Page 25 - Wanda Weasel

EXERCISE
Learning to be patient means learning coping self-messages and making yourself ignore the Stinky Thinking that leads to impatience. This will take some time and effort, which means this will be difficult for someone with low frustration tolerance. The Exercise portion of this story will help you learn some of these coping self-messages but you will need to practice them.
The other problem associated with low frustration tolerance is a lack of persistence. “If it can’t be done quickly and easily... forget it!” Very few good things in life occur without persistence. You don’t remember how much persistence it took to learn to walk but it was a lot. The same goes for school, sports, jobs and friendships. If you lack the coping self-messages that help you be persistent, you won’t be persistent enough to be successful at any of those tasks.
Coping Self-Messages: These are examples of rational (they make sense) things to tell yourself.
(You know the answer to a question your teacher has just asked)
1. Just because I want to be called on does not mean I must be called on. Calm down and wait.
(A friend is ignoring you and spending time with someone else.)
2. She/he has the right to be friends with someone else. I don’t need to make myself upset about it.
(You didn’t make as good a grade as you thought you would make.) 3. I messed up on this one so I will need to work harder. It is not the end of the world.
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