All the reasons you should embrace boredom

Boredom is the greatest things since sliced bread.

It's this state of mind where nothing is appealing to you and you feel completely underwhelmed. You find yourself aimlessly wander around the house, looking for something to do.

So why is this great?

Boredom is essential for creativity.

When you are are bored your mind wanders and true inspiration can strike. Boredem gets you to take action, it pushes you to look at your goals and change them.

Whenever you feel bored, you have two options:

1 - take out the phone and get rid of boredom

or

2 - stay bored and re-evalue your goals and future

Another positive aspect is that boredom is powerful and therapeutic. When you tell your sad story often enough you will eventually get bored with it and stop telling it. And then you can come up with a way more inspiring story to talk about.

How do we get bored?

As a creative person, or when running your own business, you rarely get bored. There always is a project you can work on next. And as your mind is racing to get it all done, you hardly have a second to sit down and figure out your next move.

But you need to sit down and come up with new ideas. What are my goals for the next quarter? How do I make it happen? What is my next product going to be? Where do I find more clients?

So we set aside time to come up with ideas. All while our mind is racing with the next task that we rather should tackle. Or something simple even as "What's for dinner?".

What you need is to be properly bored for a while.

The one day consumption

I cherish Sundays for their possibilities. I can either step away from my desk and do something physical, like going on a long hike or visit friends, or I can get stupidly bored.

A boring Sunday is often filled with easy consumption. The latest show on Netflix, a fiction novel or a knitting project. Although I'm taking in stuff, my mind is not really occupied. Add some take-away meals or ready dinners and you have even eliminated the creative task of cooking.

After a long and busy week this kind of day feels like a luxury for the first few hours. And then I begin to get restless. I want to do something meaningful. Here lies the big trick - don't give in. Stay with the meaningless and continue to consume.

Mindless vs mindful consumption

There are two ways fo consumption - the meaningless (see above) and the meaningful.

Meaningful consumption comes in form of non-fiction books, inspiring YouTube videos or an educational newsletter. You consume in order to learn, to gain new understandings. For these new ideas to resonate and to take action from them you also need to consume in a mindful way.

Mindful consumption comes when you are specifically looking for information. You might have a problem that needs a solution. You are in high alert while watching or reading, most likely you are even taking notes.

The opposite is mindless consumption. It comes easy with the Netflix-binging, but can also be achieved with YouTube. And no, it doesn't have to be cat videos. Even the inspirational videos can be watched for hours in a mindless fashion. Just don't take notes or apply any of the learnings to your life.

Learning through consumption

Anything you watch or read or listen to can be a course of inspiration and learning.

What we read as fairy tales these days have been instructions for how to live when they were written down. There always is a hint of truth or a hidden lesson. Take Little Red Riding Hood: "Don't venture from the path", "Don't talk to strangers", "Don't believe everything you see".

As long as you are in learning mode, and as a creative person you most likely are all the time, you hardly will get bored. Frodo says something and you go "Wait a second, I can apply this to my business". And off you go jotting down a note while pausing the movie and annoying your partner.

Chances are you never get back to your movie as that first spark triggers another idea that reminds of that thing you wanted to do and suddenly it's been 3 hours and now all your laundry is folded and your closet reorganized.

When you don't take action from what you learned you get restless

To get properly bored you need to take a break from learning mode.

Switch off the brain and just mindlessly consume. It's hard, but it's necessary. You see, when you don't take action immediately you will get restless. Being restless is your mind telling you that it has an idea somewhere in store.

Now you have two choices:

• Go and search for that idea in your mind

• Do nothing and let it emerge on its own

Searching for it takes you immediately out of boredom. Now you are a dog sniffing out an idea. Where is it? Looking for your idea is great, but also has one downside: You are engaging your mind. Half of the idea will come from your thinking.

If you do nothing and just keep being bored and wait, your idea will come through as true inspiration. There will be elements to it you could never have come up with on your own. Call it what you want, but it might just as well being the divine talking to you.

An inspirational idea will have a far greater impact than something you have come up with. Plus, it will save you time. Time you can spend on other things, like the latest Netflix show or a long hike.

I'm curious: When was the last time you were properly bored? And what positive effect had it on you?

Hit reply and tell me :-)

xo,

Yvonne