“Have patience with all things, but, first of all with yourself” – Saint Francis de Sales.

We’ve all lived through a challenging time and new reality due to the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic that has affected the world since the first quarter of 2020. Here in the UK last week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a 4-week delay to the lifting of remaining lockdown measures due to rising Covid case numbers. This further delay angered some people and got me thinking about patience and anxiety.

As well as the dangers to our physical health, much concern has been expressed about the effect of the crisis on people’s mental health. The current coronavirus crisis has required us all to undertake significant behavioural change.

It’s useful to think about some of the benefits of this different way of being to help us to feel motivated to sustain the changes. Adopting this approach will help us to stick with the new habits when the going gets tough. It will also provide us with the energy and determination to persist with the new approaches to life.

Many people that I’ve spoken to have told me how anxious and stressed they have felt during the crisis. The uncertainty of the situation has stirred up many unwanted and unhelpful feelings and emotions.

They have also expressed frustration at not knowing when things will get better and when they can return to some of the activities that they enjoyed previously. We are all having to get used to a new way of being and adjusting to having more time on our hands and spending more time at home.

When things don’t progress as quickly as we would like, it can lead us to have anxious feelings. This can make it difficult to switch off mentally and may cause our sleep to be erratic. This can have a knock-on effect on our mood and close relationships.

When we don’t make the progress on our goals and projects that we would like, we can become very self-critical and hard on ourselves. This is when we need to have more patience with ourselves and our situation.

Patience is defined in the dictionary as “The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious.”

Here are some tips on developing patience, which I hope you will find helpful:

Focus your time on things you can control and influence

Look to spend the bulk of your time on the things you can control as this is the area where you can have the biggest impact. Spend the rest of your time and focus on the things you can influence, knowing things may not go your way. Let go of things over which you have no control or influence. Time and energy spent there is just wasted and will lead to frustration.

Get clarity on your professional and personal goals

Use any spare time to re-evaluate your personal priorities and what’s important to you. Get clear on the goals that really matter from this moment on. As you know, goals are best achieved by breaking them into small chunks. This process helps keep you motivated. Celebrate each milestone that you complete. One action every day towards a goal is 365 actions every year to move you closer to what you desire.

Develop greater acceptance of people and life in general

Acknowledge that people and events don’t always move at your pace. Accept people for what they are not how you want them to be. Recognize that things don’t always go as you would like. Learn to work with how things are today right now, rather than wasting time, energy and thought wishing that things were different.

A useful reminder for this approach is the quotation by Reinhold Niebuhr: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can and the wisdom to know the difference”.

Learn to forgive yourself

Frequently remind yourself that you’re human and will occasionally make mistakes. Remember that things won’t always work out as you imagined or planned. If you make a mistake, accept it, learn from it and move on. Instead of beating yourself up over past mistakes, accept they helped play a part in shaping who you are today. They taught you valuable lessons and created wisdom to apply in the future. As the old saying goes “There is no point crying over spilt milk”

A final thought to conclude this week’s blog: Seek to strive for excellence rather than expecting perfection. If you constantly look for perfection, you will always be disappointed and empty handed. Having a perfectionist approach in life will place unreasonable expectations on yourself and others.

This week, take some time to reflect and consider if you need to develop greater patience in life and what benefits it would bring you if you did. What action steps will you take to achieve this?

To arrange a free no obligation consultation, please contact Stephen Pauley via the contact form or by e mail: Stephen@befirstclass.co.uk