3 Ways For Engineers to Improve Your Patience
Losing your cool at work and letting your emotions get the better of you - even if it's only one time - can create a devastating impact on your career!
But this article will teach your 3 specific techniques that you can begin using TODAY for improving your patience.
I'm an engineering manager, mentor, and career coach and I help engineers advance their careers through building soft skills - so that you future-proof your career and create your own opportunities!
A big challenge most engineers struggle with is patience - but patience is actually a skill that can be developed and improved through awareness and practice.
In this article, I’m going to explain 3 ways to improve your patience!
Patience vs Self-Control
First - let's clarify exactly what patience is, because it often gets confused with self-control.
Self-control is your ability to exercise restraint over your own impulses and emotions and desires.
A good example of self-control is when a person says something that offends you, but you're able to still remain calm on the outside - versus expressing your frustration and letting yourself get sucked into an argument.
Self-control is a great skill - but it has nothing to do with patience.
Patience is your ability to tolerate, delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset. In other words - you're truly OK and content with waiting for someone (or something).
The key difference is that patience means you remain calm on the inside.
Why is this important?
Because this is what happens to your brain when you're impatient…
Let's say you're stuck in a never ending pointless company meeting, where some talking head is going on and on about something that has nothing to do with you.
You desperately want this meeting to end, but it keeps running on and on. And as it continues, you're realizing that this pointless meeting is cutting into your afternoon - and now you’ll have to work overtime in order to hit your project deadline.
How Impatience Impacts Your Brain
As you’re realizing this…
The first feeling you get is frustration - which literally sparks a physiological reaction that switches off your prefrontal cortex.
If you're not a human biology nerd like me - that's the part of your brain mostly responsible for cognitive control, and it influences your attention, focus, and memory.
When you're frustrated, you basically lose control of your emotions and your ability to remember and remember any predetermined plans.
More important - you lose your ability to adapt your behavior and thinking to the environment you're in.
In short - the logical side of your brain shuts off. And this is a huge problem if you’re an engineer - because this part of the brain is usually in the driver's seat for you…
Read that last statement again - because it's kind of a big deal!
And it doesn't end there, either. As all of this is happening, the amygdala is activated - that's the part of your brain responsible for the “fight or flight” response.
This activates stress hormones in your brain and body - and from here, it doesn't take long for your thoughts and your behavior to go downhill.
Suddenly your frustration turns into anger…
This is when you start getting annoyed with random things going on around you - like that nearby person who's breathing loud or aggressively clicking on their pen.
As you're going through this, you typically feel intense emotions like fear, anger, anxiety - which send signals to your brain that distort your perception of time.
This is why sitting in standstill traffic feels like an eternity - despite being stopped for only a few minutes.
And it's what causes your uncharacteristic behavior - like yelling at the car in front of you, even though they're stuck in the same traffic and can't go anywhere.
How Impatience Creates Devastating Consequences to Your Career
Impatience isn’t caused by a lack of maturity or intelligence - or anything like that. And it doesn't make you a bad person either.
It's simply a physiological reaction - that’s it!
Some people are naturally patient - but most engineers aren't. Which means you need to proactively practice and develop your patience skills.
Otherwise, the longer you're in a situation that tests your patients, the greater your risk of downward spiraling into temporarily becoming a different person.
Yelling at cars in gridlock traffic is one thing…
But as an engineering manager, I can tell you that losing your cool at work and letting your emotions get the better of you - even if it's only one time - will completely cancel out your proven track record.
There were even a few times where I had to let engineers go because of random one-time uncharacteristic outbursts that were caused by them losing their cool in the moment.
Fair or not, engineers are held to a higher standard than most positions in the workplace.
Managers expect engineers to be pragmatic and logical decision makers at all times - especially when dealing with people.
But regardless of your technical skills, impatient people are viewed as arrogant, insensitive, rude, impulsive, and unpleasant to be around - which is why they're unlikely to be promoted.
And right, wrong, or indifferent - your manager's perception of you becomes your reality.
Patience Empowers You to Stay in Control
When the patient engineer maintains an approachable and calm demeanor by remaining logical, strategic, thinking long term, following the plan, and working to your strengths - that engineer is automatically viewed in a positive light by the other people around him or her.
They're assumed to be focused, and they're assumed to be a productive member of the team.
Patience empowers you to stay in control of the situation and take control of your reputation, which is why it's one of the most valuable soft skills for engineers to develop.
3 Ways to Improve Patience
And here's three ways you can begin improving your patience today.
1 - Start Keeping an Impatience Journal
Use this journal to track the times when you become impatient.
Reflect on the journal to bring awareness to your impatience triggers and to identify any patterns.
Are there specific people or activities or parts of the day that make you feel more impatient?
Start tracking your triggers for a few days or weeks, then search for any patterns that set you off - like time of day, certain people, specific situations, hunger, etc.
2 - Create Plan for Diffusing Your Triggers
Once you’ve identified all your primary impatience triggers, you avoid the trap of reacting to them by creating a tactical plan of attack.
Create this plan in advance, before you become impatient. Then stick to that plan - versus letting your emotions decide what to do in the moment.
Here's a few examples of triggers and a respective plan.
If your trigger is being interrupted by someone else…
Instead of internally deliberating how to handle it on the fly - create a “go-to” response such as,
“Excuse me, I'd like to finish what I was saying”
And say it any time and every time someone interrupts you.
Here’s another example - let’s say you’re known for getting “hangry”...
Then avoid scheduling meetings before lunch, and always keep a small snack on hand - just in case.
One more example - if you struggle to sit still during long meetings…
In the time leading up to your next meeting, do something that allows you to get out of your seat and move around - whether it's standing, walking, taking an early lunch, etc.
3 - Memory Training Techniques
When you're impatient, frustrated, or anxious - it affects your memory.
You will forget painfully obvious things - like your original plan, something you wanted to say, or an important idea you just had.
But you can prevent this by training your brain and strengthening your memory.
