Lachlan Brown
We live in a world of never-ending entertainment. At any hour of the day, in any city on earth, you can find something to do.
So why are you sitting on the couch like a lump of coal wondering why life is passing you by?
Being bored with life is a hard pill to swallow and many people don’t know what to do with themselves when they are given a few moments of peace.
With so much technology and instant gratification at our fingertips, it’s a wonder that anyone could be bored, but it does happen and it’s really difficult for some people to process.
If you are chronically bored, you might need to consider why that is happening. It’s certainly not a lack of opportunity.
Here are 10 reasons why you might be bored with life:
1) You keep turning down invitations to go out.
Despite staring boredom in the face, you continue to turn town perfectly good opportunities to go out and hang with people. What’s up with that?
If you don’t have anything better to do, why aren’t you going to hang out with your friends?
If you don’t see your friends at least once in a while, when you go looking for them one day, they might not be there.
People don’t wait around like they used to and there are a lot more fake friends. There’s a whole wide world out there and if you aren’t in it, you are going to remain in a state of chronic boredom forever.
2) You think changing out of your yoga pants is too much work.
Let’s face it, yoga pants changed the landscape of being a homebody. It’s just too easy to slip those suckers on and live in them for days and days.
Some people have even tried to get away with wearing them to work and companies are starting to make dress pants out of the same fabric so more people can be comfortable.
But come on, life isn’t all about comfort. It’s also a lot about having fun and if you are living at home in the same sweat pants you’ve been wearing for days, you might need a life makeover.
Change into a pair of jeans, something that will give your ass some shape and get out in the world.
3) You lack resilience.
Life can seem boring if you’re not putting yourself out there. If you’re not chasing your dreams or discovering what life has to offer, what’s the point of it all?
A couple of setbacks, a few failed attempts, and you throw in the towel rather than be vulnerable again.
Without resilience, most of us give up on the things we desire. Most of us struggle to create lives worth living.
I know this because until recently I had a tough time rebuilding my confidence after a rough couple of months. I pretty much gave up on myself and on my life. “What’s the point?”, I used to think to myself whenever a new opportunity arose.
That was until I watched the free video by life coach Jeanette Brown.
Through many years of experience as a life coach, Jeanette has found a unique secret to building a resilient mindset, using a method so easy you’ll kick yourself for not trying it sooner.
And the best part?
Unlike many other life coaches, Jeanette’s entire focus is on putting you in the driver’s seat of your life.
To find out what the secret to resiliency is, check out her free video here.
It was life-changing for me, so if you’re ready to make life interesting, to have fun, to actually achieve something for yourself, I’d highly recommend taking Jeanette’s advice.
4) You’re not making an effort to meet people.
You can’t complain about never having anything new to do if you aren’t making an effort to get out and meet new people.
If you are sitting at the same bar with the same 4 friends every Friday night just staring at your phones like is going to continue to suck.
You might even be bored when you are with people because you are with the wrong people.
Consider adding new friends to your circle and shake things up a bit. Otherwise, you’ll be forever bored with your life.
5) You feel terrible and you look even worse.
If you’ve let yourself go and feel like buying bigger pants is too much effort, you are going to be in for a rude awakening.
We often like to play the victims in our own lives and letting ourselves go, making ourselves sick with food and drink is an easy way to allow yourself to hide from the world.
It perpetuates a chronic cycle of regret and fear.
You fear being seen like that and you regret feeling like that and so you just keep eating or do whatever it is you have chosen to dull your life with and things don’t get better.
6) You aren’t taking any actions.
You know the saying, “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”?
Well, it’s true. If you aren’t doing anything to change your life, how on earth do you expect it to change?
You are not alone in thinking that hope and prayer will bring about new entertainment and options into your life.
Many people are sitting on their hands waiting for the right time to make a move. But the time is never right and boredom will continue to fester.
But I get it: starting can be harder than anything.
We continue to stare at our goals or visions and decide that tomorrow is always better.
Jeanette has helped me not only develop better tools to help self soothe my anxiety but was also one of the biggest instigators in me regaining control of my own life.
If you’re also watching the days fly by and not managing to find the energy to begin firing up the life changes you need to make, I highly suggest you sign up to her Life Reset Challenge too.
