Leadership elements series: Patience
To be ‘Faster, faster, faster’ seems to be the mantra today. We have fast cars, fast trains, faster communication means, fast food, fast friendships, fast marriages and fast divorces too! It’s the age of instant gratification and instant karma! We want quick results. The major part of the world that is living in big cities seems to have forgotten what ‘slow and steady’ means. Why is it so?
A study by Lance Armstrong Foundation, an organization that aims to improve the lives of people affected by cancer suggests that this is due to deeply ingrained beliefs in people who are, in today’s world, experiencing mass hysteria due to acute shortage of patience and high expectations from themselves and their surroundings. If we closely examine the belief system of people today, we find they have a similar pattern of thinking. Such as-
- I should be able to do this faster and better than what I can.
- I have so much to accomplish I’ll never be able to do it all.
- I wanted this to be done yesterday.
- I would rather get a job now than go through four years of college. That way I can make more money in my lifetime.
- If I can change and grow, you should be equally changing and growing.
- I am trying to change, but you keep on falling back into your old habits; that must mean you aren’t trying as hard as I am.
What is the end result? Dissatisfaction, anxiety & anger, when things don’t happen according to our accord or estimation, and it’s most likely that things do not happen as per our expectation! Such dissatisfaction, anxiety and anger spreads its effect quickly and create an environment of stress and negativity. When you are a leader and in a hurry, you also run the risk of burning yourself out in the pursuit of your goal.
Stephen Covey, the renowned leadership guru admits to have crammed his way through undergraduate school thinking he was really clever. He had learned to psych out the system, to figure out what the teacher wanted. He wanted the grade and did not want hard work to hamper his lifestyle. But he quickly learnt his lesson and paid the price in his graduate work. It was a different league altogether. He spent the first three months cramming here too but ended up in the hospital with ulcerated colitis. Then he spent years trying to compensate for the foolishness of getting himself into a value system that was not tied to principles at all. Stephan says that in the long term, there are no short cuts or quick fixes, only your principles of patience come to your rescue. He has beautifully captured it in his book Law of the Farm.
The Law of the Farm says that you have to abide by certain principles if you want to reap the best harvest. The farmer must prepare the ground, put in the seed, cultivate, weed, water, and nurture growth. He cannot rush the natural growing cycle. A good crop takes the right soil, good timing, disciplined action and above all the invisible hand of God.
Likewise, the farm of our lives (whether in a business or in a marriage) too operate on natural laws; there are no easy short cuts or magic formulas. We have to prepare the ground, invest seeds of patience, de-weed, water, nurture growth and above all regard the hand of God, i.e, His Supreme Will without which, it is said in the Bhagavad Gita, not even a blade of grass can move. It’s important to note that natural laws, based upon principles, operate regardless of our awareness of them or our obedience to them. If you are a business leader, especially you need to have long term focus, patience and perseverance.
Let’s examine what patience is. It is defined as a display of tolerance, compassion, understanding and acceptance when something or someone is slow. Radhanath Swami says patience is imperative quality of a great leader and he defines patience simply as a positive way to deal with negativity.
How to root out impatience?
Only when we root out impatience can we start cultivating patience within us. The real root of impatience is the erroneous belief that we are the masters of our fates and we have everything under our control: that we can shape our destiny according to our desires. The truth is otherwise. It’s an illusion to think that we control very many of the factors that shape our lives. In the Vedic Scriptures, it is clearly explained that the Supreme Lord is the Supreme Controller and everything moves under his supervision. Although we have a tendency to lord it over nature, we should know that we have no power to control any single factor of our life leave alone the power to shape our destiny. The moment we realize and accept this fact, we can steadily root out impatience.
Benefits of cultivating patience:
Patient attitude gets you out of the instantaneous gratification model of thinking:
Look at the history of business leaders and you will find that no great achievement was ever created instantaneously by anybody at anytime. Great achievement is always a function of patience. Impatience often makes us do rash things and engage in poor decisions because we didn’t take the time to gather the correct information and resources. So, even as the entire world around you believes in the instant gratification model, you will develop a confident edge over others by your patient attitude and determination.
