It’s not easy to be patient. This is why there’s a common saying referring to it as a virtue. When you’re patient in life, you’ll enjoy many benefits. For instance, patience helps you focus on your long-term financial goals and inspires you to make better decisions. Patience can also help you form a helpful skillset and improve your mental and physical health. Jumping the gun and making hurried decisions often results in problems and frustrations.
To achieve long-term goals, you need a strategy, one that may include several steps. Take the time to break down what you want to achieve. If you experience a setback, then be open to trying something else, or consider where you want to go from a different angle. To achieve a long-term goal, you may need to start over multiple times, and this requires patience.
For many people, building wealth is the goal. If you direct your attention on immediate results, it may prevent you from reaching it. When you jump the gun in the investment world, you could wind up limiting your portfolio’s possibilities. In time, investment choices generally become less important than your capacity to withstand market fluctuations. This is where investment strategies like passive investing come in.
Passive investing is an effective strategy used to increase wealth. It helps people do so gradually. When you participate in passive investing, you’ll be purchasing a security and holding onto it for a long time. Real estate investing falls into this category. Property frequently increases in value, so consider looking into land or building investments that you can sell for a profit later.
Schroders Investment Management performed a study of global investors. It found that many of them are impatient. They are attracted to short-term investment opportunities and often hold onto securities for an average of three years. According to the study, fewer than a fifth of investors kept investments for five years or more. A younger investor is even more likely to be impatient.
The Schroders study found that investors in the 18 to 35-year-old age range aspire to earn around 10% from their investments while keeping them for less than two years. This age group is also less likely to invest using a strategy. Research shows that these investors tend to lose more while gaining fewer profits. Patient investors are successful ones.
People who are patient have better mental health. If you think of someone who is impatient, it might bring to mind a person with shaking hands and a red face. A person who is quivering with emotion is likely experiencing stress in their body. People who are patient are less depressed. They also experience fewer negative emotions, which is probably because they handle upsetting or tense situations better. Those who are patient are often more mindful and grateful. They also connect more fully to other humans and report that their lives have greater abundance.
Jumping the gun may result in your missing out on something better. For instance, if you were to purchase the first home that you tour, you might miss out on one that has the exact features that you want and a lower price. It pays to be patient and wait for the perfect home to become available. Real estate investing is also a great way to build personal wealth.
Parenting is another time when it pays to be patient. If you’re in a hurry for your kids to walk, you may not enjoy watching them develop small motor skills like learning how to move an object from one hand to the other or slowly gaining the strength to press up to their hands and knees. When you’re patient with their steps, you may find yourself appreciating more of what they are doing.
Today’s culture focuses a lot on instant gratification. This means that people tend to search for quick fixes and shortcuts. They also fall for get-rich-quick schemes. While few people receive instant gratification from these things, many individuals continue to pursue them because they sound so good.
Patient people know that setbacks are temporary and that they’ll reach their goals in time. You can’t rush or hurry most goals. Often, they require thought and a bit of trial and error to come to fruition. Successful people make long-term commitments and dedicate themselves to achieving their goals despite any obstacles or challenges.
How patient you are is based on your background, personality and the situation that you are in. Your personality likely dictates how well you deal with the setbacks and interruptions that happen during your life. You may handle these situations calmly or with frustration and anger.
To become more patient, you will need to practice. First, determine when you’re being impatient and narrow in on the emotion that you’re experiencing. For instance, are you mad because traffic is preventing you from getting home when you expected? Or, are you frustrated because a deal didn’t go your way? Maybe, you’re sad because your grown child made a bad decision. Once you start identifying when you’re impatient, you can start practicing being patient.
If it’s another person that’s causing you to feel impatient, then try to put yourself into their shoes. Keep in mind that the things that are causing you to feel impatient are not usually about you. For example, the store cashier didn’t run out of register tape to annoy you nor did the train become packed with people so that you would have to stand during your morning commute. Reframe how you look at the situation.
Also, don’t lose sight of your purpose. It’s natural to feel annoyed or rejected when you don’t receive the promotion that you wanted, but you can continue searching for employment opportunities that will help you reach your career goals. Remind yourself that tolerating frustrating situations will help you succeed.
Impatience is often the instigator of mistakes and the founder of annoyance. Building wealth can be time consuming, and if your natural tendency is toward impatience, then you may have to practice being patient. When you embrace patience, you’ll be a more successful investor and enjoy benefits like achieving your goals and becoming a person that other people want to know and emulate.