Being stuck in the limbo of realizing you need to change but being unable to kickstart it yourself is such a painful place to be in.
Which is why outside tools like this free 5 day challenge can be the deciding factors between continuing to fester and actually motivating yourself to turn your life around.
Click here to access the free 5 day challenge.
And remember: things don’t get better unless you make them better.
7) Boredom vs. Depression
It’s a common misconception amongst people that their lives are boring. In truth, people who believe their lives aren’t full of opportunity or challenge may actually be experiencing something more difficult to manage.
When life looks lackluster all of a sudden, it might be that you are experiencing bouts of depression or even anxiety.
We’re not doctors, but it’s important for you to pay attention to what might be going on under the facade.
Depression is a real possibility if you aren’t just bored, but don’t find joy in anything you do; in particular, things that used to bring you joy no longer help to make you feel alive.
According to Better Help, “those who have anxiety and experience long shifts of boredom” might be prone to “developing depression than others.”
This has to do with the fact that depressed or anxious people may conceal negative thoughts prior to being bored, so when they have free time, their mind starts to wander into negativity.
Yet, it’s important to realize that not all boredoms are the root cause of depression.
RELATED: I was deeply unhappy…then I discovered this one Buddhist teaching
If you think that you might be depressed instead of bored, then you might identify with the 6 signs in this video that you’re emotionally drained:
8) You think you are better than people.
You might not even realize it, but you might be avoiding people and places and things because, in some way, you think you don’t need them to be happy.
If you look at a certain group of people or events and think you don’t need that to be happy, you might come to find that you are wrong.
It’s hard to turn the mirror on yourself and acknowledge that you’ve created this life for yourself; after all, who would want to be bored and lonely all the time? But it does happen.
We think that if we continue to play the victim, someone will save us. Life, unfortunately, doesn’t work like that.
9) You aren’t willing to do things alone.
If you have to wait on someone else to entertain you in order to go out for dinner, see a show, or even take a walk in the park, you might be waiting a long time.
You need to get used to doing things alone in order to take responsibility for your life and frankly, to enjoy your own company.
If you can’t be happy alone, how do you expect others to make you happy?
This is a classic case of not knowing what you want in life and relying on others to give it to you.
That’s a slippery slope because you will turn to others to provide structure, joy, and even advice in your own life.
10) You might actually enjoy being bored.
Have you ever stopped to think that you are bored because you want to be bored?
After all, there are some benefits to being bored.
A study published in the journal Academy of Management Discoveries found that boredom can spark individual productivity and creativity.
In the study, participants who had gone through a boredom-inducing task later performed better on an idea-generating task than those who completed an interesting activity.
The bored participants performed better than the others in terms of quantity and quality.
How to deal with a boring life: 13 tips
Do you look at your life and think, “what have I done?” Do you wonder what’s out there just waiting for your attention?
Do you, more often than not, find yourself just slumping back into the couch for another movie marathon Friday night?
It’s time for a change.
If life has got you down, you might consider ways to breathe some new life into your routines.
Life is anything but boring and if you think it is, you are doing it wrong. You’ve only got this one life to live so get out there and make the most of it!
Here’s what to do when you’re bored and start having an amazing life!
1) Take responsibility
If you’re bored with life, will you take responsibility for getting yourself out of this funk?
I think taking responsibility is the most powerful attribute we can possess in life.
Because the reality is that YOU are ultimately responsible for everything that happens in your life, including for your happiness and unhappiness, successes and failures, and for the feelings of boredom that you currently have.
I want to briefly share with you how taking responsibility has transformed my own life.
Did you know that 6 years ago I was anxious, bored, and working every day in a warehouse?
I was stuck in a hopeless cycle and had no idea how to get out of it.
My solution was to stamp out my victim mentality and take personal responsibility for everything in my life. I wrote about my journey here.
Fast forward to today and my website Hack Spirit is helping millions of people make radical shifts in their own lives. We’ve become one of the world’s biggest websites on mindfulness and practical psychology.
This isn’t about bragging, but to show how powerful taking responsibility can be…
… Because you too can transform your own life by taking complete ownership of it.
