Has this question come up for you? What to do when you're bored in quarantine?
This first one is going to seem a little paradoxical.
I'll give you that warning. Vicki thinks a lot of what i do is paradoxical.
When we're bored, the temptation is to think that we need to go
do something. -Right. -Right? That's kind of what the compelling
urge or feeling is. So, i'm going to suggest here that
maybe we get to just slow down a little. Just back up from it. Do a little
meditation which is where we get to calm the brain
and the mind and just exist. -Be present. -Be fully present.
Start to notice things that you didn't notice before.
Just push off the urge for a moment to do something.
And we'll get to that okay because probably you're right. You do need to go
do something. But push that off long enough for you to
just simply be present. And this is a powerful
practice that can allow you to be more conscious
of what's actually going around and it will give you some additional
ideas. -Sometimes being bored means that you are uncomfortable
going down the thought process that you're going. You feel like there's got
to be something physical change or something. So, sometimes being
bored means just be okay with thinking through the things
that you're thinking. -Or not thinking. -Yeah. -Which is
a skill. -Yeah. -Guys are better at it than girls.
-Just go to the nothing box. Mark Gungor talks about this.
If you want a laugh, go look up Mark Gungor,
a tale of 2 brains. Mark did a great job summarizing this where
men have this "nothing box", right? Where they can just
in their mind, they can just go to...
Nothing. Well, it's actually a very relaxing experience to go there.
And it takes a little bit of practice. We've got other videos that can help
with that. But that's the first idea. Just back off,
be present, notice and observe what's going on or
what's not going on and be good with that. -Almost in contrast
with the first point is get up, get moving, do something. Get your
heart pumping. Go do something completely
different. Change your atmosphere, change your activity. -The change itself
is really powerful. So, if you're sitting, stand up.
-Right. -If you're inside, go outside. But like you said, Vicki, we want to get
our body moving. There's a lot of psychological support to this.
-Yeah. -The research shows that if you will get moving, it will change your mood.
Oh, do you remember what you told me about that friend of yours
who had started jogging and you were commenting to her, "Oh, that must be really
good for your health." And her response? -It was that "I don't do
it for my health, I do it for my mood." -For her mood. It's mood management. -Yeah.
-If you're bored, notice that that is a mood
experience. And so, moving your body is probably one of the fastest ways you can
change... -It's great to just even step up and go
outside for a minute. Even though it's hot or cold or whatever.
It happens to be at the time. Go outside for just a minute. Just get
some of that sunlight in on you. That natural light and it
just kind of changes and resets some things.
-You know, Vicki and I have some helpers for this because we have a couple of
dogs at home. And they want to get out every day. Well,
that's been really good for us too. Because we get out and we walk. And while
we're walking we can talk and we can connect.
But getting that blood moving getting the chemistry
balanced. It's powerful. Another powerful psychological strategy is to get out of
your own focus, your self-focus and start looking at ways that you can
reach out and serve other people. -This reminds me a lot
i had a girlfriend growing up named Teresa. And
whenever she felt her mood needing a little bit of a
change, she immediately would think, "Who can I do
something for?" So, often times, if you... I would show up and there'd be some
flowers on my bed or something. It was from Theresa because she needed
a little change in her own mood and she would go out and find a way to do
something nice for one of us, one of her girlfriends. -You know, I had a
client once who sent me a text message. He was in a hotel
in another city he had gone there to do a keynote or a presentation for a
conference. He couldn't even get out of bed. Now, this
is a little different from boredom. But really it's still
a mood issue if we're stuck in depression.
And this text said, "I'm in a bad place. Can you call me?"
Well, I was going into a meeting. But i gave him a call real quick.
And I said, "We'll follow up in an hour." But I give him an assignment.
And the assignment was put enough on that you can go to the hotel lobby. I
don't care if you get completely dressed. Go to the hotel lobby. Find someone that
you can serve. Do that and then I'll call you back in
an hour. And guess what? -He was doing better. -Totally. Totally
better in an hour. No, he didn't feel like doing it. But
guess what? If your mood is off, if you're depressed
or you're bored or whatever it is, you're not going to feel like doing it.
