How do I become less impatient?

GOD!!! COME ON! SOMEONE ANSWER THE DAMN QUESTION!

Your answer made me chuckle @simone54!

Changing your impatience will take time. It is a matter of making your automatic impatient response conscious.

You have to increase the time between what triggers your impatience and your response. So when you first feel the physical signs of being impatient, (stomach tightening, blood pressure rising, whatever it is) you have to learn to recognize them. Then tell yourself consciously, “I’m not going to respond to this situation with impatience.” Then, take a deep breath, and respond differently. The way you want to move toward. You will have to keep trying and don’t be surprised if you fail at first. Forgive yourself and say “I’ll get it next time.”

It would also be helpful to know why you get impatient. Did one of your parents model impatient behavior to you when you were a child? Do you hear your dad’s voice when an impatient response comes out of your mouth? Think about how you learned to be impatient and what, if any, emotion the impatience is covering. You might want to do some writing about it. Think about how you felt if someone was impatient with you.

Good luck. It is a worthwhile effort.

I use to hate standing in line to wait for anything. there was no way i would stand in a line hours, just buy a ticket for whatever. i finally discovered a simple system that helps to control my impatience. wearing a rubber band on my left wrist helps. how, you ask? each time i feel anger or impatience, i grab my rubber band and flip it a couple of times on my wrist. the stinging sensation helps me to not focus on the project at hand. in other words, the stinging rubber band on my wrist, makes me forget my ordeal i am facing and sidetracks me to something else.

Have your ipod with you at all times. It won’t help when your neighbor is taking a really long time telling you a boring story, but it’ll help when you’re stuck in line, in a waiting room, etc. etc.

The fact that you are asking the question at all is the best first step that you can take. Yea!

It might be good to write down the top 10 situations in which you get impatient (like standing in long lines, dealing with grid-locked traffic, having to “put up with” people’s stupid questions etc.) Then give some real thought as to why it’s not helpful to get impatient in those situations.

For example getting impatient with the long line is not going to make it go any faster and if you start yelling or complaining, you will make the line standing much more unpleasant for everyone else. Then actively decide what you will do instead. In this case, one of the best things you can do is strike up conversations with the other folks in line. I do this all the time when I’m at the grocery store and have spent many enjoyable hours standing in ticket lines meemeeting other folks who have common interests. Or you can bring an i-pod and listen to music, watch a TV show or read a book.

In the case of the gridlocked traffic, if you can find an alternative to driving yourself (whether it’s public transport, carpool or changing the time that you drive) that can help. But if you can’t avoid driving in the gridlock, you just have to change your attitude about it. Listen to music or books on CD while you drive. If someone cuts you off, actively decide not to scream and yell or allow yourself to get worked into a froth. If you allow yourself to become angry, you are likely to do something mean or dangerous. The guy that cut you off is old news. No need for you to give him a second thought (he’s not giving you a second thought). If you get angry, you will give yourself potential heart problems and you will feel crappy (being angry is a crappy feeling unto itself). If you’re angry you are more likely to cause yourself or some other innocent person to have an accident. You have to actively decide to let the guy who cuts you off do it and for you not to react negatively. In fact, you should actively decide to be a better driver, yourself and let others merge into your lane, signal when you are going to change lanes and give smiles and waves to other drivers to help them along.

In the case of people asking stupid questions, stop looking at the people and the questions as stupid. People ask questions because they don’t know the answer. They might be un-educated, they might be too young to know any better, they might be elderly and not understand the “new ways and ideas” or may be forgetful. They may re-ask the same question because they just don’t have the means to understand the answer. None of this really matters as long as you aren’t rude to people (part of being rude is being impatient with people) when they ask questions. Actively decide that you will be kinder and more helpful and more tolerant.

When you start giving more thought to how you react to situations (ahead of time) and having new ways to react ready to go, before the situation arises, you will get better and better and less impatient over time. Reward yourself for acting in a way that is less impatient. Apologize to people who may have been hurt by your impatience, immediately. Actively decide to do that. Good luck and get back to us to let us know what kind of progress you are making. : )

Impatient behaviour is a choice you make in some or most situations. It raises your blood pressure, damages your blood vessels and makes you feel stressed and dissatisfied with your life. It will, if you don’t learn to respond in more adaptive ways, ruin your health and shorten your life.

Time urgent behaviour is associated with hostility and poorer interpersonal relations.

You start to change, you take in a deep breath through your nose and slowly exhale through your mouth. You then identify what stimulus evoked the maladaptive, impatient response. You must then evaluate how much the situation really matters in terms of grand scheme of things. Unless the situation is truly of great importance, then let the stressful feeling just evaporate like a wisp of steam. Find a healthy, reasonable and considerate way to cope with the current situation. Give yourself credit for acting in the reasonable, thoughtful manner.