Patience as You Plan

As you plan your wedding, there will be times you feel you are being pulled in many directions. Your family, work, friends, and fiancé demand different commitments and it will be difficult to please everyone. Now is the time to tap into the virtue of patience.

Patience is the ability to step away from an unpleasant situation so you don’t become too overwhelmed and end up doing or saying something you may regret later. It means that no matter how overwhelming life becomes, you are able to address each area in a calm and practical manner. Of course, the more stressful life becomes, and it will in the weeks or months ahead of your wedding, the harder it will be to find patience within.

Start practicing patience now. You’re in a shop and no one is available to assist you or they are on the phone with another customer. You wait calmly, until ten minutes, becomes, twenty or more, and by this point you’re ready to storm out an unhappy camper. If a situation such as this agitates you and there is nothing you can immediately do to solve the problem, then choose to put yourself in a better situation. You always have choices. If your wait time is too long in the store, then leave the store and do something more productive if possible. If you’re waiting for a pre-scheduled meeting, then rely on good communication skills to get your message across. When it comes to communicating with others, choose your words wisely in every situation. Listen attentively and give yourself a few minutes to think about your response. Those few minutes of reflection could mean the difference between a happy or unhappy ending.

It can be challenging dealing with other people because everybody has a different personality or work ethic and they don’t always match your own. It is probably most difficult when it comes to people you are closest to, like relatives or even your fiancé. They expect a lot from you and vice versa. They may not understand how you’re feeling, so be sure to let them know.  Assess each situation in a calm, rational manner before drawing any conclusions. And approach everything with a cool and level head. The more you work on it, the more patience you will find. And that will serve you well as you enter into marriage, where occasionally your limits will be tested again.