Embrace Boredom!

Hah! Boring topic! 🙂 Perhaps but also quite interesting to fall in love with. I have met some great and amazing people who when got bored with the monotonous process actually did something even more amazing to come out of the problem. Honestly, this is also why so many Start Ups actually started.

I was reading this earlier somewhere that Warren Buffet read the same book- Security Analysis twelve times as he was actually bored before he allowed himself into the investment game! In fact, according to Yahoo Finance, if Buffet’s formula for success could be described in one word, it would simply be called “boring”. Wonderfully, profitably, enjoyably boring 🙂

Many of us believe that in order to achieve something, we need to be deeply passionate (passion + high energy= success). While I definitely agree that is true but when we add the dimension of time into the same formula, the outcome dissipates. Example – When we are deeply passionate to say lose weight or get fitter, we showcase high energy and we do not miss the gym. However, after 30 days, when there are more priority stuffs in our life example- work at office or at home etc. we start thinking of missing out the gym say for a day. Later that becomes a week and we lose that momentum over a period of time. Eventually , this becomes boring for us.

So then how do we embrace boredom:

1. Remember the purpose why we started: We will definitely cross the boring paths where we will think of pausing or giving up, just remember the guiding light on why we started at the first place.
2. Do the boring things in the morning/ first : Whenever we wake up, we are usually at the highest of our energy and positive levels. In one of my earlier blogs-I had mentioned do not procrastinate and eat those frogs :P. Here I highly recommend to start the day with the boring tasks so that we get done with the not so charming stuffs by the first half of the day itself.
3. The Pomodoro Technique: I got introduced to this technique by Abhishek. As per this technique time the boring tasks (actually he advised me to time all the tasks) to 30 mins and then take a 5 min break after every 30 min. This 5 min break actually rejuvenates me and gives me more fuel to go further. Infact I downloaded an app called as – “30/30” in iOS which helps me get my tasks done. Actually this time is also significantly enough to get done with many tasks.
4. Start falling in love with the process: Fall in love with the process as its now making us better. Yes it is monotonous and boring but this in itself is the charm that is making us better and stronger. In our own journey, we need to look for the things and ways that is making us a better person and giving us a new outlook to see things!

I have also met so many people who say, they no longer find the job interesting or they have reached a peak point. I have always thought on how can someone reach their peak or they have plateaued in their own journey of learning. The deeper I think, the stronger I feel that there is a need to embrace this boredom to continue that missing piece of learning.

Like I mentioned earlier this is probably also how the wildly successful people embraced boredom.