How to Be Patient in the Workplace

Do you tend to lose your patience at work? What are the reasons for losing patience in the workplace?

Here are a few instances where you might lose your patience:

• You try to teach a new employee a certain job, but he does not understand, no matter how many times you tell him what to do. Does this make you lose your patience?
• A client keeps asking questions on the phone. You have a lot of work, but you cannot end the conversation. What do you do? Do you become impatient with him, or do you try to stay polite on the surface but impatient and angry inside?
• As a boss, you give your employees a certain job, but it takes them too long to carry out. Do you lose your patience and get angry at them?

There are many situations at the work that can cause people to lose their patience. There is no need to enumerate them; just look at your average workday, and you will find many occasions where you, or someone else at work, lost his or her patience.

Losing Patience Creates Loss

Losing patience gives rise to anger and unhappiness, and this can harm relationships with the boss, employees, colleagues, and customers. This might also make you say and do things that you will regret later.

You might also lose promotion opportunities if you are quick to lose your patience with people, colleagues, or customers.

Do you see now how important it is to be patient?

You need to learn to be patient at work. You need to increase your patience level. This will improve your relationships with everyone around you; people will like you more, and the workday will pass more quickly and more pleasantly.

How to Be Patient in the Workplace – Tips

Enough sleep
Getting enough sleep at night affects your degree of patience during the day. Six to eight hours at night are the average.

Eat breakfast
Don’t skip breakfast. Eating a light meal before going to work will make you feel happier, more energetic, and able to think more clearly. This will save you a lot of nervousness and impatience.

Studies have shown that eating breakfast can improve memory and concentration levels, and it can also make us happier, improve our mood and lower stress levels. This of course, helps to maintain patience.

Think about the importance of maintaining patience
For a few moments before leaving home to go to work, think about the importance of being patient in the workplace, and how this can affect your day. Tell yourself over and again that you are going to strive to remember to practice patience during your work day.

Be Nice to your colleagues
Greet the people you meet at your workplace, even if you don’t like them. Try to be helpful and kind. This will affect the way they treat you, and therefore, there will be fewer reasons for getting impatient.

Change your reactions and attitude
Realize that you cannot change people, but you can change your reaction and attitude toward them.

You can learn to choose how you react and wait a little while before reacting.

You won’t be able to change your reaction the first time you try, but if you strive over and again, sooner or later, you will have more control over your reactions.

Additional Ways to Improve Patience

Drink Water
Every time you feel you are losing patience, drink a few sips of water. This will tend to calm you down.

Deep Breathing
A few deep and slow breaths can calm down the mind, emotions and body in stressful and uncomfortable situations.

Put yourself in situations that cause impatience
Now and then, put yourself on purpose, in situations that make you impatient, and try to keep calm and patient. This is a powerful exercise, which will increase your patience skills.

Self Discipline
One of the best ways to learn to be patient at work, and in other situations too, is to develop self-discipline. It is one of the most important factors for being able to be patience.

Detachment
A certain degree of emotional detachment will always help you stay calm and unaffected by stress and by stressful people. This has been explained extensively in the book Emotional Detachment for Happier Life, with guidance and exercises.

It is important to learn to be patient, at the workplace, and everywhere else too. Increasing your patience level is most rewarding.

“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.” – Chinese Proverb