To help you do this, I’ve collaborated with my brother Justin Brown to create an online personal responsibility workshop. We give you a unique framework for finding your best self and achieving powerful things.
I mentioned it earlier above.
It’s quickly become Ideapod’s most popular workshop. Please check it out here.
I know that life isn’t always kind or fair. After all, no one chooses to be constantly bored and stuck in a rut.
But courage, perseverance, honesty — and above all else taking responsibility — are the only ways to overcome the challenges that life throws at us.
If you want to seize control of your life, like I did 6 years ago, then this is the online resource you need.
Here’s a link to our best-selling workshop again.
2) Try one new thing each week.
If you are on the fence about trying new things, start small. But start.
Don’t keep doing the same old things and expect life to change. You need to shake things up to make life interesting.
If you hide away from the world, you’ll miss out on all that is bright and beautiful and wonderful.
Start by trying one new thing each week. Set a date and time and get to it.
Whether you decide to try new food, visit a different museum, drive to another town, or read a different genre of books than you normally read, little changes can add up to one heck of an exciting life.
3) Strike up a conversation with a stranger.
One of the best ways to add some adventure to your life is to talk to strangers.
Find someone who is sitting alone in a coffee shop or at a restaurant and introduce yourself, ask if you can join them, and talk to them.
It might feel strange at first, but that’s okay. It’s supposed to.
The whole point is to make yourself feel different things than you normally do.
Talking to other people helps you understand more about the world, learn new things, and of course, make new friends.
4) Write down the good things that happened to you.
Gratitude can go a long way in helping you see that life is not so boring after all.
We tend to take the good things for granted and don’t focus enough on what’s going well.
We do focus, however, on a lot of little negative things and blow them way out of proportion.
Get into the habit of writing down positive things in your life and you’ll soon find that more positive things come your way.
Or, as is usually the case, it’s not that more positive things come, it’s that you find more things to be positive about. What a concept!
5) Breathe your way out of boredom.
Sometimes, having better clarity and balance in your life can help you push through the fuzziness of boredom. A foggy brain and lack of motivation can make you feel more bored than you actually are.
So how can you break out of this funk?
I recently watched a unique free breathwork video. It’s designed to help restore balance, regulate emotions and reduce stress. It’s also great for clearing your mind and re-energizing yourself.
Check out the free breathwork video here.
I know, because I decided to do it one morning when I had zero motivation. I felt bored and restless but I had things to do and needed something stronger than coffee to get me going. Since then, it’s my go-to method whenever I need an energy and creativity boost.
Shaman Rudá Iandê formed this dynamic flow to resolve his health problems, drawing upon shamanic teachings to help restore balance to the body and mind. He covers many factors that hold us back, including feeling unmotivated, a lack of creativity, and anxiety.
It’s quick, easy to do, and can be used whenever you need it – a perfect tool to combat the boredom blues.
Here’s a link to the free video again.
6) Take up a new exercise routine.
If you really want to shake things up in life, physically shake them up with a new exercise routine or workout.
If you aren’t doing any physical activity at all, start. Start with just a walk around the block.
It’s fun to think of yourself as someone who exercises and takes care of themselves, but the work of actually doing that is sometimes overwhelming.
Being bored is a great trigger for exercise because once you get into the routine of it, you’ll find all kinds of other ways to keep moving and having fun.
You might take up hiking or rock climbing, skiing or swimming. Life is anything but boring when you are on the move. And as an added bonus, you’ll feel great!
7) Become your own life coach
If you’re feeling bored in life, then you need direction. You need to figure out where you want to go in life.
A popular way to do this is through a professional life coach.
Bill Gates, Anthony Robbins, Andre Agassi, Oprah and countless other celebrities go on and on about how much life coaches have helped them.
Good on them, you may be thinking. They can certainly afford one!
Well I’ve recently stumbled upon a way to receive all the benefits of professional life coaching without the expensive price tag.
Click here to learn more about my search for a life coach (and the VERY surprising twist it took).
8) Date more.
Get out there and start flirting. The more people you meet, the more you’ll have fun.
You don’t have to date every single person you meet, but dating more frequently certainly gives your boredom a run for its money and keeps your calendar full.
If you aren’t doing anything else anyway, why not go out and meet new people who might turn into potential relationships.
