The Mindset Mentor - How to Deal with Boredom

Episode Date: April 6, 2020

Have you be finding yourself bored lately? In this episode, I will teach you how to make the most out of that boredom.Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robdialjr/ Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host Rob Dial. And if you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never ever miss another podcast episode. Today I'm going to be talking about trying to keep busy. And the reason why is because I found myself today. I'll just be open and honest with you guys. I found myself today Googling what is better to buy Xbox or PlayStation. And here's the thing. I don't really play video games. Don't really care for them. If I'm being honest for myself, not this isn't judgment on anybody else, but for myself, I've always seen them as a waste of time because they don't help me get closer to my goals in any sort of way. So I don't judge other people who do play them at any sort of way in any sort of way. But for me

in the mission that I'm on in my life, I feel like it's actually helped if I already be playing them too much, I'd be taking a step back from playing them. And so, um, but once again, no, no judgment for people who do want to play it at all. But I thought about that and I thought, am I just trying to keep busy? Is that what I'm doing? And the question that I have for you is how are you filling your days right now with the coronavirus? How are you filling your days? Are you just trying to keep busy or are you actually being productive or are you actually taking a step back and saying, you know what? I'm going to get better. I'm going to bring more peace into my

life. I'm going to bring more silence into my life. I'm going to bring more calm into my life. I almost bought an Xbox. And it's funny because I see life as a video game character. I see myself, as you guys have heard me say, as this game of life is an actual game. And I'm basically just a video game character. And I feel like the coronavirus, as you've heard me say, is the level that we're on. And there's something that I'm supposed to learn. There's something you're supposed to learn. There's something that we're all supposed to learn collectively and probably individually

as well. And if I am constantly trying to keep myself busy, guess what? I'm going to fail this level, this coronavirus level. I'm going to fail it because I want to be better at the end of the coronavirus than when I was when I started. So what are you filling your time with? What are you doing? Are you constantly trying to find something to do because you don't want to be bored? Think about that for a second. Are you trying to avoid boredom? Are you?

Because we've been taught that we should not be bored. We've kind of in a way been taught that boredom is a bad thing. But have you ever really taken a step back and asked yourself why we say that boredom is a bad thing? Oh my God, I'm so bored. Really? Why does it have to be have, you know, boredom has a negative connotation. Are you trying to avoid boredom? What exactly is wrong with boredom? What if you were to be able to learn something from boredom? And you know, what are the things that really helps. And I learned this from a friend of mine from Ram Dass. So, and actually he was talking about boredom. He was talking about when you feel like you're bored, instead of looking at being like,

Oh God, so bored right now is to look at it as if it's just an object. And you say, huh, there's boredom right now. I'm feeling bored. Okay. Let's think about that. I'm feeling bored right now. Why am I feeling bored? What about this moment is boring? Okay. What's, can I find richness? Can I find beauty in this boredom? Can I find some sort of richness in this boredom? Something that actually makes it great versus looking at it in a negative connotation, looking and saying, huh, what can I learn from this boredom? What is this boredom, something that actually makes it great versus looking at it in a negative connotation, looking and saying, huh, what can I learn from this boredom? What is this boredom coming through into my life to teach me? Same way that you would with any emotion as well, where you're like, oh my gosh, instead of saying I'm angry or I'm bored, instead of saying I'm

angry, what you would say is, oh, there's anger. Hmm. Okay. I can feel anger arising inside of my body. Okay. Why am I angry? Why is this anger here? What am I supposed to learn from this anger? Can I look at this anger from a different perspective? Same way that you would look at boredom from a different perspective. So can you look at it and go, what is wrong with it? And what you realize is that there is actually nothing wrong with boredom. In fact, boredom is actually a quite beautiful thing because if you want the truth, most of your best ideas are going to come in the boredom state. And the reason why is because without going too deep into it, that's usually when you're bored and you're sitting for a long time and you're not overly stimulated all day long as we all tend to be, what happens is your brain

starts to go down to theta state and theta state is where all of your good ideas come from. This is why usually when you're driving your car, if you happen to be in silence, your ideas, as you come through, this is the reason why most people's best ideas come when they're in the shower. And the reason why is because they can't be on their phone in their shower. Well, I guess they could if they have newer iPhones, but that'd be kind of awkward if they were, right? But it's the reason why is because they're not constantly overly stimulated.

You know, it used to be this way for people when they used to go to the bathroom and be on the toilet, but now people bring their phones to the toilet. So of course, there's no time to actually even take a dump in silence anymore because people have to constantly be going even when they're pooping. So the thing about it is usually when theta state happens is when you're meditating

early in the morning when you have that theta state and then also when you're in the shower. So then my thing that I want to try to get to is how can I bring more theta state, more of these amazing, like mind-boggling ideas that pop into my head where I'm like, oh my God, where in the hell did this come from? If I'm trying to improve my business, if I'm trying to improve my relationships, if I'm trying to improve my life, if I'm trying to improve everything, I need to give myself more idea, more space for ideas. And that happens when you're in theta state. But if you're constantly go, go, go, well, then you're never going to actually get to that theta state. And when you're chilling out, that's usually when you start to feel what?

