The Wisdom & Benefits of Patience

It is wise to practice patience, but it does take some practice, doesn’t it?

Patience doesn’t seem to come naturally to most of us. Impatience does, but nine times out of ten when we give into impatient impulses we regret it.

Aim for patience instead. It will benefit a person with regards to relationships, personal goals, and healing.

Today I would like to talk about three quotes related to patience. I hope that one or more of these thoughts will benefit you as you move through another week of healing and personal goal-setting.

“Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy.”

This is an important reminder for each of us experiencing difficult circumstances.

During difficult times, it is easy to think “Nothing has ever been quite this challenging before,” but it is easy to forget that yes, there have been extreme challenges in life in the past. And those things didn’t remain difficult forever.

If things are difficult right now, this quote provides a large dose of good news. The difficult situation never remains difficult forever. The difficult becomes easy. Look forward to that. As time moves forward, the situation improves, you grow, and things become easier.

Also, this quote provides an important reminder that only practice makes perfect, so to speak.  When we are trying new things, working toward new goals, oftentimes the path will feel most difficult at first. But as you move forward, you will grow stronger, more skilled, wiser, and things will flow much more easily.

The first time someone tries to drive a car, it seems so confusing and impossible. By year two, or maybe even month two, not such a big deal.

Apply that same logic to whatever you are going through right now. Time and practice will make things easier. Stay determined, be patient.

“Patience is also a form of action.”

I’ve honestly never heard patience talked about this way before, have you? I think that when most of us hear the word patience, there is a very passive connotation to it. We think of sitting and waiting, twiddling thumbs and trying not to give into rushed action or reaction.

But sometimes, the best action is in fact waiting. How many times have you replied to someone in a hurry—in a flurry of emotion—and regretted it later. Maybe you’ve sent a terse or overly emotional response to an email, text, or social media message, or perhaps you’ve even done something similar in person. Who hasn’t?

And how many times have we all rushed into some decision or been reactive to a situation but later said “If I would have just waited things would have worked out a lot better.”

Sometimes wisdom involves adding something into our lives, and sometimes subtracting. Sometimes it involves plowing forward or responding to a situation, and sometimes it involves waiting for things to develop on their own.

Sometimes waiting—displaying patience—is the smartest action you can take in your day.

“Impatient people are attracted to money, while money is attracted to patient people.” Warren Buffet

I thought that this quote was very interesting because it points to wisdom of playing the long game. Actually, it could be altered to say: “Impatient people are attracted to quick fixes, while true fixes and actual results are attracted to patient people.”

Too often foolish people waste time chasing immediate results and instant gratification, but wise people are willing to delay the quick buck or thrill for actual results, even if those results don’t come for a while.

I try to hammer this point home to people in coaching all the time: “What you are doing here isn’t only about what you want to happen today, or about how you want to feel this week. Rather it is about what you want life to look and feel like a year from now, and ten years from now.”

Big pharma pushes immediate results, quick fixes that are anything but actual fixes. True health & wellness is about consistency, and patience.

True health and wellness is about playing the long game, and patience is required. You do the right things for yourself, and then you keep doing them, even when the immediate results aren’t there. Eventually, the results will manifest in a big way if a person keeps at it.

Be diligent, be patient. Good things will happen that way.

Until next time,

Michael