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An Antidote To Boredom

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How To Beat Boredom (or What’s the antidote?!)

I felt bored today.

You know; that kind of boredom where you can’t even get out of your own way to make yourself feel better? The only things that seemed to filter through my mind were all the boring things I needed to do, and of course, there was pretty much no hope of chores motivating me into action!

I carelessly kept flicking through my phone, browsing email, checking my facebook newsfeed, the weather forecast, my to do list…but nothing enthused me. Humph! What’s a girl to do?! Ideally what I needed was for someone to rescue me. Someone to offer up an excuse for an hour out at the shops, or to grab a coffee and a natter, but I couldn’t even muster the enthusiasm to send the text…

Do you have days like these? They’re so frustrating. By the end of the day, you’ve usually overcome your funk to some extent, but then feelings of panic and guilt set in as you frantically try to get the most important things done ready for the next day.

The Itch That Can’t Be Scratched

I used to think that it was probably lethargy, that maybe I was too tired after a heavy week at work and therefore needed to rest up. But scientific studies don’t support this definition. Instead, science defines boredom as being:

Aggressively dissatisfying in the sense that you have a high level of motivation to be engaged but nothing that you do seems to satisfy that need.  James Danckert, University of Waterloo, Ontario.

But taking control and beating boredom isn’t always an easy sacrifice to make. After all, boredom, like a lot of other negative emotions requires effort to change it, which we may be unwilling or unable to make. As I’ve described above, my day of boredom was seized by my inability to get out of my own way in the moment.

It’s important then to understand what’s driving the boredom. Is it genuinely a need for rest and relaxation, maybe provided by a different environment, such as a walk on the beach or in the countryside?

An opportunity to replenish ourselves by ‘taking from’ nature in this case rather than the giving of ourselves through the daily demands which have led up to this point? Sometimes we’re just ‘spent’ and the resultant emotion is world-weariness, a kind of boredom tinged with sadness.

If this is the case, an ‘easy’ option is probably the best advice. Give yourself a break from your routine, down-tools and look after Number 1.

But what if it’s not tiredness? What if you are motivated to do something, you just can’t find the something that will get you buzzing again?

What Do You Really Want?

Leo Tolstoy offers us this very succinct view:

Boredom: the desire for desires.

I love this quote because for me it aptly sums up what boredom is all about. It gives us a clue that our desires have not been fully articulated. Whether that is in the moment or for the future, the result is the same. We’re reduced to inactivity. We know we want to do something, but what? Consequently we feel dissatisfied with our lives and experience boredom.

As I write about boredom and the links it holds with not really knowing what we want, I’m easily reminded of earlier years, with my very clearly articulated (and publicly shared) goals. 2015 was an incredible year of activity, which has made for some wonderful memories. Whilst I’m sure I had periods of boredom during the year, I’m also convinced that they would have been short lived as there were so many plans and activities that filled the time.

Looking for the Remedy

There’s no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes. Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there’s no excuse for boredom, ever.
Viggo Mortensen

It seems obvious then that to beat boredom what we need is a well-defined activity which aligns with our values. The trouble is that we need to know our own personal antidote(s) well before the boredom sets in. Trying to find the cure when we’re already mired in frustration and/or apathy is too late.

So how can this be achieved?

If you haven’t already got a well-defined, or even a loose set of goals, now is the time to get to work. Work on your goals and plans now, so that you will either be (a) too busy to feel bored, or, if boredom sets in you (b) have a list you can refer to!

Don’t leave this task to chance. Don’t assume that when the time comes, you will be able to think up a list of activities that you will find enjoyable. I can assure you that when you’re in a funk, your brain will only be able to muster things that will make you feel even worse!

Bear in mind also, that when you’re not at your best, difficult or challenging tasks might not be the way to go. Think small and think joy and happiness. What lifts your spirits?  Go create a list…

You can also Join my free, private Facebook Group!  You’ll find weekly mini challenges, fun ideas and questions that make you think!  We’re a friendly supportive bunch and I’d love to have you on board!  We’re all about getting moving on fun and challenging activities, so beating boredom is a given!

Here’s a short list you can peruse for ideas so that you can get your own let’s beat boredom list ready:

My ‘When I’m Bored List’

• Is it a certain person? Put them on your list to invite out.
• Is it a hobby that you have little time for? Make sure you have the materials or means available so that you can pick it up and absorb yourself for a while.
• Is it watching a box set? Set it up, grab a cuppa and settle down.

‘Curing’ boredom often isn’t about the big tasks. It’s about finding the small and manageable things that have the ability to lift us out of our mood.  Use your list whenever you feel bored, scan it for an activity that appeals to you (even if only a little), and then do it.  You don’t need to feel any guilt or remorse, just indulge and remember that being bored all day never achieved anything, but indulging in a little of something that makes you happy is infintely better!

