Be Patient With Yourself and Your Personal Growth: 3 Sensible Tips

Are you patient with yourself? Better yet, do you even know how to be patient with yourself? Probably not, or you wouldn’t be reading this, right?

Well, you’re not alone! Being patient with ourselves is not something that comes naturally to many of us. Maybe that’s because we’re not encouraged be patient with ourselves nearly as much as we’re encouraged to be patient with others.

As a child, I’m sure you were prompted to be patient with your siblings, classmates, and friends. Moreover, a good scolding was expected when you weren’t.

Now, as an adult, you know that you’re supposed to be forgiving when your boss adds one more meaningless task to your endless to-do list. You should be accommodating when your doctor enters the exam room 45 minutes after your scheduled appointment. And, don’t forget to be patient with that other driver who just cut you off in traffic (which was, of course, after laying on his horn and flipping you off!).

But when’s the last time you chose to be patient with yourself?

I can answer that question for myself with one word — never! Okay, okay, that answer might be a bit melodramatic, but you get the point. I find it extremely difficult to be patient with myself, especially when I hit a roadblock in life.

Instead of focusing on the fact that I’ve been given an opportunity to experience some personal growth, I tend to focus on solving whatever “problem” I’m facing. After all, I want to move on with life. But, it’s become increasingly apparent to me that this tack isn’t working. In fact, it’s been blowing up in my face.

So, I’ve been employing the 3 sensible tips that I’m about to share with you. My hope is that they will empower you to be patient with yourself.

1. Take on one thing at a time, rather than going all in, as I tend to do. The path I seem to take when I run up against a problem, or have an opportunity for growth, is to (1) do as much research as I can, (2) find a bunch of potential solutions, and (3) try them all — all at once! That’s definitely not practicing patience, and this approach definitely doesn’t work long-term.
2. Give that one thing time to work (or not work). The problem with going all in is twofold. First, you don’t know which potential solution is working, or not working, if you implement more than one at a time. And, second, you’re going to overwhelm yourself and end up right back at square one.  Now is the time to be patient with yourself! Remind yourself that the problem wasn’t created overnight, and the solution will not be created overnight either.

Keep scrolling for the 3rd sensible tip.