When we say that we are bored what we mean is that we feel empty inside and that we’ve become fed up with the situation we find ourselves in at that given moment or at the lack of activity in our lives at any particular instant.
Boredom can have its advantages as well as its drawbacks. On the downside, it can cause us to become complacent, can make us feel tired, jaded and listless and can make us procrastinate and become indecisive so in the end, we do nothing which just makes us even more fed up and bored. On the positive side however, it can often drive us into a state of creativity. Many inventors will tell you that some of the most brilliant ideas they’ve come up with were initially stimulated out of feeling bored.
Refuse to Become Bored in the First Place
The most effective way to prevent boredom occurring in the first place is to make your life interesting by keeping routine activities down to the bare minimum. Another method is to make progress daily in everything you do and keep a record of it. Even the most mundane of work activities tend to have a purpose so discover what the purpose is and, even if the work tends to be a drudge, make a note of how you’ve made progress from one stage to the next. Also, in learning how to be happy with yourself when alone and to have the ability to amuse yourself, it stops you from becoming bored.
Tips to Overcome Boredom
Like so many useful personal development tips, changing your attitude and outlook on life can have a very positive effect in how you perceive boredom. If you inspire yourself towards bigger and better goals, you’ll feel motivated and you can’t feel bored and motivated at the same time.
Your imagination is a powerful tool in the fight against boredom. Create visual images which stimulate you. Visualise who you want to be and where you want to go and you’ll find that feelings of boredom will soon dissipate.
Talk to people even if you don’t know them. We’ve all been in a situation where we have to wait for something to happen. It could be waiting for a bus to come or sat waiting in a doctor’s surgery to be called through to see the GP. Look around and see just how bored everyone else is with waiting but if you strike up a conversation with them, even if that’s just to discuss how boring the hanging around waiting is, the time is bound to pass more quickly. You never know, the conversation could turn out to be more stimulating than you envisaged and you could also learn something new.
Create a fascination for the things that surround you. Much of the time we experience boredom because of the repetition of a regular routine which, in itself, might not be that stimulating. An example of this might be our daily walk to the bus stop. Sounds pretty mundane but it will be less boring if you perhaps hear a bird singing and wonder where it might be perched, or what kind of bird it is. Or look around at the people walking past you. Have you ever stopped to wonder what work they might be doing? It’s often fun to casually look at a person and imagine what they might do for a living simply based on their appearance and then to strike up a conversation with them and see how accurate you were. Of course, they don’t need to know anything about this.
Find something exciting or stimulating to do. You can read, watch or listen to something that may end up stimulating your mind or find yourself a new hobby.
Avoid boring people and situations wherever possible. That might not be realistic all of the time as you may find you’re working alongside somebody that bores you rigid. Even in that event, you can still keep your imagination ticking over and think about other things that stimulate you and which gives you something to look forward to. And, also ask the question – “am I sure the person is really that boring?” It could well be that they are simply shy or reserved and, given enough encouragement, you might find that they have a lot of interesting things to say.
The basic premise to overcoming boredom however is refusing to succumb to it in the first place and to have a positive attitude about life and all of its possibilities.
