That is an important one, but harder then it sounds at times. When the cards keep coming crap and you watch the blinds chip away at your stack, the urge is to manufacture a hand out of less them optimal cards in less then optimal position. The tournaments I've been able to be patient and wait for the right cards and the right position to make moves I've been much more successful then when I get impatient and feel I have to make a move.
I'll give you an example. A couple days ago I'm in a $5.50 27 man tourney. 5 players left so I'm in the money, but I'm short stacked. I take a pretty big hit on my short stack and know I get to see one more big blind and I'm pretty much out of it. The cards get really bad, start catching things like 82, 73. I don't have enough money to buy anything, because as soon as I put my chips in the middle I'm going to get called with any two cards by most anyone because I don't have enough to cover two times the big blind. The big blind comes around and I pick up A2. I know with the anti and the small blind next I'll have 30 chips left in my stack when those hit me next hand. There is heavy raises and calls by 3 players in front of me. Now, I used to think this is my chance to quadruple up if I get lucky. Instead I figure my hand is pretty weak compared to the others. So I dump it. The result of the hand is that there is AQs, AK and JJ in the hand. The AK ends up knocking out the other two players when he catches a king on the turn. Now I've gone from an exit in 5th had I tried to play that hand to a guaranteed 3rd. My next hand I catch KK and double up against the big blind. And I end up finishing second in the tournament. So by laying down a hand that I would have normally played in that situation I went from an $11 win to a $36 win.
Sometimes you have to go for it, but you have to be patient and wait for the right moment. Most of the time when you are severly short stacked you want to try to double up with just about any ace or pocket pair that you are fortunate to pick up. Patience is about waiting for the cards that can double you up, but also laying them down when the opportunity isn't right and waiting for your next opportunity. | 
