Why You Want To Master The Skill Of Patience
Navigate through life effectively
“Quick is slow and slow is fast” -Jim Kwik-
There’s a lot of truth in this Jim Kwik quote. Think about it deeply and patiently, wait until it becomes clear.
Psst..*I think Jim got this line from Bruce Lee*
How we perceive time is what causes us to speed up or ramp down. People who jump on top of things quickly are often carried on hands by extrovert-centric society. The reward induces more of this unthoughtful behavior and starts to program more people as this is “the normal.”
There are two reasons for this:
One is that people are being abused by those who control them and consume them as a human battery — Often scared, jealous people, bosses, or wannabe bosses.
Two, because of the illusionary effect of visual perception of acting versus the invisible craft of thinking — Because this is the easiest, most effortless way to think of knowing what’s going on.
Overthinking can lead to procrastination and inhibit your progress. But not knowing how to think clearly can even set you back further. It can send you back a step before the initial step when that overthinking started, making all of the previous actions unnecessary.
Great job, all of this was evoked by your inability to be patient!
Acting Fast, Acting Useless
By acting impulsively, you’re prone to make mistakes or engage in time-wasting actions. It’s a dangerous zone to be in, and it’s not always that easy to notice. If you don’t learn to become patient, and you lower your guard, before you know it, you’ll be sucked into the cycle of being business.
People who aren’t patient have higher chances of burning out.
To be frank, you don’t need a metastudy pointing this out. It’s just very obvious. When you can’t be patient you’re more likely to go over things without thinking matters through. You’ll get away with it for a bit, but after a while, you’ll run into some kind of burnout. Not being patient evokes stress and mental fog. You’ll start to make wrong decisions and lose track of yourself.
That’s one of the greatest reasons why being patient is a superforce.
I know some people who as an aftermath couldn’t sleep well anymore which shifts their personality to becoming a control freak, a micromanager, not trusting nobody, not even their own self. Not being patient compounds such a negative effect that it can even lead to schizophrenia, smoking, perhaps alcohol abuse, and more…
When you’re not calm, you are just not in the zone.
The zone could be understood as a flow state or just being alert and aware of the present moment, or “now” as Eckhart Tolle refers to in his book: ‘The Power Of Now’ Let me ask you this:
‘Do you really want to squeezed the last drop of enjoyment out of, and become as sour as a citron?’
We intentionally seek to fill up our to-do list as much as possible. Therefore, you’ll get overwhelmed because the mental energy cost is just ridiculously high — The smallest bit of fatigue will lead to unclear thinking.
So, in many cases, you’ll perform better when you are more patient, patience helps you avoid unwanted fatigue due to senseless activity and it will help you to think deeper and more focused.
Many people and friends might not like the version of me because of that. Ask yourself the question: ‘Do I really want to change myself?’
I never was patient by nature, patience has become a skill I acquired at a young age which has always served me extremely well through life. For me, it’s an easy trick to pull. Nevertheless, I now see that more people have difficulty getting the hang of behaving patiently. (This is also the biggest trigger to write a post like this one)
Disconnecting from everything and everyone could recharge your battery! Only a few have discovered this. But you must pay the price with patience. If you were never the relaxed type, or for instance, when you grew up in a “loud” environment, you’ll find it harder to learn patience.
Acquiring patience how I see it, mostly seems to derive from suffering.
Patience is a lost art form hidden by our overly aroused society.
Another advantage of being patient is that you’ll judge less rapidly. Wandering, considering, and deeply thinking leads to creativity and new insights. When you become good at being patient, ideation is the aftermath and you might outperform all of your competition, it’s a super advantage in today’s world.
Dare To Be Alone With Yourself
For some suffering, to others enlightenment.
Once you start to be comfortable being alone, you’ve unlocked Pandora’s box of unlimited creative energy. Being alone for longer times with yourself and only yourself empowers you with:
- It restores your energy
- Increases your ability to learn from others’ mistakes
- You’ll become aware that you’re surrounded by work inventors and more options
Be careful, it’s more addictive than alcohol or any drugs.
Reading books, for instance, is a form of patience. Someone with a library reflects patience, as a result, they command respect without even being verbal. Just saying. Reading enables you to be one with your thoughts and that of an author. It’s a silent game that not many people love to play.
“Being satisfied and one with your thoughts… I think hardly 5% of society is really capable of performing well at the skill of patience. Could be wrong.”
Alone, alone,… But we are social beings and we love to interact with each other, don’t we? I like to laugh, bond, learn, and teach with and from others too. However, alone time teaches us much about ourselves when we dare to comfort ourselves with our true inner self.
