Embrace the Boring Parts

When people envision success or having new goals, they are excited and motivated by how their life or situation would be better. We all hear people saying, “find your passion.” Confucius said, “do what you love and you never have to work another day on your life.” The truth is no matter how exciting a goal seems, there will be parts that will be boring, tedious, and not always fun.

To become extraordinary requires executing the ordinary over and over again. You cannot be extraordinary without being ordinary. Motivation and excitement are diminishing resources. No matter how much a goal means to you, there will be steps that won’t be exciting, that won’t motivate you and may be downright boring.

If you are a parent or a toddler, you will have to watch the same movie every day. If you are an entrepreneur, there will be activities that are downright boring that you simply don’t want to do.

Almost on a daily basis I must send emails, post on social media, schedule tasks on the calendar, deal with procrastination, and other things that I might not want to do.

There’s another benefit of boredom and getting bored. As a disabled person, no matter how busy I am, my life oftentimes comes down to almost like a crawl. In these times, it’s challenging for me to scroll through social media or even hop in my car and run a useless errand.

My day is filled with slow times and yes, I do get bored. In this boredom, ideas come to me which would not come if I was busy all the time. In the book Stolen Focus, Johann Hari writes about the power of mind wandering on the creative process.

When you practice getting bored and mind wandering, you are letting your brain take a break. Just like after you exercise you don’t do anything, you need to let the subconscious take over and sort out things. One of the ways to accomplish this is to just get a little bored. The problem is that we always need to do something, and these days it’s easy to do something because there is always someone to text, some video to watch, some unread email that needs our attention, or some social media post that does not really need one more like from us.

In essence, one of the most powerful ways that you can achieve your goals is to actually get bored. You don’t have to listen to that podcast in the car. You can just put on some music and let your mind wander.

If you want to become extraordinary, you must not skip the part of being ordinary. In other words, take the boring actions. Master the art of being ordinary. Don’t be afraid to get bored. Embrace it.

Emotional Ebb and Flow of Goals

There is definitely ebb and flow when you go after your goals. When you first start working on your goals, you are excited about all the possibilities and you have a strong view of where you want to be. You are motivated in the beginning and you even convince yourself that dry chicken breast is actually yummy or you convince yourself that it is fun looking at Excel for hours. However, motivation is not constant. You will say to yourself that the last thing that you want to eat is chicken breast or looking at a spreadsheet is the most boring thing in the world. In these times, it is imperative that you push past these feelings. The way you do so is you mentally tie everything back to what got you excited in the first place. It’s important that you always know why the goal is important to you. Your motivation will always be tested, but if you stick to it, the motivation will come back in waves. One day, after you consistently stick to your diet, you will notice that you can get into your jeans a little easier or that looking at spreadsheets causes you to gain insight. This loop always ebbs and flows.

Many goals involve climbing the learning curve. This means learning something new to improve your skillset and your mindset. This process is oftentimes boring and can be overwhelming. Reading, watching technical videos, attending a lecture, can often feel boring. This can be unnecessary steps in growing yourself. The reason most people don’t do it is because it’s not fun.

Entrepreneurs must take actions that are not always inspiring. Business travelers always have to wait in long lines. Parents have to always be there for their kids, including waiting to pick them up, make sure they do their homework, be patient with them, and perform activities that are not always exciting or fun. Practice the art of getting bored and doing nothing. For many people we are trained to fill our time with mindless activities that don’t really feel satisfactory, but make us anxious. It’s like eating one too many candies.