The Cure For Boredom When You Don’t Know What to do

“I’m so bored.”

That was me the other day. The thing is that I never get bored. I haven’t been bored in the last five years because I’ve always had something going on. It was a Wednesday night. I had an awesome (performance-wise, not technically speaking) pro wrestling experience on Saturday and I had a half-marathon coming up on Sunday.

For a few moments, I lost track of my goals. For a few moments I couldn’t think of anything to do. So I expressed to my boredom to my brother.

Why was I bored?

• Maybe it was because I had come home from weight training and BJJ feeling exhausted.
• Maybe it was because I had an awesome performance at a pro wrestling show the weekend before.
• Maybe because I had nothing to write about.
• Maybe it was because nobody wanted to meet up on a Wednesday night (who doesn’t like to hang out in the middle of the week?).

Either way, I was bored for a few minutes. So I loaded up a podcast and began to read.

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” – Dorothy Parker 

This led to me to discover Joshua Waitzkin, who was on the Tim Ferriss Show. Waitzkin is a former chess prodigy and the author of The Art of Learning. As I listened, I became fascinated with what he had to say.

This one line really caught my attention:

“If you’re studying my game, you’re entering my game and I’ll be better at it than you.”

I then read a summary of his book, as I usually try to do before committing to a book (commitment issues). I then found a quote that resonated with me 100%. This is something that you need to apply to your life immediately:

“In my experience, successful people shoot for the stars, put their hearts on the line in every battle…In the long run, painful losses may prove much more valuable than wins…Of course, the real challenge is to stay in range of this long-term perspective when you are under fire and hurting in the middle of the war. This, maybe our biggest hurdle, is at the core of the art of learning.”

That’s life-changing stuff right there. Instantly, I was back in full-snap mode and ready to go. Boredom was gone!

How do you cure your boredom?

Set clear goals with a deadline.

I won’t get into the usual boring nonsense about setting SMART Goals. Zzzzz.

The truth is that you need to focus on something. You need something to keep you busy. It’s easy to get bored and just squander precious time.

You need a few goals so that you always have something in mind.

A couple of goals that I set at the beginning of 2014 that I’ve been acting on are:

• Get better at BJJ.
• Become a good pro wrestler.
• Grow my fitness blog. Kettlebell Rebels — check it out!
• Learn Spanish.
• Save up for a summer adventure.

That’s enough to keep me busy, but there are still times where I get bored. Either way, I always have something to do think about.

What goals will you set? You can move out by the end of the year, get a new job, pay off your debt, or get better with your social skills.

Stop consuming information!

Most information is time-consuming, negative, irrelevant to your goals, and outside of your influence. The more information and conspiracy theories you consume, the more miserable you will be 24/7.

Get in the game. Stop reading and watching from the sidelines.

Have an addiction.

Not all addictions are bad.

I won’t lie. Envy keeps me up at night. Blogging and helping people like you is my addiction. I’m also addicted to mastering new skills, which is why I’m trying to get better at BJJ and pro wrestling while I learn Spanish. What bothers me a lot is that I suck at all of these things. I hate sucking. I want to get better. I need to get better.

I really enjoy helping people come up with ideas to make more money online and from home.

What’s your addiction? What keeps you going? What’s going to keep you going?

Fail and fall flat on your face.

If you’ve ever failed at anything you know how horrible it feels. We all like to romanticize failure, but there’s no benefit to failing at the moment.

Why would anyone ever want to fail? I hate failing, but I love getting humbled.

• Do you know how much it bruises your ego when a beautiful girl turns you down? I experience this once a week at least.
• Do you know how much it sucks to get submitted within two minutes by someone 50 pounds lighter than you? Happens far too often.
• Do you know how brutal it is to create something and have nobody care? Happens regularly.

But guess what? I’m going to keep on shooting for the stars and failing.

Waitzkin said it best when it comes to failing:

“It’s amazing how much you can learn about someone when they get caught in the rain! Some will run with their hands over their heads, others will smile and take a deep breath while enjoying the wind. What does this say about one’s relationship to discomfort? The reaction to surprise? The need for control?”

Here’s the number thing you must remember about failure: how you react is more important than anything else!

It’s your turn to kill your boredom.

What’s next?

I need you to share this article with two friends. The boredom epidemic needs to be demolished right now! No longer are we allowed to be bored.

I would also love to hear about how you kill boredom!

Join The Dream Catchers Series:

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