Transcript
[00:00:01]
You're listening to the Her Leadership Coach podcast for the quietly determined career woman who's looking to step up into her first or next level leadership role. If you're looking to make a bigger, more positive difference in your organization, you've come to the right place. Well, hello. Welcome in. It's Rochelle.
[00:00:22]
Thanks for joining me for this week's episode of Her Leadership Coach, where we're talking about how we might get better at this whole patience thing. How's your patience level? I'm going to admit it's something I'm still working on. Although I'm a lot better than I used to be, I find I need to have patience with practicing patience. Can you think of something you're working on at the moment that you wish would happen faster?
[00:00:54]
For some of you, there's going to be many things that come straight to mind. I have several things growing the audience of this podcast I wish that would happen faster, and I'm working on changing the culture at a nine and a half thousand person organization. So, yeah, you know, the simple stuff. I find myself sometimes getting really frustrated at the time it takes for things to happen, especially in government and big organizations. Not only do the wheels turn slowly, but now there seems to be a lot less staff to do things.
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I don't know if that's the case in your organization, but we're down a lot of people now, and that slows down response times more than normal or just getting stuff done times for me as well. Right. If there's not as many people there to do it, it's not getting done. So I kind of wonder, what do you do to get better at practicing patients? I've noticed in this past year that taking a deep breath when I find myself in hurry up mode can really help to ground me and it lessens my frustration.
[00:02:18]
I feel there's a link between how fast my heart is beating and how quickly I want things to happen. So just stopping to take a breath or even, God forbid, a whole five minute rest, actually helps me get back into a patient mindset. So it feels a little bit counterintuitive where we stop doing something for a while, and yet not only do I find that increases my patients level, it also increases my productivity level, and I end up getting things done faster. Doesn't help other people to get back to me faster, but because I'm calm, I'm more OK with that. One of the other things I've found that really helps me with my patience lately is to take a look back at where I've come from and notice that actually, yeah, I have made some progress.
[00:03:17]
I think we really get stuck in the moment. Rather than recognizing that we've come a long way on anything, whether it's our lives or the project that we're working on or changing culture, I can look back two, three, five years and say, yes, I really can see shifts. I really can see progress. I really can see that I've made a difference somewhere. And it gives me that perspective that I need to face the future with more patients, knowing that things are going to happen anyway.
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There's a quote I know to be true for me that is attributed to Bill Gates. I'm going to assume that he said this and that is most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years. Now, I normally change that to what they can do in five years because I think we can do a lot in five years and we don't realize it from where we are today. But if you look back at the youth of five years ago or ten years ago, would she recognize who you are today?
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And let's not get caught up and looked here, because a few extra wrinkles or pounds is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about things like what have you learned in the last five years? How has your outlook on life changed? Because I know mine has completely done a 180, I feel, in the last five years. Are you living a more joyful life now than you were five years ago?
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When I think back to where I was ten years ago, I know that that past. Rochelle would be amazed at who and where I am today. I don't think she would think that it was possible, not even in a dream world. So, yeah, a lot shifted. I have a new house that I honestly didn't think I would have this kind of house.
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I have a new husband, and with him came a whole bunch of new kids. I've moved from just starting out at the bottom in a new organization to now leading others and changing the culture at that same organization. I have new energy and talk about a whole new mindset and a whole lot of new self awareness along the way. So looking back, that can remind me that, yes, I really am making progress. Except what if for you, that doesn't ring true?
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What if the now you could quite comfortably slip back into the U from five or ten years ago and nothing would really feel any different? What if you're still repeating the same mistakes? Or you've got no new skills, no new capabilities you could teach your old you? Or what if, like me, you would be more than happy to speed that process up and actually get further in one year rather than waiting for another ten years? Well, so how do we do that?
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How do we start making sure that there is a difference, that we are making progress? One way that I found, according to James Clear, who is the author of Atomic Habits, is to make tiny or atomic improvements. So he talks about 1% improvements every single day. And that might sound small, but if you get 1% better every day, then apparently well, numerically, mathematically, by the end of the year, you're 37 times better than the start of the year. Now, if part of your frustration like me is you're impatient with other people, getting 1% more out of them every day is not strictly within your control.
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However, let's say you could get 1% better at influencing others every day. That would definitely be an interesting experiment that I am willing to try. Let's try that, shall we? So if you're looking back at the you from ten years ago and you think maybe there hasn't been all that much progress, how are you going to find something that will get you 1% closer tomorrow? Because 1%, what does it even mean, right?
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There's lots of ways. So let's say we're going to get 1% better at patience because we'll even need to be patient with this 1% idea, at least to start with. It can feel like nothing's really happening when we're first starting out. And because of that, it's so easy to tell ourselves this isn't making a difference anyway, so why don't I just stop it? Why don't I just give up?
