[00:00] Welcome back to the Focus B show. This is Katie Sudddhart here aka the focus b. And on this show, I interview high performers and leaders around the world to discover their secrets on peak performance, productivity, mindfulness and leadership. So if you want to take your performance and your leadership to the next level, then you're in the right place. Listen up and connect with the magic.

[00:36] You how to Never Feel Impatient Again I'm doing this miniseries of three episodes on how to never feel frustrated again, how to never feel bored again, and today on how to never feel impatient again. And the reason why I cover these three in particular is because these are feelings and emotions that I've had in my life a lot. Frustration, boredom and impatience. And that I feel don't necessarily serve me or serve us in general with the emotions. The idea isn't to resist them or to think that some emotions are bad. There's nothing wrong with sometimes feeling upset or bit sad or disappointed. It's fine. But it's just that some of these, like, especially if they're regular feelings of frustration or impatience or boredom, they don't really contribute to our life. And it's fine if at one moment you might feel a bit of frustration and they'll be an indication that things aren't aligned in your life or in your business, and this might be the step that you need to move forward, that's fine. It's something else if you just feel frustrated every time something doesn't go your way. And this is the same with impatience. Impatience is a really interesting feeling and a very interesting emotion. Because on the one hand, it's great to have impatience. Yes, I mean, it's great because if you have this sense of urgency, especially if it's correlated to a sense of duty, then this will really push you forward. If you're really impatient to get those results, you're really impatient to publish your book, you're really impatient to launch your podcast. This will make you do it. And that has been the main advantage and benefit that I've experienced from impatience, because it has helped me to launch things forward, to do things, to take action, because I want it to happen. That type of impatience can be useful, but instead it might be nicer to just feel drive and passion, which is moving you forward, because impatience is drive with frustration and resistance and a bit of disappointment also. So you're not quite happy, you're not quite satisfied with where you're at and you're feeling this resistance and this pushes you forward. But you can just have drive without that. I know it can be hard to imagine, but you can just be passionate about something, something you want to deliver, and you just go and there's only that sort of fuel, that fire, and you're just doing it and then it's done. And you're not feeling this like, why am I not there yet? And why isn't they progressing, how I want to go, and all this sort of inner drama. Impatience doesn't need to be there. So it's important to recognize that, okay, there were some good things, and maybe you got some stuff in your life through your impatience. Great. Twist it a bit around to turn it more into this inner drive and fuel and get rid of this sort of bar feeling I don't know how else to put it, this frustration, impatience, wriggliness, because that's resistance. And coming back to something that I already mentioned in the episode on how to never feel frustrated again, which is the power of now by Toll, where he talks. That the present moment. We sometimes feel that it's an obstacle or an enemy. And if you're feeling very impatient, you're seeing the present moment as the enemy. The current situation isn't where you want to be, and the future is your savior when you get there, who. Great, amazing, relax, happiness, joy. But now sucks. And this is the great issue I feel with impatience and why we need to master it. And if you can't eliminate it forever in your life, that's fine. But just having less impatience in our life is already a huge benefit. Because as I was saying, right now, impatience means that you don't want what you're currently having and you want something that hypothetically might happen in the future also it might not happen. So you might just be waiting and not actually getting anywhere. And this resistance to the present moment is really toxic for our brain, for our well being, for how we feel, because the present moment is all we have. So if you're not able to accept it, which is what impatience is, you are not being patient and you're not accepting what is. Therefore, you're constantly in this sense of frustration, of waiting, and of not really being here and accepting. So that's really why I feel that impatience is something that needs to be worked on, because it's all about accepting where we are right now and dealing with the cause we've been dealt, as I explained in the frustration episode, and managing that harmoniously and feeling good about it. So what are a few things that can help? First of all, let's distinguish two types of impatience. The first type of impatience is for short term immediate things. This could be when you're in the queue of a supermarket, for instance, or when you're waiting for the tram, or when you're listening and expecting a call. So you're listening, as in waiting with your ear in some ways, for someone to call. And then you can have that impatience, which is short term in those moments. Most people's solution, and they don't feel impatient too much, is to take out their phone. So they're waiting in the queue of a supermarket. Their phone comes out, they're waiting for the tramp, their phone comes out, they're waiting for their friend who's just gone to the bathroom while they're in a restaurant, their phone comes out, two minute wait, three minute wait. Now, you might be wondering, okay, what's wrong with that? The idea here again and in all the episodes, it's not what's right or wrong, it's just that if we look at this behavior, it teaches us not to deal with that brief pause, with that brief moment of waiting and to instead we bypass it. So we entertain ourselves. This leads us in the future that when harder things happen or just bigger things, then we don't have that patience that resilience to deal with these situations. So in the moments where just scrolling instagram doesn't solve that feeling of impatience, you're stuck. So you're not allowing these small moments to train that patience that will serve you for bigger moments. Hope this makes sense. And I remember when I was training my patients, so obviously one method is meditation. And yes, I spoke about it in the frustration episode and the boredom episode, and that's because it really does help to train our patients and avoid frustration. But aside from meditation, one of the things I was