Better Days Are Coming: The Key to Being Patient
“To one that is still, the whole universe surrenders.” - Lao Tzu
Can you imagine what life would be like if we never felt rushed to do something?
How amazing would it feel to set a plan for yourself and not worry at all about how long it will take to achieve it and follow it through?
Or even better, what would life be like if we could remain calm even when we have been waiting for what seems like forever?
Too bad we’ll never actually know, because most of us struggle with being patient, whether it’s in our own life goals or even as simple as asking ourselves, “Why is this person in front of me walking so slowly?”
In my opinion, being patient is one of the hardest things to do in life. Anyone who’s working on something usually wants those results right now.
As a matter of fact, most people don’t want to put in the effort at all. They’d prefer to get the results without having to do any work.
Then you have those who are willing to do everything they can to get to where they want to be in life - the people who are ready to grind it out and endure the pain of waiting.
In this world we live in, it doesn’t matter what kind of person you are. If you lack the skill of being patient in life, you’ll never be able to achieve any of your goals.
What does it mean to be patient?
How you handle the pain of feeling like you don’t understand why you’re not where you want to be in life is very important on your path to accomplishing anything in life and being patient.
You have to be able to endure that suffering you feel and use it as motivation to keep going. You have to be able to take that pain and frustration and seek peace within yourself throughout all the chaos you feel inside.
This mentality stems from how serious you are about getting to where you want to be in life. Your only opponent in being patient is yourself, which is why most people fail on this journey; their impatience prevails.
So how serious are you? Do you practice ways to be patient? This question often goes over people’s heads because most of them think that working towards their goals is the same as working on being patient, but that is actually not the case.
Instead of just working towards something in life, you must also learn how to wait for it. If you’re not getting the proper practice you need to wait and be patient, when you face a trial on your journey to your goals or even just a bad day at work, you lose sight of the bigger picture.
Trials
I’m going to share with you a trial I’ve faced in my life on being patient.
In October of 2022, I began publishing my motivational blogs similar to the one you are reading right now.
Although it felt good to be able to speak my mind on things and know that people enjoyed what I had to say, I couldn’t help but feel like it just wasn’t working.
I was also in the middle of starting a clothing brand and I convinced myself that the results of the brand were more meaningful since I wasn’t seeing the results I wanted to see with the blogs.
This is a terrible mindset to have when you are doing anything in life. Just because the results aren’t there doesn’t mean you have to stop.
And guess where that mindset led me? To stop doing the blogs.
However, I did manage to successfully start a clothing brand in March of 2023 with my co-founder.
I learned after starting the clothing brand that it wasn’t the blogs that weren’t working. It was me not working on them.
The trials we face when it comes to achieving our goals will have us quit before we even get started. I was so focused on results I forgot the reason I started blogging in the first place.
I carried that same mindset into my clothing brand, and felt discouraged and frustrated at every single trial and problem we had on starting our business.
Impatience can run so deep in us that it ruins our entire desire to do what we felt so confident would work.
I told myself for 3 years that I’d get back into the blogs, but I could never bring myself to it. This is what makes the trials of being patient so hard to overcome.
When we lose the desire and focus on our dreams and goals, like I had lost mine with the blogs, we begin to feel worthless.
You’re guilty but you’re also forgiven
We are the only ones responsible for not being where we want to be in life.
We are the only ones responsible for allowing ourselves to quit something.
We are the only ones responsible for struggling with being patient.
Nothing else really matters as to how and why. We allow our impatience to win and it’s not enough to just acknowledge this, we have to learn to accept it, and then forgive ourselves.
Forgive yourself for being impatient.
Not being able to forgive yourself and accept can lead to many dark ways of thinking. It’ll feel like there’s a dark cloud over you everyday. Impatience will follow you everywhere if you don’t forgive yourself.
I forgave myself and began to grow out of my impatience over time. The journey to grow out of it starts with you forgiving yourself.
Better Days
I believe that when our patience is tested in life, the only way to pass that test is to know one important truth; better days are coming.
Even when you feel completely defeated, having this mindset will carry you through it all. Patience runs deep in those who can understand this way of thinking.
We all deserve better days.
If you desire a better future for yourself, you must trust that the better days in your life are worth the wait.
You don’t need to have everything figured out, you just need to trust yourself that it will figure itself out as you continue to show up.
Peace comes to those that can wait.
Your Reflection
The peace reflected upon you after reading this is for you to practice being patient with two simple yet very powerful tasks.
Everyday you wake up no matter the time that is, say to yourself out loud, “I will be patient today.”
Every night before you fall asleep no matter the time that is, say to yourself out loud, “I was patient today.”
Continue to say these two peaceful affirmations everyday and watch as you will not only become more patient, you will also begin to pay close attention to how you react to negative situations. You won’t want to let yourself down.
The peace is within you.
