Patience With Oneself

Abstract It is all too common for people to fall short of their goals and aspirations for themselves. Individuals might deeply desire to quit smoking, study more, or become more empathetic—but people may also find themselves backsliding, procrastinating, and otherwise failing to make changes. This chapter examines the phenomenon of having patience with oneself, a virtue that comes to the fore in such circumstances. It argues that such patience is primarily a matter of possessing a perspective on oneself and the world that enables individuals to gracefully accept and respond to situations in which they are a potential source of their own frustration, anger, or disappointment. Patience with oneself, so understood, (1) makes life more pleasant (than if one is impatient and frustrated), (2) helps one to avoid excessive self-criticism and feelings of inadequacy (while also avoiding excessive self-indulgence or lassitude), (3) enables individuals to achieve their goals and abide by their commitments, and (4) enables them to appropriately embrace, reject, or modify our goals and commitments in light of their limitations. The chapter then explores key ways in which patience with oneself differs from other forms of patience, and from self-compassion—a closely-related trait that has received much recent attention. Finally, the chapter concludes with some speculative thoughts on how to develop patience with oneself, focusing on the technique of self-distancing, whereby individuals attempt to take a more objective, third-person perspective on themselves and their circumstances.