{"id":16779,"date":"2023-06-07T10:45:22","date_gmt":"2023-06-07T17:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/?p=16779"},"modified":"2025-06-23T12:59:19","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T12:59:19","slug":"the-power-of-patience-for-positive-life-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/the-power-of-patience-for-positive-life-change\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Patience for Positive Life Change"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are many qualities that are necessary to <a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/swr\/article-abstract\/22\/3\/173\/1704323\">grow personally<\/a> and become the best versions of ourselves including motivation, hope, confidence, focus, resilience, persistence, perseverance, and much more. These traits, though necessary, may not be sufficient to make the life changes you want and be the person you want to be. <a href=\"https:\/\/eric.ed.gov\/?id=EJ1166060\">Patience<\/a> may be the most important attribute you need to possess to make meaningful changes in your life because change is hard and slow, and without patience, you won\u2019t commit the considerable time and energy necessary to allow those changes to emerge.<\/p>\n<p>Before we delve further into the \u201cpower of patience,\u201d To ensure our shared understanding of what patience is, let me offer you the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Patience\">Wikipedia definition<\/a> that articulates its many facets:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The ability to endure difficult circumstances,<\/li>\n<li>Persevere in the face of delay,<\/li>\n<li>Tolerate provocation without responding in disrespect\/anger,<\/li>\n<li>forbearance when under strain, especially when faced with longer-term difficulties, or<\/li>\n<li>being able to wait for a long amount of time without getting irritated or bored.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These descriptions of patience are truly admirable and qualities that we all would like to possess. Philosophically, everyone older than a child knows that nothing of value in life comes quickly or without hard work, whether an education, career, avocation, or relationship.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A Culture of Impatience<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yet, patience is in very short supply these days because the messages we get from our \u201cimpatient\u201d culture are very difficult to resist. Unlike in previous generations, most of us aren\u2019t learning the value or the practice of patience. In fact, so much of our lives today are governed by immediate access to whatever we want and instant gratification of our needs. This culture of impatience has been exacerbated by the emergence of digital technology over the last 25 years. From the seemingly ancient (think fax machine and microwave) to the most up to date (think internet search, streaming, and texting) it seems like life is at our fingertips instantaneously and with little effort.<\/p>\n<p>Impatience is both the most common reaction and greatest obstacle to the always slow, often-times unpredictable, and never linear journey to positive life change. The unfortunate consequence of the absence of patience is the inability to do what\u2019s necessary to improve your life. Impatience begins with a set of perceptions and beliefs:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cThis is taking forever.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cMy goal is unachievable.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cI\u2019m never going to change.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cI just can\u2019t do this.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with me?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cI give up!\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Negative Emotional Chain<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In turn, these perceptions and beliefs trigger what I call the \u201cnegative emotional chain\u201d which is comprised of three links: frustration, anger, and despair. These links in the negative emotional chain are not only immense obstacles to positive life change but are actually sabotaging by making that desired change more difficult at a practical level and aversive at an emotional level.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Frustration.<\/strong> The best way I can describe <a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s10942-011-0126-4\">frustration<\/a> is: AAARRGGHH!! It is a truly infuriating feeling that we are all familiar with. But what is frustration precisely and what causes it? Simply put, frustration arises when the path toward your goal is blocked. For anyone who has ever tried to change something about themselves knows, frustration can be a constant, and unwelcome, companion on your journey.<\/p>\n<p>Most people think of frustration as a bad emotion because it just doesn\u2019t feel good. Yet it is actually more complex than that. The fact is that frustration is hard wired into us evolutionarily to help us survive. Frustration starts as a good emotion because when you get frustrated, you\u2019re motivated to remove the obstacle that is blocking the path toward your goals. You try harder and that extra effort can, if the obstacle isn\u2019t too big, result in clearing that path enabling you to to continue down the path toward your goals and no longer feel frustration.<\/p>\n<p>However, there is a problem that often arises when you become frustrated which can prevent you from clearing that path to your goals. There is a tendency when you experience frustration to do what you were doing before simply more and harder, relying on the \u201cmagical thinking\u201d that you will somehow just wear the barrier down by sheer will and persistence (which can happen, but not usually). However, this strategy violates Albert Einstein\u2019s famous Law of Insanity; \u201cDoing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.