If you want to be able to empower people, help other people grow, and possess enough energy to show love, you’ll need to step up your game and learn to be alone with yourself now and then. I see this as an enhanced form of brain breaks.
Under the hood, being alone recharges your ability to become more patient and that ability will compound through life — Counterintuitively, patience has everything to do with your overall performance.
1. Planning Improves Performance
Planning is a form of patience. Planning takes time and commitment.
You know which type I talk about — Always stressed out, worrying, and hurrying.
People like this are so apprehensive because they didn’t make time to design their futures or reflect on past ingredients to feed their future. Most undergo life. Often you’ll find this kind of people searching for approval of someone else. In their process of being busy, you’ll notice that they don’t live their own lives, but are rather to be lived by others. Perhaps that’s the reason why they are worried in the first place and seeking approval for everything they undertake.
When you face your future with anticipation you’ll have something to get excited about. Therefore once you can spot the future in your mind’s eye, and be able to envision it clearly, it exerts an enormous pull and this enables you to behave restfully, peacefully, have patience, and even approach certain situations with calmness.
Writing this is easy, but we get sucked into the madness wherever we go these days. In today’s world, it feels like you’re constantly dodging bullets. Those bullets represent people who are less resistant and unaware of what’s really going on. Often these are people who don’t have a certain interest in knowing how the human body functions. They are busy with other things, mainly things that have nothing to do with being patient whatsoever.
2. Patience leads to outperformance
In a world of complainers, short-term thinkers, and virality-starved fools, all it takes is a few years of repetition to outperform 99% of all people at whatever thing you choose. -Justin Welsh-
Boredom fades into consistency
Patiently and thoughtfully waiting will beat the competition. The only thing you need to do is do what you like, at your phase, not look at your neighbor for as long as possible. After a certain period, you’ll notice that there is no neighbor anymore. Congratulations, you’ve just beaten the person you ought to be your competition by doing nothing but being patient.
The thing is, you’ve overcome time.
Many well-performing online creators swear by volume work. Nicolas Cole, Dr Mehmet Yildiz, Tim Denning, Ayodeji Awosika, Eve Arnold, Justin Welsh…Just to name a few Medium creators.
Purely aiming on volume can lead to overwhelming stress. It’s not sustainable for many people. The greatest triggers of success like some people mentioned above are learning, practicing, and time in the game. The latter has much to do with being patient and just putting work in focusing only on yourself. You could say you have two forms of patience active patience and passive patience.
“Patience, a craft, a skill, a life requirement.”
Surrounded By Work Inventors
Being busy creates more business.
It’s the most destructive force of our era, it leads to psychological issues and cost-unimaginable economic downturns. It’s a vortex with a tremendous suction power that even sucks productive people down with it. It’s unbelievable how many people like to control other people — This behavior leads to huge problems deeply nested within human society.
It’s perhaps the most invisible and expensive trait of Western society.
Control Freaks Micromanage The Zoom
Unlike what huge control freaks want to achieve, staying zoomed in evokes stress and makes them lose control. In this way, they accomplish exactly the opposite of what they often want to achieve. People become stressed about watching one another. Mind your own business and focus on your own path, is something I found to deliver automatic patience.
What you actually want to do is working on how to do less but achieve the maximum.
It might sound counterintuitive, but there’s great value to be dug by waiting patiently, and considering how to do, or not fulfill a task in as little as possible time, with as little as possible effort.
Most people can’t handle this, because admittingly or not, being busy is a form of escaping from what’s much more demanding, and that’s deep and clear thinking. I’m writing about this confidently because, like most of the things I write about, I’ve lived a huge chunk of my life as someone who wasn’t aware of this either.
Our business-driven society evokes the problem, but there are underlying mechanisms at work, and one of them is caffeine. Caffeine can be handy when used as a tool. However, not too many people use it in this particular way. The thing with caffeine is that it requires planned intake in order to not disrupt our circadian rhythm — Many people drink too much caffeine or way too late in their days. This causes a domino effect by messing with your sleep pattern and sleep depth.
The aftermath of caffeine consumption can lead to elevated cortisol levels and chronic stress. All of these things hinder your ability to be patient. I can write about these things for hours, but here are some habits you can implement to turn the tide and trigger a patient state.
A prescription
(1)Drink more tea, (2)you could consider the supplement L-theanine, (3) Restrict yourself from drinking coffee (especially not afternoon)
You might want to practice daily box breathing
It goes like this: Inhale for 3 seconds, hold your breath for 3 seconds, exhale for 3 seconds, and hold your breath for 3 seconds. Repeat this a couple of times, focus on your heartbeat, and notice how it reduces.
