A friend of mine's wife was feeling anxious about her job. My brilliant coach friend inquired more from her, as she thought she was depressed.
"Before you go check it out at the doctor honey," He said, "Can I offer a thought?" Desperate and open, she said yes. "Maybe you're not depressed. Maybe you're just really, really bored."
He nailed it.
You hear the same adage about depression, it's anger turned inward, living in the past, trauma unresolved, fear, but it's also tolerating boredom.Her dynamic mind wasn't stimulated anymore at work.
If we aren’t living in our capabilities, potential, or authentic self, we will be bored!
When we aren't living up to our potential, or we've settled to stick with a job that we've outgrown - it's inevitable - boredom sets in. Complacency kills the human spirit. And boredom over time, equates to depression. After all, how can one be truly happy, when she spends over 40 hours a week doing something mundane? Time wasters aren't maximizing talent. Being bored, is not maximizing your life.
To get Un-Bored try the following strategies:
1. Find a challenge that excites you. A part of productivity is mastering new skills, learning new things and figuring out how to overcome new challenges. In business marketing, they say, innovate or die. Same thing for us as humans, we need newness to thrive. Boredom puts us in a state of dullness. What is a challenge you’ve always wanted to conquer? Where is the biggest giant of fear to face in your life? Giants are meant to be slayed. Face the giant that seems scary, but offers excitement at the same time. You can do it.
2. Tap into your old passions. A manger client overwhelmed by the demands of work almost quit. After a few questions, we found she was an artist with no time for art. All things art, painting, drawing, coloring, were a part of her. To neglect passion, is to neglect our whole self. To find your passion look at the books and articles you read, look at your hobbies, look at the things that naturally hold your attention or my favorite what you could do for hours as a child. Surprisingly passions stay fairly constant. Did the routinized process of life take over your pleasure of life? Spark up your passion.
3. Ponder what you want. Instead of obsessing on what you don't like, don't want, and can't stand. Think about what you do want, what you love and who you love. The tough question to ponder is: What do I want? Yes YOU. Listen to your own heart. Supporting questions such - Who am I? or Who am I called to serve? - help gain clarity on what you want. Ask this over and over again until you arrive at the core of your heart’s desire.
4. Make a plan. A few years back, I was in a job that I quickly outgrew. It was as though I had a huge bag of skills and talents that I was dragging around. My talents and skills felt homeless. I had to make a plan to utilize more of my talents. I had to identify the talents I wanted, then the plan became clearer. After a few months a job position matching my talents emerged. Fast forward years later, my life doesn’t feel like work at all. It’s strange. I love what I do and how I get to impact others to maximize productivity and re-purpose wasted time to put attention where it matters most. Growth is constant, you’ll continue to outgrow your positions and develop new skills and conquer new challenges, but make it a plan. Jot down your ideas on what actions will take you from where you are to where you want to be.
5. Take a vacation. Nothing like real time off to reconnect to who we are and what we want. Most people rarely use all their PTO days. Plan it now. It will be well worth the time to connect with self, goals, dreams, family and nature. Do something outdoors. Grab a cabin, resort, or simple bed and breakfast, but get out of your usual environment. The best thing you can do when feeling down or bored at work, is take time off work and refresh. Just keep the next strategy in mind with all that downtime. And please, don't check email, instead make a "While I Was Out" email folder and put them in there when you get back - then continue on as usual. Seriously, plan time off.
6. Match your job to your personality. My geekiness is very prevalent when talking personality profiles. I personally have affinity for the Myer's Briggs and DiSc types. Certain personalities are not meant for certain jobs no matter how much you try to fit in the box. It won't work. We need three fits to feel great at work: the job fit, the culture fit, and the industry fit. This "fit" test is all based on your natural style and your values. If you would like a complimentary, amazing profile and coaching session around this, message me. This way we can see how much soul-depressing, over-compensating for your true self you are doing in your job.
I'd love to hear from you. Which one of these strategies resonates with you most?
About Jendayi:
Jendayi Harris speaks at Fortune 500 firms seeking to enrich leaders to align teams and time effectively - by clarifying objectives, projects, email, calendar and task systems - in a proven method to win back 14 hours per week per year, keep a zero inbox, create high performance work teams, and increase profitability by 23%. www.mcgheepro.com
Client results matter to Jendayi. She employs Emotional Intelligence, personality assessment [MBIT, DiSc], Counseling Psychology, business and nearly twenty years in corporate to impact the lives of others. She believes productivity is an inside out matter. Clutter, email hording, and disorganization have just as many psychological roots as it does practical application.
She believes the best thing we can do for our families is to take 100% responsibility for our mind, will, emotions and habits.
She believes it's important to embrace humanness and not seek perfection in productivity, but progress. In her opinion, to love God, our self, and others, is the most productive response to our daily insanity.