Hi all,

At the beginning of the year, I asked you all on IG, TikTok and Amazon what your resolutions were, and to my surprise, ina way, one of the more popular answers was related to patience. - essentially having more of it in 2023. So, with that in mind, let’s tackle 3 ways to be a bit more patient in 2023.

Tolerating delay, frustrating, irritating, or difficult circumstances is never easy - especially when it is beyond our control - but it is a skill we can learn to tolerate without getting angry or frustrated. Note that tolerating does not mean frustration or anger are totally gone but rather the intensity of the emotions are reduced or are almost absent.

1.

Know your triggers.

Being mindful of what sets us off is one necessary part of learning to become patient. Once we become frustrated and angry, it is hard to have self-control and empathy and understanding of others so it is important to know the scenarios where we are more likely to experience impatience so we can then learn what to do to prevent escalation of our emotions.

If your impatience trigger is traffic, try leaving the house earlier or listening to a favorite podcast to make the experience more enjoyable. If it is your kids interrupting you while you’re cooking, try giving them something fun to do.

2.

Pause, label impatience, and breathe.

By simply pausing and labeling what emotion we are feeling can help our brain to calm down and become less reactive to what’s going on. Same goes for practicing breathing exercises.

3.

Reframe what happened. The secret to patience is in our thoughts. If we want to change how we are feeling (i.e., overwhelmed, frustrated) or our behavior (i.e., yelling), we need to learn how to change our thoughts. And yes, we have the power to change them.

Here are some simple reframes of common impatience triggers so you can take one to use:

This won’t last forever. It won’t be like this forever.

There will be a time I’m not in traffic, I can cook dinner without interruptions, I’ll be able to sleep the night.. simply fill in the blank whatever yours is.

Being rushed or not having time to do tasks is what triggers my impatience and one thing that helps me with Oliver is knowing that he is learning from my reactions. So by practicing patience in front of him, he is learning how to react.

Need more help? Send me a dm!

Xo,

Dr. C

Christie is a clinical psychologist who completed her training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and has been sharing tips for how to live a better life for over 10 years.