Practice Patience

Nathan Pearson Smith
2 min readNov 25, 2020

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Results take time, success takes time. In 300 words or less, I’ll explain why patience is key to long-term success.

The trick is to keep building, to continue your efforts, and double down. The time to bear your fruits will come but you have to be consistent.

In a world of growing instantaneous results, sticking with the process can be one of most important factors in your success. The process is boring, it's arduous and really not fun sometimes but it has to be done.

We all know the saying, Rome was not built in a day. We often underestimate how long it takes to get to our destination and we overestimate our ability to get there in the time we want to.

I’m a huge fan of James Clear. His principles awakened me to a systematic, proven way to foster results, and ever since reading his book Atomic Habits, I viewed my relationship between work and compounding results differently.

A common denominator in accomplished individuals, whether in life, work and sport is merely being able to stay the course the longest, continuously working on your craft and as you clock up more hours, you inevitably see a large majority fall off because they don’t have the milage to continue, whether because they weren’t as committed, or they lack the ability.

How do I practice patience?

  1. I remind myself of the goal. I have enough self-awareness to know I work more productively when I can bring a far away goal front of mind. Without this I would drift and subsequently, drift off course, even if the goal is important to me to achieve, I have to remind myself of it daily.
  2. Practice gratitude daily. Finding 3 things to be grateful for every day reminds that for all I aspire to achieve each day, it brings me back to earth and reminds me how much I have, today.
  3. Workout. I know no better way to build mental toughness (and in turn patience) than to put both your mind and body through strenuous activity.

How do you practice patience? Leave a comment below.

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