Three Steps to Being Less Bored With Life

You’d normally think that boredom would put you to sleep. 

After all, we think about sitting in a meeting, listening to someone drone on . . . and (yawn!)  falling asleep.

But there’s one kind of boredom that can keep you up at night, and maybe you’re suffering from it.

This boredom leaves you wondering why you can’t sleep.  It leaves you with an annoying, nagging anxiety that you can’t quite put your finger on. And it goes on for so long that you may start to believe you’re just an insomniac. Is boredom keeping you up at night?

Maybe you are. Or maybe you are feeling chronically bored with your life. Let’s check:

Do you get up and go to a job every day that doesn’t really mean much to you?

Do you feel your life isn’t really making a difference?

Do you wish you felt passionate about something?

“Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?”      Friedrich Nietzsche

Wouldn’t it be a thousand times better to fall asleep, exhausted, from all you did today that was thrilling, exhilarating, and meaningful? Wouldn’t you love to be doing what you love – whether it’s a job that excites you, a charitable mission that makes you feel like a rock star, or something creative that you just have to let out into the world?

So how do YOU begin?

Three Steps to Being Less Bored With Life

Step one: Remember, you are no different from any other person who found a way to live a life that threw them into bed at night exhausted and exhilarated from the day’s work.  There is nothing that separates you from anyone you can think of who made a difference and loved it – except your own belief that you are different. Once you can wrap your mind around the idea that you are the same and that you, too, can have a life like this, then you are well on your way.

Step two: Find your purpose. It’s not too hard – really. As writer and theologian Frederick Buechner put it:

“Purpose is the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s needs.”

Your purpose doesn’t have to mean some mystical element of who you are.  You’ll know you’ve found your purpose when you go to sleep at night exhausted with joy and wake up bursting with enthusiasm. To find it, you’ll need to understand your passions, your gifts, and who you are as a person. 

Step three: Live it. Go ahead and strive to overcome whatever is in the way of you creating a life that is filled with passion, that makes a difference, and that is meaningful to you. This is a process that will involve overcoming fears (What if I can’t do it? What will they think? etc.) obstacles (rejection, logistics, etc) understanding yourself, and sheer work.

It’s also not a linear path. Just when you thought you’d tackled your fears, a new one will emerge. But such is life. It constantly forces you to grow and change.

The good news is that for every inch you move yourself in the direction of your purpose, you also move that much closer to your own happiness.

You no longer have to feel your life is being wasted because you were (surely) meant for something more inspiring. . .

You will KNOW that you are doing what you should be doing, and going to bed content, inspired, satisfied and thrilled to do it all again tomorrow!