Do it anyway. Find a way to get yourself to do it it.
It may have saved his life. I might be overstating that a little bit. But
maybe not. -Another option to help you get out of boredom
is just simply to begin something. To start
a task an activity. And I think a lot of the times we're so afraid of
starting something because we don't know how long it's going to take
to do it, right? -So, I had another friend named Jen that she was
really really good about setting her timer. And she'd say, "I'm going to do
this for a certain amount of time." And so, maybe 15,
20, 30 minutes. Just set your timer and for this much time, I'm going to
do something. Maybe it's cleaning something. Maybe it's
coloring. Maybe it's doing um an activity brushing the dog. I don't know. Whatever
it is but just do something for a certain amount of time. -You know,
Vic, the point is not the activity. -Right. -The point is not the project. The
point is get yourself moving in some kind of a
productive direction and starting something is
a great way for you to feel like you've got some kind of purpose.
I like what you said about don't get overwhelmed with thoughts of,
"How am i going to finish this?" But you know what? That's another point
we could make. What if you were to finish something? -Yeah. -You know all those
projects you've got started? You have a few, don't you? -I can think of
several things that I.. If I just took a half hour i could finish
this project or i could finish that or i could finish that. So...
-Right. Or even if you can't finish it, what if you were to do the next
physical step. And I like what Jen suggested that
set a timer. We've got... We've got some projects,
don't we? -Lots of things. -There's a particular room in our basement. You
know the one I'm talking about? Yeah, you got one too. And we've been
telling ourselves we need to do that. Well, we make our best
progress when we set a timer. -So, we're just going to go and spend 45
minutes down there. -And you know what? It feels good because it's productive
activity towards some legitimate end. But even if you can't
finish it, you might be able to calendar
what's going to be required to finish it and start taking those systematic steps
toward doing it. So, part of finishing or starting a
project can be even the planning portion. -Right. That's a legitimate part of doing
a project. -In fact, how can you do it without
planning? So, it's a legitimate next step. Here's
another strategy that I like because it adds meaning
to our life. And that is journaling. I used to be really good at this. In fact,
until I got married to you. -He blames it on me. -No. I'm not blaming
you, Vic. But i was journaling every day
for 4 years. -Yeah. -Every day. And journaling is a powerful experience
because it allows you to take your life and summarize what you're grateful for
or what progress you've made or what's meaningful. -And it gives you a chance to
process different things. -Right, exactly. In fact, the reason why I
got less consistent at my journal when i married you
is because now i get to process it with you. -Together, right.
-And it used to be that just before bed. I would journal and
and do that before I went to bed. But I've got other ways of processing that
now. I still think that journaling is a powerful way to overcome some of
the emotional hang-ups that we get into including
feeling bored. What if you were to start journaling
your experiences, what's meaningful to you
and those times when you're feeling bored, you go back to your journal.
And that reminds you of times when you felt
something other than being bored. This triggers a little bit of a...
A process in your brain too. -Journaling also...
Because oftentimes sometimes when you open up your journal to write. You
re-read things. And there's so much power in remembering.
And so, that can take away some of the boredom. It can
rephrase it if you can remember other times of different feelings, different
activities and things. -And it brings those feelings
back to you. You get to experience it again.
And in a similar way scrapbooks, photo albums,
things like that can help to remind you of times when you felt
other things and then re-trigger those feelings now. It'll also get your brain
going about other things that you might come up with.
Ideas that you have about what to do when you're bored.
Hopefully that gives you a few ideas. You've got other good ideas
and there are other people who are having good ideas. We've gathered these
people and a lot of these ideas together at a place called
Live On Purpose Central. And we invite you to join us there. Go to
liveonpurposecentral.com. Put a little "go" before that and it'll
get you there even quicker. go.liveonpurposecentral.com
where you'll see the resources that are available to you
to help you live on purpose.