Having patience makes you aware of your surroundings and allows for breakthroughs to occur:
Impatience is directly correlated with narrow-mindedness and gets the mind to focus in on the negative side of things. If you’re patient, you become open minded and you see all the positive opportunities all around you.
Cultivating patience makes you see everything in the big picture:
Patience gives you the ability to place everything along your journey in the big picture. You see the lessons that you learn and you become aware of how they can help you. In other words, you leverage every experience along the way and maximize its use. Because you see things in the big picture, you anticipate roadblocks instead of being surprised by them, which makes them easier to deal with. When you become impatient, you think short term and quit and totally miss that moment where everything clicks together.
Patience + perseverance = Success
Radhanath Swami rightly notes that with no proper training, our patience can lead us to be lazy. So, we have to develop the quality of perseverance as well. He is quick to add that if we focus only on perseverance, our determination can make us restless to achieve the results. If we are drifting to restlessness in our determined endeavor, we need to practice patience and if our patience tends to make us lazy, we need to remember the virtue of perseverance. We need to add-in the missing element in us and strike a balance. How can we balance both patience and perseverance? Radhanath Swami reveals his magic formula for success- the Triple ‘P’ formula- patience, perseverance and most importantly prayer as the key to strike a balance between the earlier two ‘P’s. A culture of prayer helps us tap the power of conscience within and gives us the discrimination to balance patience and determination. Prayers also give the leader the necessary confidence to not get bogged down when expected results don’t happen.
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Radhanath Swami rightly tells that with no proper training, our patience can lead us to be lazy therefor we have to develop the quality of perseverance too.
Brilliant article! I have never read such an excellent informative and down to earth article on patience! I particularly liked Stephen's point "in the long term, there are no short cuts or quick fixes, only your principles of patience come to your rescue".
Thank you very much. Very informative article, exactly that is what i needed to hear.
deep and insightful, very practical.
A very nice article about patience and HH Radhanath Swami's triple P concept.
Thank You Preethi mataji!Your articles are so beautifully linked to teachings of Bhagvad Gita
Patience + perseverance = Success. This is perfect a point from Radhanath Swami. Thank you for the post.
Being patient is very crucial for developing various virtues like tolerance etc.
Very Nice Article…
Thank you very much Maharaj for giving us Triple ‘P’ formula. is is really very true and very essential in our life to get success.
very nice article
I really appreciated the article by Ms Preethi Pandit. Its not feasible for everyone to have a personal audience & direct counselling by Radhanath Swami Maharaj. But the senior disciples of Radhanath Swami have so wonderfully imbibed the mood & teachings of their spiritual master & are now working to spread the divine teachings of our sacred scriptures to the common masses. Thank you for writing & sharing these wonderful articles. It really helps in improving our thought process & improves our quality & way of lives.
Beautiful example quoted on Covey on the Law of the Farm and well connected to Laernings of gita . Thanks!
well this tendency is quite ingrained – even while reading this article I was saying "fast let me get something out of this!"
True leadership qualities can be developed by hearing and following the instructions of great souls like HH Radhanath Swami
Wonderful, informative and very thoughtful article…..
Many thanks to Radhanath swami and his student, the author for this nice blog
very insightful article. especially the point that patience & perseverance combined lead to success.
nice article. thank you for sharing
super, simply superb article!!!
A good article with example and experiences. Thanks.
its indeed an illusion to think we can control many factors of our lives. the article is timely in my own life. i've been super impatient and hope this article will help me learn the law of farm. also the point of balance between patience and perseverance has been brilliantly presented. thanks for the article
Liked the point:"You see the lessons that you learn and you become aware of how they can help you. In other words, you leverage every experience along the way and maximize its use. Because you see things in the big picture, you anticipate roadblocks instead of being surprised by them, which makes them easier to deal with. When you become impatient, you think short term and quit and totally miss that moment where everything clicks together."
Thank you very much for this wonderful article.
thank you for sharing.
Superb artcile. Amazing!!! Thanks for sharing this
Wonderful article on how not to get stressed out by developing patience and understanding. thank you for sharing.