The Psychological Issues
A domino effect that derives from impatience.
learning to wait can be a very rewarding process.
However, society is being taught to be impatient. Everything holds the ingredients of willing it now. Twenty years ago, you had to wait until a commercial had been presented on TV before you could continue to watch the other part. Today, you can skip or pay until there are no commercials in whatever media you consume.
If there is some expensive artwork you want lying in the stores, you can buy it on loan. Even the cheap ones. Pricing in stores has been deliberately adjusted so far that the bigger price tags presented often show the monthly payment instead of the total price. Online purchases can be done in so many different kinds of ways and on credit, that it’s almost inevitable not to buy them.
Everything is within reach as fast as now if you’re willing to pay for it. These are two destructive forces at play. You can inhibit patience with money. Both lead to chronic stress, poor sleep quality, and impulsive decisions.
Economical Downturns
The aftermath of psychological issues.
Control. Although it might not seem like this the sense of power and control over someone else makes those people extremely unproductive. As I see it, it’s a repetitive cycle. When I read “The Intelligent Investor” by Benjamin Graham, it reinforced my perception of how important our everyday thoughts are in terms of directing our economy and industrial markets. It’s we, all of us together, we control what’s happening in our lives, once you take responsibility for this, you’ll become calmer, and more patient.
It’s all a psychological game, you can either hate it or love it. But you’ll perform best when you learn to love it. The more patiently you can navigate this world, the better you’ll be in control over your own life, and the better you’ll be at taking care of your loved ones.
Anger, fear, and guilt, all play a huge part in driving society wild. Learn to stand aside and watch the show. As a single individual, there’s not much you can do except to be ook the lookout for opportunities to your advantage patiently.
“Life is a game full of lessons, and you are the constructor. Learn to play it at your best.”
Patience is a choice, it’s a craft
Variability of Zoom.
Once you understand when to zoom in, and when to zoom out in different kinds of situations, only then you discover the immense advantage of being patient. We are hugely adaptable to our environment. Therefore, stepping aside from chaotic places will improve your ability to become calm — You’ll become adapted.
Leaders understand that when you engage in a practical field, you’ll lose the overview — It has much to do with willingness to act busy. Being hands-on disables your functionality of being patient. It makes you lose the overview.
I’ve mentioned box breathing. The thing is that the frequency of your breathing and heartbeat are related to your zoomability. The faster you breathe the more stressed or the more active, mostly more zoomed in and less patient.
Boredom is a superpower. The average job doesn’t provide time to think. The Compernolle talked about the negative effects of hyperconnectivity in his book ‘Brain Chains.’ When most have some free time at their jobs, they abuse those mental beaks by being on their phones. You can’t consider that a break — Unless you use that time wisely instead of doomscrolling.
Unleash yourself from hyperconnectivity, and increase your patientability.
Become a person of value through being patient. Make sure you know which direction you’re aiming for and soon you’ll become more patient because you know a timeframe. Often it’s the perception of time that we can’t visualize that destroys our ability to stay patient.
Patience Is An Art
Mindwork is inherently fatiguing and demanding
Some people are patient by nature. But those who do well at learning the craft of patience will accelerate their understanding by digging into the power of the opposite effect.
Patience is a simple act, yet so misunderstood and so hard for many.
Perhaps the most difficult thing you’ll ever learn to acquire in your life. Haters will say that patience leads to nothing but missing chances, but this isn’t true.
Take This
People who aren’t patient have higher chances of burning out.
- The more patiently you can navigate this world, the better you’ll be in control over your own life, and the better you’ll be at taking care of your loved ones.
- Patience is a simple act, yet so misunderstood and so hard for many.
- Patience is an ability of self-control, it’s an internal energy system that can be used for other purposes like controlling your sleep.
- The faster you breathe the more stressed or the more active, mostly more zoomed in and less patient.
- Unleash yourself from hyperconnectivity, and increase your patientability.
- Patience often derives from suffering, you might want to learn to absorb the lessons hidden the next time you suffer through something.
Please share other thoughts or how you experienced being patient or impatient in your life…
“One thing I figured out later in life is generally (at least in the tech business in Silicon Valley), great people have great outcomes. You just have to be patient.” -Naval Ravikant -
Some Other Posts
Absorb, Read, Write, Sleep, Exercise, Thrive!
Thanks for reading this post!
I think patience is a super skill. It has always helped me through my life. It helped me to see things through a clear lens. This post has been extracted from a couple of days of deep thinking about how I perceive being patient.
P.S.:
I’m a firm believer in building a prosilient mind. I like to inspire and energize my readers by writing.
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