Did you read that right? Did I just encourage BOREDOM in your life and work? To learn something from?
Aren’t you used to being so busy pretending everything is ‘FINE’ and just pushing through?
More commitments, more obligations, more should’s shoved down your ever loving throat to keep up with the imaginary Jones’s (who, by the way, are likely just as tired and bored as you are....)
What if you stopped and took a look at that hamster wheel of yours? Could you imagine what you would learn?
Let me explain.
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Most people are spinning too fast in their lives and work to even give a thought to what they are actually feeling, let alone be able to self diagnose anything that could be ‘off’ until it flat out trips them when they aren’t looking.
I propose a new way of growing. One that requires far fewer scraped knees and bruised egos from that tripping.
Let’s get bored. Let’s ADMIT all is not dandy and ALLOW our true real and less than shiny happy outlook to actually come up.
Until you are ready to stop...er...lying.. to yourself and the world, nothing can change. And stuck is NOT where you want to be so let’s crack this one open.
Why, you may ask, do you need to get bored to make a shift?
Glad you asked...here goes:
1. You Stop The Centrifuge
Remember that spinning centrifuge you learned about in science class? When it spins so fast nothing can fall? Yet when it stops, the particles along the sides settle? THAT’S what we need.
The slow down of the spinning life. The fake bravado, the surface answers, the flawless shell with achy insides.
When you admit boredom and complacency, you stop the pretending. Like in an instant. You can’t slow down and lie to yourself at the same time for very long because the particles that land are the clues you have been trying to run away from.
The old wounds you thought you could bury in busyness. The habits and patterns that are hard to admit, keep resurfacing in different scenarios with different players, yet with the same outcome over and over.
In order to speed up your growth, getting in tempo with the underlying, ever present truth, is KEY.
Otherwise, frankly, you are attempting to build on rocky foundations - not a great plan and you know it.
When the rushing around and covering up with plans and to-do lists quiets down, you get to see what you are repeating AND what you are missing.
Truth telling is a huge relief.
2. You Stop Living In Multiple Tabs
So you hit the truth-telling. Where you clearly see you are likely running at least two, sometimes even three or four tabs of life.
In one tab, you are living the imaginary relationship with the perfect job and the exemplary gym schedule. Hmm mmm - you know, the Facebook and Instagram version....
Next tab - One layer down. Truth about your relationship that could use some work surfaces, so you have half of your brain in the what ifs of your partner leaving or straying.
So what does your savvy, tricking stay safe brain do? Face those tough conversations? Uh no.
It throws itself into firing squad-mode in your professional life so you can balance out with achievement to cover-up the bumps and bruises on your heart.
Third tab - Could be your underlying health issues. Late night binging, or those wrappers you have never seen in your life next to your bed after guzzling your green drinks all day like the good yogi gym goer that you are.
Or maybe it’s the nervous habit of sleeping an hour or two a night and never talking about how exhausted you are because… pffft sleep is for the weak, right?
And on and on. You know the layers. But only when you actually take an honest look.
Then you can CHOOSE which tab you truly want to be on, what needs healing, what needs pruning, and maybe even what needs letting go.
The fear of what will be is actually always much scarier than facing closing the tab. Trust me. I have hit expert level on what ifs and closing tabs. It stings far less after the click.
3. You Stop Forgetting Who You Are
When you’re busy human’ing and following rules and methods that you think were intending to keep you safe and successful, yet actually take you FARTHER away from who you really are, and what you really want.
Which makes it harder to click back into your true values, unique focus, and personal drive because there’s so much outside noise to combat what your gut knows to be true for YOU.
When you lean into glorious boredom, the noise quiets, and your radio station can finally fill you in on what you’ve been missing in your own genius and future.
Then, and only then, can your roadmap start to emerge - ‘Oh right, I want X, Y, Z.... how about I go and do that!’
Pretty cool, eh?
4. You Find More Of Your Flow
When you spend less time traveling back and forth between pushing life and work and dreaming of what else is possible, you can finally get more DONE.
Less worry, less drama, and less people pleasing because those tabs are no longer convincing you that spinning plates is a form of cardio that gets you results.
Your mind and heart start to communicate again and you begin to ask your OWN brilliance what it wants to do next, who it wants to love most, and why moving forward feels far more fun than staying turned backwards.
Work ideas begin to flow again. Motivation and focus become less of a struggle. Choices emerge because your view is more clear. Creativity comes back into the room with a roar.
Voila! Flow is addictive and speeds up without effort.
5. You Surround Yourself With People Who Help You Grow
This last one is one of my favorite side effects of welcoming in boredom. Once you go through the other 4 phases, this one seems to naturally emerge.
You realize who around you doesn’t fit your life anymore. Just like that. You look around and kind of say, ‘Hmm, I think I’m done with this old stuff repeating.’
It sounds a little harsh but if you trust me through lessons 1-4, you will see how seamless it can be to shift gears and connect MORE with the people who match up to what you crave in your life and LESS with those who drain the hell out of you.
No need for mass clearings - unless you like that sort of thing! it just begins to happen by you quietly but comfortably demanding more of yourself and respecting your time, your space, and dreams in a different way than you had when you were in pretending mode.
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And those who will meet you on this road are just EASIER. They get you. You wonder where they have been your whole life and you realize you are also wondering where you had been. Different journeys converging at that, Ooh I like you, you think like I do… let’s walk together’ sort of vibe.
So now… does a little boredom sound like the perfect plan to catapult ya forward?
I thought it might.
Give it a try. It’s life changing to dawdle like a little kid again. I guarantee it!
Shari Teigman is a performance coach and creative business strategist who teaches the Maverick Method to become the optimal you for your optimal life and business.She works with high level CEOs, entrepreneurs and startups to unleash their inner Maverick and to remove the bottlenecks that keep them stuck and small to catapult into the next level of well-being and success in all areas.Part loving mama part tough love, Shari walks with you to help you change why you don’t stick to what you commit to, teach you a new way to face your future and shift your mindset for your own unique blueprint to create what you want in the next level of your business and life.
Article originally published in the pages of SOULACY
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