\u201d So, your well-intentioned efforts can often increase, not decrease, your frustration, thus leading you to the next link in the negative emotional chain.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Anger<\/strong>. If, despite your best efforts, you can\u2019t clear the path toward your goals and relieve your frustration, it can morph into anger. Most people also believe that anger is a bad emotion, but, like frustration, it too has both positive and negative sides. Anger starts out as being potentially helpful because it too is motivating. When you\u2019re angry, you want to go after the thing that is causing your anger. So, you direct all your anger-created energy toward tearing down that barrier blocking your path. Again, if the barrier standing between you and your change goals isn\u2019t too difficult to overcome, having your emotional volume turned up from frustration to anger, and the extra energy it produces, may just give you what you need to knock that barrier down.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, often, anger can turn into a bad emotion that hurts your efforts to change for the better. The feelings of anger are like those of frustration but have increased exponentially. Your focus narrows, your thinking is clouded, and your decision making is impaired. The likely result is that the obstacle will remain in place, you continue to be unable to continue down the path toward your goals, and you move onto the final link in the negative emotional chain.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Despair<\/strong>. If you still can\u2019t clear the obstacle from your path that initiated the negative emotional chain at this point, your emotions shift to the final link of the negative emotional chain: despair. You have tried and tried and tried and still can\u2019t remove the barrier, so the natural thing to do is to quit. You feel out of control, hopeless, and helpless. What\u2019s the point of continuing to try to change your life if nothing you do is working? The unfortunate outcome of the conclusion of the negative emotional chain is immediate and irreversible failure to make progress toward your goals and, sadly, staying who you are, which is not who you want to be.<\/p>\n<p>When you experience despair, everything that would be required for you to ultimately overcome the initial cause of the negative emotional chain goes the other way. You lose your motivation, confidence, and focus. You experience unhelpful emotions. You see no point in continuing your efforts. The result is that you lack what it takes mentally and emotionally to persevere in the face of the challenges that prevent your continued headway toward becoming the person you truly want to be.<\/p>\n<p>It has been my experience that if you move from frustration to anger to despair, continued efforts usually fail, at least temporarily. And if you experience the negative emotional chain on a regular basis\u2014sinking repeatedly into despair\u2014you will likely lose your motivation and be unwilling to make a sustained effort to change in the future. With each descent down the negative emotional chain, you come to believe that your efforts will simply never be rewarded, your actions have little effect, and you will progressively lose confidence in your ability to make the positive changes you want in your life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Patience is the Key<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Patience begins with an emotion. That emotion is hope. And with that emotion comes a belief that if you stay committed to the changes you want to make in your life, good things will happen. Without hope or believing that good things will happen, you will simply not have faith that change is possible. Patience also encompasses several essential ways of looking at yourself and the challenges you face as you work to become the best version of yourself:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Be driven by your life goals and an inner determination to change (change must come from within).<\/li>\n<li>Have a long-term perspective (change takes time).<\/li>\n<li>Stay committed to your goals no matter what happens (change has ups and downs).<\/li>\n<li>Make your commitment to change a moment-to-moment choice (you have the power).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>From this foundation of patience, you can then build your new self with persistence (continuing to try), perseverance (overcoming difficulties), and resilience (getting back up when you fall down). When you take patience and add all of these other ingredients to your recipe for positive life change, you set yourself up for knowing what lies ahead and being willing to stay the course until you become the person you\u2019ve always dreamed of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are many qualities that are necessary to grow personally and become the best versions of ourselves including motivation, hope, confidence, focus, resilience, persistence, perseverance, and much more. These traits, though necessary, may not be sufficient to make the life changes you want and be the person you want to be. Patience may be the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1529,1518,1520],"tags":[1277,374,1379,375],"class_list":["post-16779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-personal-growth","category-psychology","tag-patience","tag-personal-growth-2","tag-positive-life-change","tag-self-help"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18850,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16779\/revisions\/18850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drjimtaylor.com\/4.0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}