"Patience is a virtue" – and easier said than done. If you agree, we have a few tips for you.
You don't feel like waiting for the train, you would like to have an answer from a friend straight away and you are already dreading the long line in the drugstore? Patience is certainly not everyone's forte. But can patience even be learned?
Can we learn to be patient?
Life is getting faster, offline and online, in private as well as in professional life. We want to make the best possible use of every second, so waiting does not fit into our everyday life – Impatience creates stress. Patience, on the other hand, allows us to wait even under stress and put our own needs aside. If we are impatient, we feel overwhelmed and helpless with a situation. Something that we don't like at all, because our brain is more interested in reward … But are we helplessly exposed to impatience?
7 tips to exercise patience
Science assumes the ability to be patient partly congenital and is also shaped in early childhood. That doesn't mean that we can't change at all! In any case, something can be done about impatience. These 7 tips can help you in the short and long term:
- deflection: We just cannot influence some situations and we have to accept them that way. To distract yourself from waiting, you can e.g. E.g. playing with the lanyard, concentrating on your own breathing or looking for tasks to solve (e.g .: Alternatively, what can I do if I'm late and all shops are closed?)
- reward: Rewards help you too! If you're looking forward to your favorite series, candy bar or glass of wine at home, you're the same more motivated and waiting is no longer so difficult.
- Change Settings: You will benefit in the long term if you check your attitude (over and over again). Make it clear to yourself that certain things and circumstances just take time and you just can't change it.
- Rethink the timing: Does it really have to be an "instant"? Isn't a "soon", a "later" or a "soon" enough? Question whether what you are waiting for still has time.
- Reduce stress: Putting yourself under pressure and also time pressure will probably not really help you in any situation. Here you will find good methods on how you can learn serenity and how to use braindump to organize your thoughts and your day.
- use time: Especially in situations such as long waiting times at offices, you can use the time for yourself, instead of sitting there pissing you off. Of course, you can take a book with you – or do anything else that has been on your to-do list for a long time (e.g. rethink time management? ?).
- Celebrate progress: Yes, you can celebrate yourself too! Enjoy small advances, it makes waiting easier.
Patience – what for?
The psychologist Sarah Schnitker was able to show in a study that patience Satisfaction, achievement of goals, and overcoming hurdles made it easier. In addition, it is easier to live with patience, you are no longer stressed and frustrated so easily.
The Legendary Marshmallow Test: Really a Pioneer?
Many people are certainly familiar with the marshmallow test – or know it from a well-known commercial. Walter Mischel, originally from Austria, developed this test in the 1960s: four-year-old children were given a plate with a marshmallow. They are promised that they will get a second one – provided they wait for the test supervisor to come back. They don't know how long it will be gone. Some could resist the temptation, and some couldn't.
This was to find out whether the children can To forego something in the short term in order to achieve a long-term goal. But the surprising thing came after 13 years: Children who were more patient in the test were also more determined, more successful and more resilient than the impatient as young adults. Subsequent tests also came to this result.
However, there are also critical voices regarding the relationship between patience and later success, as other factors (such as the parents' level of education) are not taken into account. A team of American psychologists checked the results of the well-known experiment with 900 children, four and a half years old, and their favorite candy. The participants were again invited to a series of tests at the age of 15. It turned out, that their ability to wait for the reward and their later math and language skills were only moderately correlated. After deducting other factors (e.g. family background), their ability to wait in childhood said nothing at all about their later performance.