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I don't know if you've done that with a new weight loss program or something, where it sort of starts out very slowly, you don't notice any difference, your clothes still fit the same, like nothing seems to be moving and shaken and it's easy to give up when that's happening. But it's those early days that are paving the way for the big change later on. So I love this story, this metaphor that the bamboo plant, when you plant it, you can barely see it at all for five years. What's happening in that time is all happening below the surface. So it's busy building extensive root systems underground and then after five years, it takes a mere six weeks and it has exploded 90ft into the air.
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90ft. I don't know what that is. A meters. This is from an American example. It's a lot.
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90ft from seemingly nothing. Only it wasn't nothing, it was this massive foundation that it had built upon. This has happened with me over the past few years in a number of ways. So, for example, I've been on a personal development journey for, I'm going to say 30 years. Definitely over 20 years I have been reading books, I've listened to tapes.
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Yes, that's how long ago I started tapes. Then I had CDs and now we're into podcasts. The world moves on and I learned a lot, I absorbed a lot. I did change in those years. I'm not sure how much other people would have noticed.
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I definitely know I did change small incremental amounts. But in the last two years, the change for me has been massive. It's been a 90 ft change for me. If I hadn't had all those years of building that foundation though, there's no way I would have been on this journey of the past two years, I know that I wouldn't have been able to show up for it. I would have probably lost patience with it early on and I wouldn't believe half of what was being said.
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So, yeah, it's been amazing. So 1% better at patience. A great and small place that we can start is simply to become aware of what tests your patients. So another way of saying this is what triggers your impatience. So for you is that people taking too long to get to the point.
[00:11:23]
I know I can get frustrated with that. When people are going on and on, I'm just like, get to the point, get to the point. Maybe it's long lines at the supermarket or maybe like my husband, it's people driving too slowly in the fast lane. Maybe it's colleagues spending days on a task that you think could have taken them hours. Now, once you've got your list of triggers, there is certainly work to be done on them that we do inside the Accelerate Your Leadership Academy.
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However, for today, I want you to take a look at that list and take one thing that triggers you to about a mild level of impatience. So not to where you're going nuclear with impatience, something that sort of just, I know I would call frustrates you. So for me, let's say the line at the supermarket. I don't love a line at a supermarket and often I go through stuff checkouts just to avoid the line at the supermarket. But I don't lose my stuff over it either, right?
[00:12:31]
So one low level impatience trigger identified and I'm going to focus on that one trigger until it helps me learn to be patient. So how do I do that? That might mean, let's say it's taking three deep, calming breaths while I'm in line. As I said before, the deep breathing helps me to get my flight freeze system, my limbic system, back under control. So that's one way of learning patience and practicing and getting into the habit of three deep calming breaths.
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It might mean, while I'm in line, playing a game, a distraction of sorts to give me patience, maybe counting the number of people in line who are on their phones, which is probably 100% these days, or counting the number of people who are wearing pink or who have gray hair. Say anything that will take your attention away from the feeling of impatience. So that's a couple of things. Now, don't expect to be immediately cured of your impatience, even for mid level impatience, but when you notice that, you feel just fine. So you turn up to the supermarket, you see there's a line and you feel just fine about that.
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There's no more mid level triggers going on, then you can level up and focus on the next trigger. And I am pretty sure I was going to say, I guarantee, but I don't know how you work so I am pretty sure with this experiment that each time you do this you're going to find it easier because you've practiced those foundational pieces. So if your mid level trigger is lying at the shops and your next level up is someone going slowly in the fast lane, the fact that you've practiced a three deep breath is going to make it far easier to trigger that practice. When you start feeling your patience being stretched when someone is going slowly in the fast lane, I hope that makes sense and I hope you are willing to take that on as an experiment this coming week. And if you're looking to get 1% a day closer to your first or next level leadership role, I'm inviting you to make sure you're on the waiting list for the Accelerate Your Leadership Academy, which I will put the link in the Show notes for.
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There are a few big changes coming up the next time this is launched that I am super excited about and I'm sure you're going to be super excited about. So you're going to want to be first in line for this one. So the websiteleadershipway Coma, or Ala as we affectionately call it, that's the acronym for Accelerate Your Leadership Academy. But like I said, I'll put the link in the show notes for you so that you can have a look at that one. That's it for this week.
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Thank you for joining me. If you are looking to continue the conversation about patience or improving by 1%, come and join us in the Women and Leadership Facebook group. You will find the links to that in the show notes. So much wisdom in that group for women just like you. You are going to love it.
[00:16:00]
Now if you got value out of this episode, I would love it if you could share it with others. And of course if you've been listening to podcasts for any amount of time, you'll know that raiding the show and leaving a review helps others to find the show and I would really appreciate it. Until next week, continue to lead the way her way.
