Do This When You're Bored (It Will Change Your Life)

I don’t struggle in following the good habits.

But I do struggle in avoiding the bad habits due to boredom and simply a lot of free time.

If you’re anything like me, you have no problem doing the good things, but there is literally 24 hours in a day, and that is a lot of time to give in to the bad habits.

And I hadn’t thought of boredom as a good or bad thing, until recently where I discovered it is a common experience that will either help you or destroy you.

Scientists have mentioned how the experience plays a role in everything, from drug addiction to academic failure.

This means boredom is so strong that it may have a part in you giving into drugs or failing life. If that’s not enough of a wake-up call, this is how some philosophers described the term:

Soren Kierkegaard saw it as the root of all evil

Schopenhauer cited boredom as proof of life’s emptiness and lack of value

I believe there are polar opposites in everything.

If boredom destroys one’s life, on the other side, it changes someone’s life for the better.

So, I don’t want to be misunderstood.

This isn’t me saying free time is bad; that’s why some studies suggest boredom can have positive outcomes, igniting creativity as it gives the mind free space to wander.

But the majority of research points at how it does more to affect our lives negatively than help.

And that is my personal problem with self-help. Everyone keeps glamorising and talking on the good habits, but I tend to think what you don’t do is better than what you do. What you say “NO” to is greater than what you say “YES” to. Or simply, your no is what makes you powerful, not your yeses.

But back to topic, the same study went on to say many of us would take pain over boredom, and although I didn’t believe, the study discovered how:

two-thirds of men and a quarter of women would rather electric shock themselves than to be left alone in an empty room for 15 minutes.

Here’s a link to the study if you want to check it out: https://news.columbia.edu/news/why-being-bored-can-be-hazardous-your-health

That’s why I’m writing on this topic. To share some tips on what you can really do when you do get that free time.

Concepts that have allowed me to use boredom to my advantage.

All so that hopefully you don’t fall and become susceptible to depression, anxiety, anger, academic failure, poor work performance, loneliness and isolation which the study predicts will be the case if you follow the wrong tail of boredom.

Be Bored

So, where we want to be is on the side of the study where boredom in fact helps us be more creative.

Because acknowledge that person can be you. How you don’t need to let into every distraction your monkey brain tells you to when you are bored.

As soon as that deadly feeling of boredom hits, I want you to sit with it. Give yourself the permission to be bored.

I know your entire life, like me, you have been wired to be on the go. Achieve all wordily success, right? But for this very moment, go against those beliefs.

A nice quote which sits nicely with everything I’m saying:

“When you succeed, you party. When you fail, you ponder. Greatness comes from pondering.”

• Tony Robbins

That is to say that who outperforms who is purely determined by who utilises boredom.

When people go into this mode, it is either:

“Why am I feeling this way? I need to immediately find something to do!” or:

“My mind is the most powerful thing on earth, I’m just going to allow it to roam free and wander.” It is powerful to give your mind space to drift.

That’s why you often get the best ideas in the shower, walking, working out or just whenever you are not too focused.

An undeniable fact is that true creativity is not born in distraction, but rather when you let your mind wander into the unknown.

If you still aren’t convinced, ask yourself why you see some people working 2-3 jobs and they are outperformed by the person working one.

There is something special to being committed to one goal and allowing your mind to extract the why’s and how’s of that goal via intentional learning.

The Good Old Times

What’s weird to think about is how our ancestors had this gift that we don’t (well, we do, but it’s become harder than ever to practise it.)

When our grandparents got bored, they had the gift of staring into the distance and literally doing nothing.

That was the normality for them.

They had the gift of meditating on their thoughts.

Meditation doesn’t have to be something where you sit down and close your eyes. Meditation simply just means silence and solitude.

The reason I said we don’t have this gift is because we are in constant stimulation. And it is super hard to break out of it.

In this, I recommend you to meditate. Go into a meditation state daily, whether it’s for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, or a long period.

Because meditation will show you how you may think you’re great, but you’re actually not. When all the thoughts come flooding in you will realise how weak you actually are in this world of constant stimulation which gets you to believe you’re powerful.

I don’t want this to be an article on meditation so let’s leave it at that.

The Problem Is The Solution

I think this is the only time where I will say the problem is the solution. The problem is boredom, the solution is to be bored.

The reason you do the opposite is because it’s so much easier to do so. It’s so much easier to look into books, movies, gurus, YouTube videos.

But understand that the biggest vehicle is you and what you bring. And as vague as that sounds, the problem is you and the solution is you. Look inwards.

The get very emotional on topics like this because boredom was never to look outward, but instead to go inward. But you’re never taught how.

We’ve all been busy memorising useless things like the isosceles triangle in classrooms.

Let this be a time where you allow room for your brain to roam free. That will ultimately lead you to recognising what you’ve put off. Because all of us have put off something.

Maybe it’s an activity you really wanted to learn.

Maybe you’re still contemplating on writing the next chapter of that book.

Allow your mind to wander and find that thing, and when you do, make that your boredom.

Make the thing you’ve put off for so long your boredom.

And this is the tricky part.

We want to be on the good side of boredom, and it is good to be bored doing nothing than giving into distraction, but do not stay there.

Because what often happens is you get so attached to doing nothing that you become nothing.

There is always the right time to let your mind wander and roam free, but then come back to the most meaningful work in your life, your craft, and make that your boredom. Not the distractions.

Because I don’t know about you, but for me, there gets to a point where I can’t just sit about and do nothing. We need to do something. It is in your nature to do meaningful work. Some sort of work that is going to be of impact.

Let Your Environment Suit Your Work

At this point, we’ve learned to sit in boredom when it hits, do some sort of meaningful work and make that your boredom, because you can’t just sit and do nothing.

But then distractions are still going to be there, which is the thing that is going to taunt your entire process of dealing with boredom.

So, fix your environment to suits your goals.

You will always gravitate to the most stimulating thing in your environment.

Let’s use the example of your room.

Think about the most stimulating thing in your room and recognise it is what you will naturally gravitate towards regardless.

You will always gravitate towards the thing in your environment that is of the most stimulation.

If you want to master your craft, intentionally learn and create, then you must shape your environment to what you want to become.

Your environment reflects you.

Notice how I said you gravitate towards the most stimulating thing?

If what you have in your room are video games, but on the other side of the room are books, you are naturally going to gravitate towards the video games because that is what’s more stimulating.

In this concept I’m talking about, notice that anything can be made fun, and anything can be made boring.

Test it out for yourself.

Remove your smart phone, video games, laptop, computer or any distraction from your room and see how books (that’s if you have any in your room to begin with) will all of a sudden become the most stimulating, fun thing in the room.

The only reason your work is boring (not a 9-5, but the thing you’ve put off for so long time), is because of the stimulants in your life.

Remove the distractions, and your work becomes the most fun thing.

I’m not going to give you a step-by-step process, I think you understand the concept.

Intentionally eliminate distraction and pursue the work you truly desire and make that your boredom so that it becomes the most fun thing.

And recognise that you will always snap back to the most fun thing in your environment.

Power is good

I want to finish this off with an idea on power.

Don’t give into the BS that power is bad.

Recognise how absolutely anything you do is for the power of something.

Just on the personal level:

You meditate for a more powerful mind You exercise for a more powerful body Power is good. Don’t be misled to believing it isn’t.

Because the opposite of power is something you definitely want to avoid. It’s corruption. Passive aggressiveness.

It’s seeing good in the world and the good in you but deciding not to partake in it.

The opposite of power is weakness.

Boredom is what leads to power.

Embrace boredom to make a positive difference in the world.