Thank you for sahring success mantra given by Radhanath Swami. Thank you for nice, detailed explaination of Patience + perseverance
Very wonderful article thank you very much for sharing this.
Thanks for the success formula !!
Very nice article.Author has made a perfect lineup of what is impatience is,then what is patience is and why perseverence is required in ones life.Yes in our day to day life we tend to become impatient and do or think something which actually brings us frustation and anxiety.But in this article author has perfectly imbibed essence of patience by giving example of Stephen covey which will inspire reader to take possitive steps in that direction.Also Radhanath Swami's advice that patience required proper training or it will lead one to a lazy person and therefore the need of perseverence.Thank you very much for sharing such nice article.
very realised thoughts on patience. one needs to learn in life at very early sstage and specially apply when one is young and youth. Llife becomes very simple. very good article.
Thank you for the very informative article.
I liked the Triple ‘P’ formula-
patience, perseverance and most importantly prayer as the key to strike a balance between the earlier two ‘P’s. A culture of prayer helps us tap the power of conscience within and gives us the discrimination to balance patience and determination. Prayers also give the leader the necessary confidence to not get bogged down when expected results don’t happen.
very enlightening! jaya….
To become positive, we need to accept, Triple P formula— patience, perseverance and prayer. Very Good. All glories to HH Radhanatha Swami.
explanation about triple p formula is amazing. thank u.
it's better to be slow and steady than being fast and unsteady, nice food for thought
It is said, "Enthusiasm without patience is false pride
And patience without enthusiasm is laziness."
wonderful article on patience and perseverance in spirituality
Thank you for your good article.
As you rightly stated Prayer is really very essential to keep the calm
when things are not running the way we want & even when things are running very much the way we want.
Thakns a lot for sharing it. It is very inspiring!
Thanks for sharing this, hope this makes some improvement in my faster life
Thank u very much
this is a very good article on the importance of the patience.
Thank you very much for this wonderful, inspiring article.
All Glories To H.H Radhanath Swami Maharaj
All these insights if we are to factor in our daily leadership actions, we've then just arrived there.
Hare Krishna.
Radhanath Swami has given importance on training here and it's very essential for all of us.
Nectar of Instruction teaches us the importance of patience (Nischayat). A practitioner must imbibe this quality.
The triple P formula should be taken with seriousness – all three are essential components. Thanks to Radhanath Swami and the author for grasping Swamiji's teachings.
It is in-depth and full information regarding the patience…
I particularly liked the Maharaj's Triple P formula of Patience, Perseverance and Prayer.
Thank You posting this wonderful article
All Glories To H.H Radhanath Swami Maharaj
A very profound review of an important leadership virtue. If every leader practices it to the core the world can be a better lot of people.
Hare Krishna.
Wonderful topic on patience.Thank you very much Maharaji.
thankyou for giving us the right solution to this mad race …. by having balance between patience and perseverance
Thank You posting this wonderful article
very very amazing article maharaj…
very useful and apt article indeed
Very valuable and important lessons to be learnt. thank you very much
Wonderful article! Patience is one of the essential qualities which must be cultivated to advance in spiritual life. Thank you for sharing so many instructive points which will definitely help us when we become impatient.(which is quite often)
Many thanks to Radhanath swami and his students for the nice article.
Thank you. This article at first challnaged the belief system I always work with. It seems a good suggestion to cultivate patience. I will try it.
Thank you for sharing the wonderful article about patience.
Thank you for the wonderful article about patience which is important in our spiritual advancement and giving practical tips to develop patience.
Thank you for explaining the importance of patience in our spiritual life and for giving the wonderful tips for practicing patience.
very nice article indeed and HH Radhanath Swami Maharaj’s perspective over patience and perseverance is the best part.
Thank you for explaining us patience is the main key point in our spiritual life.
Thank you for revealing us the importance of patience for advancement in spiritual life.
Thank you Radhanath swami for telling us the patience is one of the key element in our spiritual progress.
Thank you for these kind of articles on leadership under the able guidance of Radhanath swami and this article gives us an idea of how patience helps a lot on both leadership and sprituality.
Thanks a lot for this valuable message which plays an important role in everybody life.