Boredom can be both a force for good, creativity and new ideas, but it can also lead us to feel apathetic. But you have a choice which state of boredom you embrace.
YOU HAVE A CHOICE.
There are different types of boredom, and like most things, they exist on a progressive scale. According to a study published years ago in the Journal of Motivation and Emotion, there were five different types of boredom identified.
Here is the scale:
Indifferent: When you feel calm but in your own world.
Calibrating: When you feel agitated by your repetitive circumstance, have a wandering mind, but do not do anything to change your circumstances.
Searching: When you feel discomfort and restless and begin to think of pleasant ways to end the monotony of your situation.
Reactant: When you feel a high level of unpleasant feelings and an abundance of pessimistic thoughts. These feelings and thoughts create an impetus to act to escape or avoid the situation or people that appear to be causing the boredom. You feel highly motivated to find alternatives.
Apathetic: When you feel this type of discomfort (much the same of reactant boredom) instead of being motivated to seek change, you retreat to feeling helpless and hopeless. You “give up.”
Boredom is a difficult psychological state.
Being bored activates our minds to produce negative thoughts, usually ones of self-criticism. Maybe I need more interests? Why can’t I just be patient? Or the the desire to flee, be it physically or by making unhealthy choices.
To overcome the state of boredom, you must try to empower yourself into a state of kindness directed at yourself. A state wherein you judge yourself less for the things that are hard for you to do and except the “good enough.”