Alex breaks down five reasons you lose patience: unrealistic expectations, perfectionism, taking things personally, lack of presence, and need for control. She offers practical fixes like mapping realistic goals, prioritizing progress over perfection, and identifying your triggers.
Do you sometimes have zero patience? I know I do, but I learned there are really 5 reasons why that happens, so I'm going to share those with you today along with 5 ideas on how to manage that. Stay tuned! How many times have I burned the roof of my mouth because I get so impatient wanting to have dinner, right? Or I get behind the wheel of a car and I turn into Goofy, who turns into this, you know, green-eyed monster when he gets behind the wheel of a car because he's so impatient to get to whatever his destination is. So I found over time that there are really 5 reasons why I lose or have lost patience. Over the years, and I wanted to share those 5 reasons. So the first one is that sometimes we have unrealistic expectations, right? We want to have everything right now. We— in, in today's society where we have this need for instant gratification, having to wait for anything has just made our tolerance for patience really go, go down the tubes, right? So what is the thing that you can do in order to safeguard that and to build that patience is to just take a beat, observe, and then map out what it is you want. When we try to learn something new, it's easy to get frustrated, it's easy to lose patience. But until you know what the lay of the land is, until you know what you need to learn, whether it's learning a new skill or learning a new behavior, until you know what it is you need to learn, you can't map out your goals. So figure out what you need to do, map it out, and then move forward. The second thing that happens, or the second reason why we lose patience and we get frustrated, is because we tend to maybe be a little bit of a perfectionist. I am so super guilty of that. As a recovering perfectionist, um, I understand the toll that perfection takes on us, right? Perfection brings us to quick to anger. Sometimes it's about shame, sometimes it's about guilt. So when we have that need to be perfect, it's because we're actually looking to the world around us for validation. But let's be honest, perfection is first of all a very low standard, but second of all it is completely unrealistic because what is perfect for me is not perfect for you, and it's not perfect for the next guy, and the next guy, and the next guy. So instead of looking for that perfection, look for progress, because with progress comes forward movement, comes enthusiasm and an ability and a desire to continue to make that progress. The moment we stop thinking about the destination and for things to be perfect and we focus on, you know what, I'm learning, I'm making progress, I'm moving forward, that is part of the human condition, that is part of what keeps us motivated and moving forward. So next time you want to look for perfection, set that aside and remember, done is better than perfect, and look for the progress and keep moving forward so that you have, you know, you feel less frustrated and you enjoy the process and you enjoy the journey a little bit more. Number 3, sometimes we take things personally How many times have I been in the car where I'm going somewhere and for whatever reason somebody cuts me off and I get so aggravated and I lose, like, I basically lose my stuff, right? And what I found is that first of all, the only person who realizes that, you know, they were slighted is me. The guy in the other car is already way gone and he doesn't really care. And when we take things personally, we get all of that angst, we get all of that anger, and we feel like things are, things are out of control. As I've started into my entrepreneurial journey, things haven't gone the way that I expected them to go, but everything has been such a process, and I'm learning, I'm getting better. And every once in a while, I get a message from someone that says, 'You're making a difference,' and that really makes it all worthwhile. So sometimes it's really just about keep putting one foot in front of the other and remember, none of this is really about you. We like to think that we are the center of the universe, but at the end of the day We're not. We're just one piece of a much bigger machine. And when we learn to let go of that feeling slighted or feeling like, you know, somebody is doing something to hurt us or against us, when in fact they're basically just going on their merry way doing things that they need to do for themselves. So remember, is This is absolutely not about you, and the universe has your back. Another reason why we lose patience is because we're not present. Instead of being in the moment, enjoying, experiencing, living whatever experience we're having, we're projecting, we're thinking about the future, we're thinking we have to make things happen, we're thinking that, you know, things have to move, move, move, move. And we lose that ability to be just present. And it— we feel stressed, we feel overwhelmed, and we want to resolve that discomfort. And part of that brings in that lack of patience because we want it to happen much more quickly on our own timeline. So it's important to just take a step back and really enjoy the ride. Be in the moment, enjoy the journey. It is what it is. Everything that happens, everything that you are going through is happening exactly the way that it's supposed to, in a way that is going to serve you in the future in a better way. So it may not, it may not seem like it's supporting you right now because it's not what you want, but it is supporting you when you look— when you take a step back and you look at the bigger picture. And then number 5, um, maybe you happen to be somebody that just loses their stuff easy, right? You've got buttons and people know how to push them, and you get angry and you lose your patience. And that's generally a behavior that we learn from the people around us. I know that I learned my attitude in the car when I was driving from seeing— I mean, I hate to say it, but from seeing my parents driving, from seeing them get aggravated behind the wheel, it showed me that this was okay and this was, you know, the way that, the way that it was supposed to be. And that anger and that lack of patience comes because we want to feel like we're in control. And when we when we are not in control, or when we feel we're not in control, then we lose patience. We start to get aggravated, we start to get angry. And the only one thing that you can do is to learn to manage that anger. It's to learn to take a step back and not get so aggravated over, honestly, silly little things. Sometimes it helps to do some breathing. Sometimes it helps to do, you know, counting, counting to 10. But at the end of the day, those things are Band-Aids. Understanding the root cause for the anger is going to support you and is going to help you a lot more than it is to do that breathing or do that do the counting, because once you identify the root cause and you start working on unraveling that, the chances of you getting aggravated or losing patience are going to actually lessen, because you're dealing with your triggers and you're dealing with the reasons why you get aggravated in, in the first place. So there are, you know, many reasons why we lose patience, but And these were the ones that I found to be the most prevalent in my life. And when I say in my life, I mean that's going back from today and, you know, back to when I was in, in my teens. So I've learned a lot, I've grown a lot over the years, um, and little by little I'm learning to become more patient. I'm way more patient than I've ever been, but I know it's still something that I want to continue to work on because I don't want to ever be in a position where, you know, let them face the wrath of Alex because Alex has no patience. So that's what I wanted to share with you today. Don't forget, if you like the content, subscribe. I'll put the link to the blog in the comments underneath, and I will talk to you soon. Take care.
