Something I noticed with myself and people around me is how impatient we are with even the little things we do in life. It’s like there is this bug in our brains telling us that we should get things right here and right now and if it doesn’t happen we feel annoyed and displeased. Who should we blame this for? Some say that it’s a millennial thing and that we can’t do anything about it while others say that it’s the bad environment we are put in. Knowing the reason is great for solving the problem but stopping at just that is pointless. We can find a reason and a cure for a disease but if we don’t actually start to use that cure it’s like it doesn’t even exists.
HOW IS IT AFFECTING OUR LIVES?
From the young age we are used to have things our way. Although you might disagree if you think a little bit about different situations from your childhood and your reaction when you wanted something and at first your parents wouldn’t let you have it but then because of your tantrum they gave in. That’s exactly the moment when it all starts. It gets even worse with the social media as it gives as the possibility to see the newest information’s as soon as they happened. While our ancestors needed to wait for a few days or even months. We constantly scroll through Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and all the other social media even when we saw all the new updates.
We want more and we want it right now. It’s controlling our lives and making us think that it’s normal thing to do when in fact it’s an addiction. Modern age one which is hiding behind the camouflage of modern era trend. It’s affecting our lives in so many ways that we don’t even realize at became something we accept as normal. You can see how impatient we are when we look for a quick ways to accomplish things as growing a social media following, creating a successful business, and getting that perfect body. In all of our searches there are words “quick”, “easy”, “fast”. If we go to those websites or videos and they start talking how it takes time we click off and look for other ones that will tell us how to do it faster.
WHAT CAN WE DO RIGHT NOW TO CHANGE IT?
PRACTICE MINDFULNESS
The thing we need to do more is to connect. But not connect with our social media, we need to connect with ourselves. When you notice that you are getting impatient take a step back. Put aside your phone and take few deep breaths. This will take you back to reality which is that you have enough time for everything and that things that are important take time. Keeping that in mind you won’t always be in a rush and you’ll realize that all you need to do is be aware of your feelings, surrounding and people around you.
When you realize that you are constantly refreshing your feed, turn off your phone and grab a book, meditate, go for a walk or talk with a friend. By unconsciously scrolling through social media you are wasting time that you could put into working on your business, taking a class you always wanted to or just focus on yourself. Practicing mindfulness every day is a great way to focus on what’s important and learn to feel gratitude towards the things we already have in life as that’s easy to forget when you constantly want more and fast.
TAKE TIME TO REFLECT
Although thinking about our future is great, reflecting on our actions and emotions is as important. We all have goals we want to achieve but if we don’t realize the things and actions that keep us away from there it’s normal that we will feel frustrated and impatient. I want to mention again how important it is to find the source of the problem so you can find the cure for it. Every day set 30 minutes for thinking about what you could do better tomorrow and check in with your emotions and thoughts.
I would also recommend you to take any kind of notebook and write it down as for some people it’s easier when you see it written down. I’m sure that you don’t even realize how much time you spend on social media and how that’s keeping you away from the things that are important to you. There are a lot of apps you can download that can tell you how many hours in a day you check different apps. I dare you to download them and see for yourself as I’m sure that you’ll be shocked by the result.
DISCONNECT
In this post I talked a lot about social media and its influence on our behavior that is then transferred in all aspect of our lives. We ourselves made a habit of checking social media every second and we can break that habit as well. Trust me it’s not as hard as you think it is. I’ve been completely without a phone for month and a half and I’m alive. I know that it might be harder for those whose work is connected with social media but they can definitely do it as well. I just want to make clear that I don’t think you should ditch social media completely, I’m just saying that having the balance with everything in life, with social media as well, is very important.
I think that it’s important that you see how much time do you actually spend on social media with the help of a apps I mentioned. Then you can try to lower that number in half. So if you spend 3 hours a day on Instagram try to take it down to 1.5 hours. It might seem like that’s not possible but from those 3 hours you probably just unconsciously scrolled through Instagram for a 1. 5 in which time you could’ve done a thousand of more important things. If you look at it like that it will be much easier. It’s all about time management and knowing when it’s getting out of hand.
Are you impatient and always in a rush?
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