doing is when I was at a traffic like waiting, I would really wait for it to grow green even if there weren't any cars. And this is because I was mentally just training myself to be patient, to not be so impulsive, to not always want to go faster and move faster and do things faster. And any opportunity, even waiting at a traffic light or waiting for the tram or in the supermarket is an opportunity for you to train, be present, not go against the present moment, accept it and calm yourself down. And so aside from using these brief moments to calm yourself down and train your patients, they also allow you to have a break, mentally speaking, and to process your day. So if in all these small moments you're always connected or on the phone, you're not letting your brain process your day of work, the conversation, things in your life reflecting. And so it's a very natural thing for you to do normally, to have these breaks to process. So you're constantly bombarding yourself with information which will make you more overwhelmed and tired over time and can lead to impatience in other areas because you're not mastering patience. And so there's just a lot of reasons why in many ways you can benefit from being unplugged and losing that habit of constantly being in check mode doesn't mean all the time. It means sometimes maybe you're on the bus and tram and you're using the opportunity to catch up on emails, fine. But it means not having always that reflex to shake it out all the time. So this was regarding short term impatience and then there's long term impatience and this is the one I struggled with most. So I managed my waiting at traffic lights patience. But when it came to goals and dreams, and projects and social media growth and following. I would often feel this sort of impatience for what I want and for where I want it to be. And there's just so much on this topic of impatience. So it's resisting the present moment, as we've said, but it's also fear, because if you know that it's going to work out and that you'll get the results you want to, you no longer feel impatient. You have this certainty, this inner knowledge that you're getting there. And you can just ride at the pace it takes. If you know that it will take three weeks, three months to get to that result, you just ride that pace. The impatience come from that fear and from that uncertainty and from not knowing will it really work out. So there's also dealing with uncertainty here. Okay, so let's look what can help to remove this impatience, as we said, practicing already through having a meditation practice and using small moments like waiting at the traffic light, or in the queue of a supermarket or the tram, to just breathe and be present, that's one thing. The second one is to accept the current situation. Now, this also works with long term impatience to look at, okay, what's going on right now? What are my current results and how do I feel about this? And if you notice, you have this in a drive for more, okay, you put in the work and you do the plan, but you accept. And it helps if you feel grateful for how much you've already achieved. Because often, especially as high achievers, we have this desire for more. And when we don't get those results, we get disappointed or we want them faster. So just taking a moment and thinking, okay, what have you achieved so far? And that's already great. So having that acceptance and gratitude for the present moment really helps. And the last thing is that when you're thinking about where you'd like to be, ideally, and you're feeling this impatience that you're not there yet, it's remembering that when you get to that stage, you'll just feel the same way. And that in the future we place all these expectations of salvation, we'll be saved by the future and the impatience will go away. But impatience is a thought pattern and a feeling, and it's a habit. And so knowing that when you get there, if you haven't trained your patience, if you haven't trained to accept the present moment, you'll feel exactly the same way, exactly the same way, I guarantee, take any result in your life, okay, let's say you're exercising loads and you want to lose weight, okay? Boom, you'll arrive and then you'll want to lose more weight, or then you'll want to gain muscle, or then it'll be because the thought pattern will be there and it'll just replace the content inside. So understanding that the future doesn't solve anything. The only thing that can solve how you're feeling, what you're thinking is now. So on the moment when you look at your project, when you look at if you're losing weight, when whatever it is that you're feeling impatient about, just thinking, okay, I accept this is the current situation. I'm grateful for where I've come so far, and these are the actions I'm going to take. You still take action. You still work towards your goal and your dream, but without that sense of resistance. And because that resistance, it doesn't really serve you. It holds you back. And sometimes you'll even get discouraged and you'll stop taking action on some dreams and goals that are important for you because of your impatience. That's the irony. Because sometimes the impatience can be so big that it can lead to that extra frustration, and then you can't cope with it emotionally anymore, and you stop altogether. That's why so many people, after two, three weeks of diet or exercising, they stop because they haven't lost weight fast enough, for instance. That's a very simple example, and it's not helping. So just keep in mind that instead, if you just accept, you feel grateful for, okay, you've been exercising two weeks, great. What are the next steps? Continue part of the journey. Embrace it, be present. And then that'll really help to not have that feeling of impatience. I know this is something I dealt with a lot. It still shows up from time to time. When I went to this silent meditation retreat, we all had a key word on our mat, and mine was patience. So clearly this is a huge part of my journey. So totally sympathize if this is something you're working on. As I said, that drive is fantastic. Keep the fuel, keep the passion, keep the drive. Remove the resistance and accept and be grateful for where you currently are. Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you've enjoyed the episode, please leave a comment or review on Apple podcasts. That would mean the world for me and wishing you a truly, truly wonderful, magical day ahead.

[15:26] Thank you so much for tuning in today to the Focus Bee Show. I would absolutely love to hear your feedback. So let me know in an Apple review or YouTube comment what was most valuable for you, and feel free to share this episode with a friend or a family member. Wishing you a wonderful, magical, and focused day ahead.