Goal
Today, I discuss how to be patient with yourself.
Table Of Contents
- What Is Patience?
- How To Show Yourself Patience
- 1) Understand that the ideal is a guide, not a punishment
- 2) Always know where you’re trying to go
- 3) Keep awareness of your responsibilities
- 4) Track your progress
- 5) Remember that the stronger you are, the less self-hatred you’ll feel
- Patience Is A Virtue
- Actionables
What Is Patience?
“Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.” – A.A. Milne
Patience is “the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.”
Patience is one of the 13 virtues. You must be calm and collected, especially during trying and rough moments. If your emotions are unstable, you can’t respond to challenges with a clear mind.
Additionally, you must tolerate waiting: waiting for the bus, waiting for a date, or waiting for your daily efforts to reap clear rewards. If you’re too restless or distracted, you’ll waste what precious time you have.
To be patient with yourself, you must show grace and understanding for your progress and mistakes.
How To Show Yourself Patience
You should be more patient with yourself, no matter how hard you fail.
When you focus on self-improvement, you will see how you fall short of your ideal. Disappointment sets in because you should be better, but you aren’t.
However, your self-loathing is not helpful. Self-loathing slows down your progress. You will not be motivated to move forward if you are busy despising yourself. Self-hatred will cloud your judgment, force you to second-guess every action, and put your past and present successes in a negative light.
You can march forward to better horizons by having patience with yourself.
1) Understand that the ideal is a guide, not a punishment
The ideal is simply the best version of yourself. Because your ideal self is perfect, you may feel intimidated instead of inspired. This intimidation further fuels resentment towards and impatience with yourself.
You will never achieve perfection. You will also never draw a square circle. Thus, you shouldn’t waste your time resenting what isn’t possible.
Shift your mindset. Do not show hostility towards the ideal but an understanding. Your idealized self is an ally and a goalpost. You stride towards them every day. They show you how to get back up and what to do differently when you fall. And when you succeed, you celebrate knowing you are worthy of greatness.
2) Always know where you’re trying to go
Clear goals allow you to set clear standards. Define what path you want your life to take. Then, work on smaller goals that accomplish your life’s desires. These plans should feed into each other. Every productive day should fulfill your weekly goals, which meet your monthly goals, and so forth.
Lastly, focus on creating goals you want to achieve. You will lose patience if you design plans you can’t reach or do not care for. Your motivation will stagnate, and you will feel embittered and impatient.
3) Keep awareness of your responsibilities
If you are realistic about your duties, you will set reasonable goals.
We all have commitments, jobs, and people to care for. The fool fails to account for his responsibilities when he embarks on making a new life for himself.
If you are unrealistic about what you have to do and who you are accountable to, you are more likely to have larger-than-life expectations that will crush you in the long run.
For example, if you want to get in better shape but have a full-time job and children to attend to, you need to be patient with your responsibilities. You’ll become impatient if your progress isn’t as aggressive as you wanted it to be. It is wiser to set goals, then plan around your responsibilities. This way, you attend to what is necessary and to your virtuous ends without shame, regret, or fear.
4) Track your progress
“Patience is power. Patience is not an absence of action; rather it is “timing” it waits on the right time to act, for the right principles and in the right way.” – Fulton J. Sheen
If you want to remain patient with yourself, you have to self-compete. As soon as you focus on others, you will lose motivation and quickly disregard your progress.
Self-competition is perfected by tracking your activities. If you are doing everything you can to succeed, yet progress is slow, you should show yourself grace. However, you can’t know if you consistently use your time wisely unless you track what you’re doing.
Keep track of your time through a get-to-do list, a calendar, or a journal.
5) Remember that the stronger you are, the less self-hatred you’ll feel
Strength removes shame. Happiness is achieved by removing your vices, becoming more skilled, and gaining physical health. Only through power and achievements do you earn patience with yourself.
The weak man cannot show himself grace. He knows the world needs more from him, and yet he refuses the call. Refusing the call to greatness makes you weaker. You can’t help the innocent or yourself. You’ll grow comfortable and fat while the world descends into nothingness. Such a man will only feel shame, as he knows he can do more but simply refuses not to.
If you are strong, you can help others. Your failures will sting. But these failures will come from a place of triumph and effort. Only the strong experience rational pride. And only proud people are patient with themselves.
Patience Is A Virtue
The world tells you to be comfortable. Don’t listen. Fight to be more virtuous. And be patient as you go about this journey.
Remember, you earn patience with yourself. You will not tolerate your inaction.
Progress takes time. If you wish to accomplish great things, then constant effort and long hours are required. No great man is borne in an afternoon. Never forget this.
Actionables
“Patience is a conquering virtue.” – Geoffrey Chaucer
- Do you struggle with patience? How so? How do you believe your life would improve if you were more patient?
- How is your progress coming? What are you trying to accomplish? Are you making strides toward accomplishing your goals?
- Do you feel strong? What can you do to improve your intellectual might, physical strength, and mental fortitude?
- Who do you admire? Do you think they are patient with themselves?
- What mistakes did you make today? How can you avoid those same mistakes in the future?
Please remember that it’s important to do the actionables. You’re not on this earth to simply read but to do. To become an individual, you must act more than you consume.
*Image credit to Unsplash.
