Patience Shows Up in Many Situations
Framed picture of the words - Some Things Take Time.
Many of us have probably heard about patience's importance since we were little. Maybe we heard the phrase, “patience is a virtue.” And It seems that patience continues to be essential and emphasized as we transition into adulthood. Why? Has anyone really asked the question about ‘why’? We are not talking about the surficial ‘why’ of because we spend so much time waiting in many aspects of life. This ‘why’ is more focused on how patience benefits us beyond the surface reasons. The surface reasons being that we wait in line, wait for food to cook, etc.
Patience shows up in many other ways in our lives and serves a purpose. We will briefly explore a few of the many ways.
Good Leadership
There is so much that could be said about leadership, as so many facets go into good leadership. When it comes to patience, however, a leader needs patience constantly. Leaders need to not only be patient with people but with themselves and then figure out how to balance both. When it comes to people, this involves learning to be patient with different communication styles and experiences and being able to hear people out and look more profoundly beyond the surface into the process and the underlying mechanisms.
Goals Achievement
Goals do not necessarily happen overnight. They involve work, effort, time, thought, belief, and support. While this list is not all-encompassing, it asks us to be patient with ourselves, the process, and the crafting of the steps to reach the goal.
Strategic Thinking
If we constantly rush around, like many of us do in daily life, we miss the opportunity to look at the bigger picture and be strategic about our choices, actions, and decisions. To be strategic, we need to slow down and be patient because strategic thinking requires us to look at many pieces of the puzzle (aka. situation, for example) and play with the different arrangements to find the best outcome. This process is not always easy and may take some time, depending on the puzzle, which is where patience serves us well to persevere through the process.
Better Mental Health
Patience is linked to better mental health. There is research to back this up! Even if we simply use common sense, we could see how this would be the case with a simple example. If someone didn’t have patience, imagine the stress of simply standing in a line or waiting for the food to cook. After a while, that stress would build up, and the stress would increase and could become harmful. Again, this a simple example, but one that could quickly happen.
Better Connection Opportunities with Others
Building connections with other people takes time! To get to know people means that we need to invest time and ourselves into the process. Again a process that requires patience and not an overnight experience. Furthermore, others tend to enjoy being with more patient people. It can be emotionally draining or a connection disrupter to be around someone who lacks patience. Our behavior impacts people on multiple levels.
We briefly touched on each of the above ways that patience shows up in our lives. There is so much more that can be said, and hopefully, we will continue to explore how these each show up in our lives so that we connect and make them more meaningful individually.
take action today moment:
Think of other ways that patience shows up in your life. Below are three additional suggestions to help get you started. There are many more that you could add to this. Take some time to write about, draw, or move your thoughts, as a couple of examples.
Better Decisions
Collaboration
Helping Others Reach Their Goals