I'm fairly confident that if I were one of the 4-year-old participants in the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment, I would have promptly consumed my marshmallow.

Decades later, patience is still a quality I have yet to master.

In pursuit of this virtue, I've realized:

• Patience can be fickle. No one is patient 100% of the time.

• Patience takes practice. You can't simply will it to happen.

• Patience wears thin when you're tired, hungry, thirsty or Stressed.

• Patience is a key ingredient in successful goal achievement.

• It's a choice. Patient people tend to be self-regulated. They recognize situations that aren't in their control and they choose reactions & responses that don't increase their own or others' stress.

• Patience is related to time at hand. Generally when we're not in a rush, we have more capacity to tolerate, understand & wait.

• Waiting is not the skill. It's our attitude about waiting that really matters.

• Sometimes impatience is the right choice - having the sense of urgency to decide, take needed action and not waste time.

In 2012, the Journal of Positive Psychology described Sarah Schnitker's study where she identified three types of patience: Interpersonal, Life Hardships & Daily Hassles.

Let's look at how we can foster patience for each.

But First - Know Yourself

• Who/what is easy for you to have patience with?
• Who/what is not?
• When are you most patient?
• What needs to be true for you to be willing to be patient?
• What factors increase your impatience? (dehydration, hunger, fatigue, time constraints, etc)
• What are your triggers? (If you're not sure, ask someone who knows you well - they can probably tell you in a heartbeat.)

Interpersonal Patience

Maintaining a calm, cool demeanor with PEOPLE.

Big category when you take into consideration we're talking about emotional states, demands & expectations. Under duress, many humans are not able to show their best self. Maybe someone is stressed, scared, upset or angry. Maybe they're being unreasonable or a nuisance. Could be they're having a difficult time learning something new. Or they aren't meeting expectations and getting results in a timely manner.

Interpersonal patience is crucial for health care, customer service, teaching, and just getting along in the sandbox.

What Is Needed: Active Patience

Tap into your Empathy

Listen & observe. Put yourself in their shoes.

Get Curious

What's the underlying Why to their state or behavior?

Focus

Use your own self-awareness and emotional intelligence to understand how your words and actions affect the situation.

Communicate Carefully

Timing, tone & content are key factors in whether we escalate or de-escalate the situation.

Life Hardships Patience

Lack of resources, obstacles or serious setbacks may constitute life hardships. They can spin us into frustration, lack of motivation, fear, even despair.

What Can Help: Perseverance, Persistence & Perspective

Perseverance and persistence help us to keep going when things are difficult, uncertain or taking longer than we planned. It's taking one step at a time. Asking for help and leaning into available supports. Accepting it's easier to be patient when we're not alone.

Cultivating the ability to zoom out and view the situation with a different lens can give us the perspective we need to be patient. Maybe we realize the situation is temporary. Different strategies become apparent. Or we find hope.

Daily Hassles Patience

In our 24/7 world where you can literally order an Apple watch and have it show up on your doorstop 4 hours later, we are conditioned for immediate gratification. As such, we have become increasingly intolerant of inconveniences. Traffic, technology glitches, delayed communication, incompetence. Basically, anything that takes too long - deliveries not arriving, a friend not on time, standing in line anywhere, waiting for an appointment, even just mundane daily tasks ... the hassle possibilities are endless.

What is Needed: Sometimes a Reality Check

• You are actually not the center of the universe.
• A lot happens that you can't control
• Getting upset at the little stuff drains your energy
• If the little stuff sets you off, it might be because the bigger stuff in your life is the real issue

Good Habits

Get Enough Sleep

When you're rested, so much more is possible.

Breathe

Literally 2-3 breaths offer an interruption, a pause. In that moment, you can choose how you want to respond.

Learn Mindfulness

Being able to be still, slow down, observe and be present. This can be used to turn inconvenience into moments where we may practice disengaging, or learn something or meditate or simply daydream...

Reframe

Tell another story - What else could this mean? How much does this really matter?

Take a step back and try to look at it as objectively as you can.

Practice Gratitude

Gratitude focuses on abundance. It looks for what we have rather than what we don't have. Newsflash: What we don't have is often at the root of our impatience.

Delaying Gratification

An interesting point from the marshmallow experiment is that when it was repeated at the University of Rochester, they did it with a twist. One group of children were exposed to reliable experiences (ex: they were given a small box of crayons and promised a bigger box which they did receive). Another group had unreliable experiences and never received the bigger box of crayons. The outcomes this time around revealed that those children with reliable experiences had a much easier time waiting for the 2nd marshmallow to arrive. The takeaway for us is that experience and environment matter.

As Atomic Habits author, James Clear explains:

"We can train our ability to delay gratification, just like we can train our muscles in the gym. And you can do it in the same way as the child and the researcher: by promising something small and then delivering - over and over again until your brain says:

1) Yes, it's worth it to wait and

2) Yes, I have the capability to do this."

Most of what is meaningful takes time, effort and patience. We need a certain level of discomfort tolerance to navigate the inevitable twists and turns that life throws at us. The good news is that patience is a trait that can be cultivated. It's associated with better relationships and mental health.

As your patience expands, see what you notice ... my guess is that it will be well worth the effort!