I often get a feeling on a Sunday afternoon that I am bored, but I don’t want to do anything. I can’t be bothered to read, there’s nothing I want to watch on TV (how can there be so many things available and nothing to watch?!) and I can’t be arsed to go for a walk, or to do any house work. I’m just bored. I want something different to happen, but I don’t know what, and I don’t want to do anything to make that happen either.
Sometimes it’s bigger than an hour on a Sunday afternoon though. Some of my clients express these kinds of feelings about their entire lives. And I recognise it because I’ve felt it about my entire life too.
WHAT I FOUND WAS THAT IT GETS INCREASINGLY UNCOMFORTABLE UNTIL YOU JUST HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOOUT IT.
A Breakthrough
Some people might call it a breakdown, or a crisis, but with hindsight, I can see that it was really a breakthrough.
A few years ago now, on my 29th birthday, in a Las Vegas hotel room I had that crisis. It wasn’t all that dramatic, there was a tantrum and some ranting which was then packed away, and we went to enjoy the rest of the holiday. But the overwhelming issue for me was – I had 1 year until I was going to be 30 and I was doing the same job, living in the same house with the same boyfriend and hanging out with the same friends as I was on my 20th birthday. Things had to change. I couldn’t face having made no progress at all in a whole decade.
5 months later we moved into a new house (and we’ve moved again since then). I also set about training to become a coach, although that was going to take a little bit longer – it was about 5 years before I was ready to become a self-employed coach. But I was working towards a goal and that felt better. Some of the friends are different now too. (The boyfriend got to stay; I quite like him.)
BUT YOU CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT BEFORE IT GETS TO A CRISIS POINT.
That’s what the boredom, the feeling stuck, the stagnancy is telling you. And it doesn’t have to be as dramatic as moving house or changing career, although it might be.
Start with small changes
I’ve found that for many people, the most difficult thing to figure out is exactly what you want to change, and what you want it to change too. It’s like we get so bogged down in how our lives are now, that we can’t even imagine, let alone see, how it could be any different. The question, “if you could do anything at all, what would you do?” can leave you feeling blank, which in itself is quite distressing.
So, I suggest starting small. Experiment with tiny little changes in your life. Pick something different from the takeaway. Take a different route on a walk. Buy different socks. Lots of little changes add up to a big change, which might just lead you to your own breakthrough.