IMPATIENCE: CHARACTERISTICS AND CURE

CHARACTERISTICS OF IMPATIENCE AND ITS EFFECTS

IS THERE A CURE?
 

Peace lies in learning that impatience is damaging to oneself and others.  Jokes about “being impatient” tend to justify it and serve as a form of denial about the serious impact of resulting behavior and fear.
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God grant me patience – and do it now!

DEFINITION OF IMPATIENCE:  The inability to accept adversity without complaint and reduce the urge toward restlessness and anxiety when confronted with a delay in getting what we want.  A greedy tendency to want things now and expect to get things fast.

DESCRIPTORS OF IMPATIENCE:

• Lack of endurance of pain, suffering, opposition, or delay
• Eagerness for change, or for something expected
• Restlessness
• Chafing of spirit
• Fretfulness/anxiety
• Intolerance
• Irritation
• Anger

Impatient people place demands on themselves and others to deliver immediate gratification.

People who suffer from severe impatience are often seen as arrogant, insensitive, and overbearing.  Impatience can cause a person to cut others off mid-sentence and to make what appear to be uninformed, quick judgments.  Impatience can lead impatient people to snap at others in response to questions or requests.

Impatient people easily lose self-control and fire off outbursts of anger, temper, and blame others who are slow to change and grow.  This is particularly dangerous in relationships where their “polite mask” drops, such as in close relationships.

Impatient people often lose the ability to reward or reinforce any level of success or attainment, discouraging themselves and others in the pursuit of growth, thereby becoming non-supportive.

One of the greatest causes of impatience is stress. The more stress people feel, the more likely they will react impatiently to additional requests for time.

 Signs of Your Impatience:

• Is there hesitancy or fear in others’ approach to you?
• Do you make others feel uncomfortable, is communication between you two-way?
• Do you seem critical to others?

CURING YOUR IMPATIENCE:

1. The first clue to unlocking your impatience lies in knowing what has caused it.
2. You may want to ask people who know you, what your impatience indicators are:  body language, voice tone, anger, facial expressions, or wording you use most when reacting impatiently?
3. You must learn what patience is and ways to recognize and overcome your impatience triggers
4. Slow down your responses.
5. The idea is to get your point across without causing a loss of self esteem for anyone, especially those close to you.
6. By learning how to control your impatience, you will enable others to approach you in situations where you would have been unapproachable in the past.  
7. By not giving in to your urge to react instantaneously to a stressful situation, you may find that the situation isn't as bad as you thought and did not necessitate such a negative reaction.
8. When you are patient, you’ve learned you can make it through the turmoil and chaos of life. You learn that you will survive a provocation or misfortune and build character in the process.  
9. Reinforce patience!  Reward yourself for a patient response to a situation that you might have reacted impatiently to in the past.  Recognize the effort you have made, and how good it felt to not overreact to a situation.

Patience is the companion of wisdom.    ~ St. Augustine

 (Adapted from www.thelifemanagementalliance.com)