Don’t forget to come join us in my free Facebook Group – perfect for those who want to stop being bored and get ahead!

Photo: Azrul Aziz, Unsplash

beating boredom beat boredom

Start Now!

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Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.  Nido Qubein

Start Now!

Let’s just take a gamble on the chance that if we just make a start, that we might actually get to where we want to go.

Life is forever unfolding before us and as time passes it not only turns our hair grey but it also takes us away from ourselves. That sounds strange, I know, but from the moment I was aware of my greying strands of hair, I became acutely aware of time beginning to run out. My ambitions seeming bigger than the limited time left to achieve them.

Sometimes, when this thought comes to me, I feel paralyzed. Kind of like, well what’s the point of starting if there’s not enough time left to see it through? But the reality is that’s it’s not about the time I have left, but how purposefully I will use that time.

What If?

The worst thing I could imagine is looking back over my life and thinking ‘what if…?’. I doubt I’m unique in this thought, but thinking about the future-me as someone who laments the things that I didn’t do is strangely disturbing. Instead, I have this wonderful vision of my future which is alive with exciting activities, brimming with accomplishments and built on happiness.

Does that sound familiar to you?

That somewhere, out there in the future, your life provides everything exactly as you imagine it will? And yet, somehow, we still live with doubt about our abilities and procrastinate over taking action… which could ultimately result in the deathbed regret scenario.

Of course, life is for the living right now, not some place in the future. So what causes this disconnect between end-of-life regret and our vision of the ‘perfect’ life?

Taking Action

Clearly it’s what we’re doing or not doing in the here-and-now to implement our future vision that’s creating this rift. The faith we need to have in ourselves to make that vision a reality is often weakened by our daily habits of not taking the actions we know we need to take. How often have you looked back over your day with regret, frustration of even anger that you didn’t do the important stuff? The things that tend to fall into the category of ‘important but not urgent’?

Instead your day was full of little emergencies, or worse, other peoples’ emergencies. It’s incredibly hard to manage these situations, particularly if we’re the helpful type. But, there’s also a cop-out in helping others. It gives us a legitimate excuse to avoid the ‘hard work’ of making our own lives the place we want to live.

Consider these questions:

are you…

• Living in a town/city you love?
• In the home of your dreams?
• Working a job that fulfils you?
• Driving the vehicle of your choice?
• Wearing the clothes you love?
• Eating food that is equally nutritious and fulfilling?
• With your soul partner and friends you love?

How many can you emphatically answer ‘YES!’ to?

The Lure of Mediocrity

You are condemned to a life of mediocrity — unless you get into action. Don’t delay; do it today!

It’s a great quote, but isn’t quite complete, in my opinion. In most cases, we don’t see our whole life as one of mediocrity, instead there are likely to be just some areas that need a little (or a lot!) of attention. We love our partner, but our finances are a mess, or the house we live in is great, but the town is on the wane etc. So a lot of the time we just put up and shut up, because, for the most part, things are ‘okay’. But what we often fail to realise is that in addressing the less-than-great areas of our lives, it usually results in improvement of the whole!

  • If we sort out our finances, our (already) great love life will improve further as stress is lifted from the relationship.
  • If we make the effort to move to a preferred area, we are likely to be re-energised to do and try all those outdoorsy things we’ve been avoiding in our current town, enhancing our health and wellbeing.

But all this comes down to just one thing – we must start. Ideas and imagination are great, but without taking action, nothing changes, and in fact, things usually slide backwards.

  • If we avoid dealing with our messy finances, things will probably get worse which could put a strain on our relationship.
  • If we choose to stay in the declining town, the value of our property will probably decline making it harder to move in the future.

Try This…

Check this out for yourself – think of a problem or life circumstance that you’re currently choosing to put up with. Now think back to this issue a year ago.  Have things improved, stayed the same or got worse? To make this little exercise more effective, try projecting it forward: if you were to continue to ignore the issue, will it go away, get better or be worse a year from now?

Hopefully that’s got you thinking!  But not just thinking…but making plans to take action.  Because it really doesn’t matter which goal, project or problem you choose to tackle, but, it’s a sure thing that you’ll not finish if you don’t start.

And indeed, some things may never be finished, but does that really matter? The joy is in the enthusiastic striving for the life we want. We must grow to enjoy our lives and avoid stagnation at all costs or pay the ultimate price.

So, don’t let anything hold you back any longer. Take action, get moving and build motivation and enthusiasm for the life you really want. Time waits for no one, especially you and me!

If you’re interested in taking your life to the next level or are just ready to deal with that issue ‘once and for all’, check out my latest coaching course here!

Need a Coffee?

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Do You Need A Coffee?

