A report by ExpertFitness suggests that 82% of gym memberships are used less than once a week, 63% are completely unused, and 22% of members completely stop going to a health and fitness club after six months.
Talking on something similar, Malcolm Gladwell, the author of the book Outliers, wrote that it takes 10,000 hours of ‘deliberate practice’ to become an expert in anything.
From performing artists to athletes to stand-up comedians to physicists, everybody needs to practice their skill/craft and do it consistently to master it. However, most individuals either opt-out of a monotonous routine mid-way or do not even try at the thought of how boring it can get. There is an evident gap between ‘what you should be doing’ and ‘what you are doing.’
Falling in love with ‘the task’ can help bridge this gap.
The reason why we have enlisted some quick hacks to help you start loving important tasks that bore you –
1. Make anything but the task, your driving force
The first step to loving something is building passion. A bored person lacks every motivation to work and keeps looking for engagement everywhere else.
Shifting your focus from the task to the reason behind it/the result you’ll achieve can help you at least start it. For instance, if you want to learn a language, remind yourself how it can help you better and that can be your motivation.
You can find your driving force by asking yourself these three questions-
- What makes it an important task?
- What happens if you do it well?
- Is there any significant change/progress that you’ll miss if you don’t do it?
2. Address the elephant in your mind
When we don’t like something or find it boring, we automatically put it on the back burner of our minds. Our minds divert the attention to other non-significant tasks, leaving us procrastinating – the reason why the distance between you and your gym still lies in your mind.
Here’s how you can tackle procrastination and avoid boredom-
- Prioritise your crucial tasks using the urgent-important matrix
- Divide your job into smaller tasks to ensure completion
- Assign time to the smaller tasks and set micro-deadlines
- Follow the Pomodoro technique of 25 minutes work & 3-5 minutes rest
- Introduce obstacles in the way of all your distractions
- Always have room for ‘bad moods’ to avoid frustration
3. Make it a habit
Daily practice and progress can rekindle your interest and make you fall in love with a job, even if you don’t like it right now.
The idea is to make the task a habit. And to help you maintain this habit, we suggest two simple yet mindful hacks-
- 2-minute rule by David Allen
If you can reduce the time taken to practice a habit by 2 min, the chances of practicing the same would increase manifold. Want to go for a walk tomorrow? Sleep in your track pants or keep your shoes next to the bed.
- 5-second rule by Mei Robbins
If you have an instinct to act on a goal, you must physically move within 5 seconds or your brain will kill it. Feel like snoozing that alarm, just count 1-2-3-4-5 and sit in your bed.
4. Celebrate the small-wins
The quickest way to bring back the motivation lost in boredom is to source it from celebrations. Celebrating your achievements gives you a fresh perspective on the work you might have been hating till now. It makes it easier for you to view the vital tasks as something more than just routine. It further helps you shift your perspective from boredom to something you would not mind doing again.
Here are some ways to celebrate the small-wins and fall in love with crucial tasks over and over again-
- By coining a personal mantra like “I am worthy,” “I am growing to be better,” etc
- Investing in self-care plans and wellness retreats
- Buying yourself a gift without any occasion
- Indulging in a sweet/savoury delight
- Allowing yourself to do something that you forbid yourself
Some of us cannot fall in love with the journey at all, especially when it gets boring. Being bored can get taxing but is also a significant reason to initiate change in the first place. Be ready to develop, pursue progress, and discover new challenges/ideas.
So that, when boredom hits you again – as it will,
You can make sure you ‘grow’ out of it, only for the better.