How can someone develop patience?  Do you think some of your problems stem from a lack of this skill? How to know when to stop being patient and move on?

You can develop patience by asking yourself why you would want to.  If you see a good reason
to work at it, you can learn to take a breath, take a time out, spend a few moments evaluating your situation.  You can dialogue with your impulsive self, understand when you are moving towards self harm, see a stop sign that yields to a better direction.

If you find yourself in inertia, you can look into developing self awareness, see what is holding you back, find a small step to take towards fulfillment.

On the website Essentiallifeskills.net there are some very useful tips for developing patience.
One of these tips is to take a day where you practice patience all day.  This is especially useful if
you are going to be driving in traffic, dealing with a difficult family member or co-worker, or have an important decision to make.  At the end of the day, evaluate how it felt to be more patient.  Was it painful like starting to exercise muscles that are not used to being used?  Was it worth trying again the next day?

Impulsive behavior is behavior that is not thought out and can come from emotions that are uncomfortable and may be disconnected from your awareness.  For example, if you have a sudden desire for a piece of chocolate cake when you are already full,  or you find yourself spending hours shopping when you really don’t need anything new, you may be acting on an emotion that you are not in touch with.  It could be resentment or anxiety, sadness or loneliness, boredom or jealousy, the urge to distract yourself can be overpowering.

This is where patience as a skill can come in.  Can you slow things down in the moment of urgency to examine what might be going on underneath your desire?  What could give you the motivation to want to do this?  After all, the immediacy of gratification can feel so much better in the short run than the skill of slowing down and experiencing a difficult feeling.  But if you can connect with your feeling and understand yourself, you will feel better about yourself in the long run.

More to come soon on the topic of patience.