Following on from last week’s blog about the lessons we can learn from being bored, I want to share with you 8 Strategies for Harnessing the Joy and Creative Power of Boredom.
Strategy One: Put Your Phone Down
Seems as though picking up our phone has become a common cure for boredom with people standing at bus stops scrolling through phones or sitting waiting for someone scrolling through their phone. This means that they are losing the opportunity to chat with the person next to them or to appreciate the view, the colour of the sky, the car driving past……all the glorious things we are surrounded by all the time. Texting or checking your socials all the time adds to your stress because you feel the need to respond to things that are not usually critical. Put your phone down!
Strategy Two: Do Something That Contributes To Your Growth
Passive, binge TV watching might feel as though it fills the time and overcomes your boredom however lots of studies show that this is short lived and, in fact, it contributes to an greater overall feeling of boredom. You become more bored not less bored. Instead, try some exercise, a new recipe, listen to some different music, read about something you are interested in, learn a musical instrument. Use boredom as an excuse to step outside your comfort zone. Stretch and Grow.
Strategy Three: Pay Attention To Your Boredom
Redirect feelings of boredom to tune in to your body, to get in touch with yourself. Identify and acknowledge what your thoughts are. Check to see what emotion is attached to that. Let the thoughts and emotions be. Feel them. Feel them some more. Open your mind to options to move past these thoughts and emotions and to generate creatively ridiculous ideas. Laugh and learn from your boredom. Make it work for you.
Strategy Four: Grab Your To Do List And Get Doing
Being bored never means that you have nothing to do. Instead of wasting your relaxation time by procrastinating and complaining about being bored, grab your To Do List and get something happening. If you don’t have one, start a “Nice To Do” list and use this to trigger you way out of boredom. Your goal is to use the list to jump from bored to constructive.
Strategy Five: Improve Your Situation
To change your situation, it helps to have clarity about what you are bored with – is it your job, your study, your location or your relationship? It could easily be more than one of these things. Ask yourself what things, what people, what locations, what topics…………What keeps you engaged and excited, curious and juicy, joyful and passionate about life? Shift your focus, your time and your energy to step towards these things. You deserve it! And besides, it makes for much less boredom and way more laughter in your life.
Strategy Six: Learn To Catch Yourself Before You Become Too Bored
There is such a thing as too bored and we need to watch out for it. Being bored is usually an expression of an issue we have with our external environment and most of us can change that. Becoming easily bored or too bored can tip over into depression where you begin to believe that you are the problem. Of course, this becomes much harder to overcome. Catch yourself. Stop yourself.
Strategy Seven: Recognise You Are Never Really Doing Nothing
Even when you are doing nothing you are doing something. While you may be actively choosing not to engage with anything around you, you are breathing, blinking and noticing your thoughts. Doing nothing is not laziness. Being bored becomes an opportunity when you reframe your thinking about it. Ever heard of La Dolce Far Niente? Or Niksen? The Italians celebrate La dolce far niente as the sweetness of doing nothing while the Dutch call carefree idleness, niksen. Embrace the opportunity.
Strategy Eight: Creativity Is A Muscle – Use It
Every single muscle needs to be trained to keep it in prime condition and your creativity is no different. When you are bored, open your mind to take on more data. Listen more carefully to identify sounds within the noise instead of just hearing. Really see things, their shape and colour and how they interact with their surrounds rather than looking without attention. Allow your attention to be grabbed by things you would normally slide over. Train your creativity muscle by creating an environment, beginning by reframing boredom to become sweet, carefree idleness, that enhances the opportunity for creativity to strike.