Did you wake up and smell the coffee this morning? It’s a great phrase isn’t it?  Conjuring a picture of steaming coffee and all the hope that it holds for waking up the sleepy recipient! And if you did get to have the proverbial coffee, did it do its job?

I know that without my morning cuppa I just can’t function, so this is a VERY important part of my day! It’s also a very enjoyable part of my day, when I can be slow to get going without feeling any guilt whatsoever!

But of course the phrase means more than just that superficial morning cuppa.

To some extent, we’re all walking through our lives with the sleepiness that precedes our morning cuppa. Oblivious of the direction our habits are taking us and just mindlessly trusting that we will arrive at our desired outcome with minimal conscious input and action.

You might think that things are going ok and that things will work out over the long term, but this could just be a cover. Sometimes it’s just too painful to dig beneath the day-to-day and admit that life isn’t quite as happy, fun or successful as you would like it to be.

But, without taking that deep dive into examining our achievements, and by this, I mean those things that make us happy, we just keep ploughing on with our day-to-day habits and thereby continue to achieve the same outcomes. [Read more…] about Need a Coffee?

New Year New You?

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New Year 2015Can you believe it?  We’re on the very cusp of a brand new year with all the immediate excitement and anticipation! Plus, if you’re like most people, myself included, you’re already looking forward to, and planning for all the changes, or rather, improvements you’re going to make in 2015! 2014 has taught you a lesson or two, and frankly, you don’t want to repeat them. As we stand on the cusp of a brand new year, we know that we are more than equal to the challenges and goals we have set ourselves…bring it on, we cry!

But that enthusiasm is in stark contrast as, once again the old year draws to an end and we feel the inevitable disappointment of things that could have gone better this year, or, worse, we reach the year end with the usual mixed feelings of having started out with great intentions, but somehow, because life threw so many curve balls our way over the preceding twelve months, there was no way we were ever going to achieve the goals or resolutions we had set for ourselves. In fact, we tell ourselves, we’ve done well just to keep our heads above water!

But is this true? Do you feel satisfied with this justification? [Read more…] about New Year New You?

Gloucester: Bucket List Challenge City 2

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Gloucester_1After a little research, Gloucester has been selected as the second of our Bucket List: Visit 12 UK Cities in 12 Months Challenge. Last month we spent a couple of days in Bristol as we are currently facing the challenge of shorter days and cold weather.  The cities we’re choosing are therefore closer to home than those we will visit during the Spring and Summer months.

Gloucester is a city of approximately 122,000 inhabitants, originally founded by the Romans. Its main attraction is the Cathedral which is a beautiful, grand building dating from 681. Gloucester also has an inland dock and numerous historical landmarks.

This trip was a ‘one-dayer’, and so we picked out a few things to do and see to get a feel for the city. We also wanted to build in a little fun. Here’s our itinerary for the day:

  • Leave at around 8am
  • Taster skiing lesson
  • Into Gloucester for lunch
  • A wander around the Docks
  • Visit to Gloucester Cathedral

A cold but sunny Saturday morning was a great start to our trip. The journey was clear and easy and we made good time. Once you cross the Severn and head into England, the landscape in the area is fairly flat with the Malvern hills framing the distance. Given the time of year, there were lots of trees with pretty displays of mistletoe, which seems to be quite prevalent in the area. [Read more…] about Gloucester: Bucket List Challenge City 2

Bristol: Bucket List Visit 12 UK Cities In 12 Months!

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You might have heard me mention in an earlier post that I’ve recently put a Bucket List together? I was inspired by other Bucket Lists I’d read and suddenly it had dawned on me that I needed more adventure in my life. My Bucket List grew out of this idea and now runs to a list of about 40 things I want to experience, have and do! I guess I’ll need to post my full list up at some point, but for today, I’m going to write about my first Bucket List Inspired Adventure!

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living.

Dale Carnegie

It started with the happy coincidence of the arrival of my birthday and the inevitable question of ‘what do you want for your birthday?’. It’s not often I yearn for a ‘thing’ for my birthday, if I need anything, like a lot of people I go out and buy it. Instead it’s more likely that I will want to do something and that usually means going out for a nice meal. But instead, this time I already had the beginnings of my Bucket List! I had an incomplete entry for ‘Visit xxx city’ that, with a little more thought had morphed into ‘visit 12 UK cities in 12 months’.

Wikipedia gave me lots of ideas for places to visit, in fact, far more than I expected as my ill-informed understanding had assumed that in order to be called a City, said city must have a cathedral. I now know that this condition relates only to cities recognised before 1888. However, I have since decided that the 12 cities I choose to visit must meet this condition.

So, with a little bit of research, a check on the budget and the amount of time we could be away the decision was made for my husband and I to spend two days in Bristol. [Read more…] about Bristol: Bucket List Visit 12 UK Cities In 12 Months!