to practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is the practice of being present and fully engaged in the current moment without judgment. When we're impatient, we're often fixated on the future or dwelling on the past. 

By practicing mindfulness through meditation, deep breathing, or simply paying attention to your surroundings, you can learn to stay grounded in the present. The idea is to be here now and notice that other than your thoughts about what is currently happening, you may not really have an actual problem.

The second strategy is to reframe your perspective or change your lens if you listen to that podcast episode of mine. When we're feeling impatient, it's easy to get caught up in negative thought patterns. We might tell ourselves that we'll never get what we want or that we're somehow failing if things aren't happening fast enough.

By reframing our perspective, looking for the positive in the situation, we can shift our mindset and feel more patient. Instead of getting frustrated by a long line at the grocery store, we might use that time to practice deep breathing or to strike up a conversation with the person in front of us or behind us or both, if you're me. Or you might get caught up on a few emails on your phone, if you are my husband.

The third strategy is to set realistic expectations. Sometimes our impatience stems from unrealistic expectations. We might expect to build a new relationship with ourselves in a month or master a new skill in a week. By setting more realistic goals and timelines for ourselves, we can avoid setting ourselves up for disappointment and frustration, and we can take some time to be a beginner at something, allow time for setbacks and failures, and take time to celebrate when things are going really well.

The fourth strategy is to break things down into smaller steps. When we're facing a big challenge or working toward a long-term goal, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and impatient. But by breaking things down into smaller, more manageable steps, we can feel a sense of progress and accomplishment along the way. This can help us stay motivated and patient as we work toward our ultimate goal.

And the fifth and final strategy is to practice self-compassion. You know this is my favorite one if you've been following me for any period of time at all, so I think I saved the best for last. We're all human, and we all have moments of impatience.

Instead of beating ourselves up over it, we can practice self-compassion. This means treating yourself with kindness and understanding, just as you would a good friend. You might say to yourself, putting a hand on your heart if that feels good to you, It's okay to feel impatient right now. Nothing has gone wrong. This is a challenging situation, and I'm doing my best.”

Now, if my children are listening to this, and as John listens to this, I want to make it clear that I am not 100% perfect in practicing my patience. I fall into Grandma Peg energy more often than I like, and this is particularly evident when I have to make a phone call and I end up talking to an automated system. It turns out growling the word representative over and over at increasing decibels is not always effective, but that's okay. Cultivating patience is a lifelong practice, and we're all works in progress. The important thing is that we keep trying and that we extend that same patience and compassion to ourselves that we're working to cultivate for others.

So the next time you find yourself feeling impatient, take a deep breath way down into your beautiful belly. Remember the benefits of patience and try one of the strategies we talked about. With time and practice, you might just find that patience becomes your new superpower.

What about you? In what areas of your life could you benefit from a little more patience? I invite you to reflect on that as we close out today's episode. And as always, share with me if you would like.

Remember, I can't stress this enough, cultivating patience is a practice. It's not about being perfect, but about progress. Each moment of patience is a step in the right direction.

So keep at it, my friends. The benefits are so worth it.

As always, thank you for joining me today. Until next time, this is your favorite podcaster and life coach signing off.

See you next week.

Hey, don't go just yet.

Since you're listening to this podcast, you might be one of us who has followed all the rules and ticked off all the boxes, but you still feel like something's missing. If you're ready to learn the skills and gain the tools that you need to put yourself first without guilt and start to treat yourself as your own best friend, I'm here to support you.

As a certified life coach, I provide a safe space, compassionate guidance, and practical tools to help you navigate life's challenges and embrace your true self. I'm inviting you to join my next group, which starts on Thursday, January 9th, 2025. 

We'll work together to develop a deeper understanding of your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. You'll learn effective communication strategies, boundary setting techniques, and self-care practices that will help you to cultivate a more loving and supportive relationship with yourself first, so that then you can go on to do that with others.

While of course I cannot guarantee specific outcomes, everyone's journey is unique, what I can promise is my unwavering commitment to providing you with the skills, tools, support, and guidance that you need to create lasting change in your life.

With more than a sprinkle of humor, some perfectly placed swear words, and a lot of compassion, I'll be available to mentor you as you do the work to become a favorite version of yourself.

If you're ready to invest in yourself and embark upon this journey, head over to melissaparsonscoaching.com. Go to the Work With Me page and book a consultation call. We can chat about your challenges and how I can support you.

Like I said, we start in January. We will meet on Thursdays at 12:30 PM Eastern Time for six months, starting on January 9th.

Can't wait to see you there.