You never know where that kind of thing can lead, but if you don’t change your ways, you can bank on it not changing at all.
There’s a great quote from a movie called, The Wedding Date (2005) that says, “women have exactly the kind of love life they want.”
Which means if your love life is boring, it’s because you want it to be boring.
9) Find out more about yourself.
If you are tired of living a boring life, but don’t particularly like the company of other people and aren’t interested in dating right now, you might want to spend some time getting to know yourself in a more deeper and meaningful way.
You can take a class, start a reflective practice, read self-help books, take a road trip by yourself, go on a singles cruise, find a library and go there to listen to quiet music and relax and think about how you want your life to look.
Get to know your emotions. If you’re angry and you want to let it go, ask yourself, why am I angry?
Take up journalling or channel your thoughts into drawings or paintings. You don’t have to rely on other people to help you live an interesting life
if you are willing to go out there and live on one your own!
10) Take a class.
If you can’t entertain yourself, and you feel like you are at the end of your rope, get out and let someone else entertain you.
Take a class, enroll in a course, or sign up for a workshop where someone will fill your time for you.
Getting out of the house can help stimulate your senses in its own way, but engaging with other people who are working toward a common purpose can make you feel like you have something to focus on again.
Boredom is a real problem when you can’t find ways to solve it, but taking a class is a way that you can keep on moving without having to do a lot of the work yourself.
If you are suffering from depression or even anxiety, following someone else’s lead will take the pressure off of you.
11) Find a new friend.
If doing your favorite things don’t bring you joy anymore and you are bored with life, find a friend who can help you see the silver lining in things again.
The great thing about hooking up with a friend is that they can reduce boredom just by being near you.
Sometimes, you just need to know you are not alone in order to pump up the excitement in your life.
Reducing boredom isn’t always about filling every second of your day with entertainment. It can be about spending as much time as possible enjoying life with people that are important to you.
Nobody said you had to be doing things together. You can just be together.
12) Set out to do something you’ve never done before.
If you are looking for ways to spice up your life, but friends are few and far between and you can’t find a class that interests you, try getting out of town and doing something you’ve never done before.
Now, if you are feeling overwhelmed by change, don’t worry. You can take small steps to try new things.
Boredom can be reduced if you look for ways to test the waters and try things that can help you learn new ways to live and to look forward to life again.
Giving your life a facelift doesn’t have to include radical change; it can include small steps.
13) Walk it off.
If all else fails, and you can’t put your finger on what’s going on, get your walking shoes on and take to the great outdoors to think about where you are and where you want to go.
Sometimes, boredom is self-induced because we are trying to procrastinate about something else.
Rather than sit around and die of boredom, get out and walk it off and try to figure out what is going on that you are really avoiding.
Another night of binge-watching a mediocre show is not how you need to be spending your time. A little exercise never hurt anyone and it gives you something to do.
How this one Buddhist teaching turned my life around
My lowest ebb was around 6 years ago.
I was a guy in my mid-20s who was lifting boxes all day in a warehouse. I had few satisfying relationships – with friends or women – and a monkey mind that wouldn’t shut itself off.
During that time, I lived with anxiety, insomnia and way too much useless thinking going on in my head.
My life seemed to be going nowhere. I was a ridiculously average guy and deeply unhappy to boot.
The turning point for me was when I discovered Buddhism.
By reading everything I could about Buddhism and other eastern philosophies, I finally learned how to let things go that were weighing me down, including my seemingly hopeless career prospects and disappointing personal relationships.
In many ways, Buddhism is all about letting things go. Letting go helps us break away from negative thoughts and behaviors that do not serve us, as well as loosening the grip on all our attachments.
Fast forward 6 years and I’m now the founder of Hack Spirit, one of the leading self improvement blogs on the internet.
Just to be clear: I’m not a Buddhist. I have no spiritual inclinations at all. I’m just a regular guy who turned his life around by adopting some amazing teachings from eastern philosophy.
Click here to read more about my story.
You may also like reading:
- My life was going nowhere, until I had this one revelation
- What J.K Rowling can teach us about mental toughness
- Why I quit my job and went to a meditation retreat (but you don’t have to)
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