Bored. So have you ever tried just meditating before and just sitting in silence? It's hard, isn't it? Why is it hard to do nothing? Have you ever asked yourself that question? Why is doing nothing so hard? What is it? Am I addicted to my phone? Am I addicted to constantly being stimulated by, you know, watching TV or having to listen to music or having to be on my phone all day long or having to be at my computer all day long? Am I addicted to stimuli? And I would, if we're all being honest with ourselves, we are, all of us most likely are, we're addicted to stimuli and we need to be able to look at boredom and go, that's actually a good thing because what it's doing is it is allowing your brain to calm back down again. Because

really what's happening is this, if you want to look at it from like the actual brain perspective is, you know, when you, let me put it in different, I'll actually put it in a completely different way. If an alcoholic is not drinking, they start to have withdrawals, right? They start to have withdrawals. They need to have that alcohol. Then they get the alcohol and then their withdrawals go away because they now have that click, that little addiction that they needed. Well, when you're sitting there bored, that boredom, the, oh my God, I got to do something. I got to do something. I got to, I feel like maybe I should get on my phone. Maybe I should do this. Maybe I should do this. Maybe I should even read a book. Even if you read a book,

that's still doing something right now, right? I've many times tricked myself into just reading a book. Now I love reading books, but I've tricked myself into not being bored by reading books. So the same way that an alcoholic has withdrawals from alcohol, boredom is a withdrawal from constantly doing something. That's why you feel like I gotta do something. I gotta do something. I gotta do something. We as a society are addicted to doing things. That's not our natural state. Why are people so depressed? And why do people have so many different, you know, anxiety and all of these different issues way more than they ever have because we're overly stimulated. It is the result of our addiction to doing shit all day long. That's not what we were made to do. So why is meditation so hard? Because of our addiction. Have you ever asked yourself why? It's because we're addicted. So let's talk about how to be

more present. And so I want to take you through this very simple, simple strategy of just how to bring yourself into the present moment. And when I noticed that I'm overly stimulated, like earlier today, I was overly stimulated. Actually, I'm sorry, this was yesterday. I don't even know anymore, guys. The days are just running into each other, right? I was, uh, I actually know it was today. See, like, I don't even know what the hell's going on. It was today. It was earlier today. I was sitting there and I was like, I'm doing too much. I'm doing too much. I'm doing too much. My brain is just go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Okay. I'm going to go outside. We're still in Sedona. I'm going to go outside. I'm going to stare at the mountains and then I'm just going to stare. That's all I'm going to do. Cause I could feel too much. I could feel the, you know, that

I'm doing too much. I'm doing too much. I'm doing too much. I got to do this and this and this and this and this and this. And I just had my, my tea and it was too much. And I was like, Oh my God, I'm overly stimulated. And I'm also just so you guys know, I'm going to completely go off of tea and coffee and all that stuff over the next month or so, because I've come to realize I'm overly stimulated even through my caffeine. And I don't even drink that much. I just drink one cup a day. So I'm like, I'm going to completely disconnect from it. So I go outside and what you do is this, you take six deep breaths and we're going to do it together. Okay. We're going to do six deep breaths and I'm going to take you through exactly how to do this. So, uh, play along

with me. Let's do it together. It's super simple. It takes about three minutes. We're going to take six deep breaths in through the nose, out through the mouth, and you want to try to have your out breath go a lot longer than your in breath. So let's do it together. Six deep breaths, and then I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to actually see, hear, and feel everything that you can. Ready? Here we go. We're going to start. Inhale.

Breath one. Breath two. Breath three. Four. 4 breath 6 breath six okay my nose was kind of wheezed there hope you hopefully you guys didn't hear that if you did it makes it funnier now just those six deep breaths alone, I already feel way better. And there's a Japanese study, not to go too deep into it, that finds six deep breaths is all you need to completely change your state. So you're going to do six deep breaths.

And what I want you to do for 30 seconds, and I'm going to time you on it, is I want you to just pay attention to every little tiny thing that you can see around you right now. Every little tiny thing that you can see around you. now. Every little tiny thing that you can see around you. Ready, set, go. Look at everything. Look at, you know, the sky. If you're outside, look at the ground, look at the, the, you know, the clothes that you're wearing, look at your body, look at your hands, look at everything that you could possibly see for the next 15 seconds. What do you see around you?

Bring it all in, all of the colors, all of the shapes, all of the lines around you. Five, four, three, two, one. All right, now what I want you to do, listen to all of the things you can hear. Everything that you can hear. Can you hear obviously my voice? Can you hear planes in the background? Are there birds outside? What can you hear? Listen to everything. Do you hear the hum of the refrigerator? Do you hear the hum of the refrigerator? 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. All right, now think of everything you can feel.

Feel. Ready, set, go. Do you feel the temperature of the room? Do you feel your t-shirt? Your pants? Your feet on the room? Do you feel your t-shirt? Your pants? Your feet on the floor? Your shoes you're wearing? What else do you feel?

Do you feel the seat that you're sitting in? What do you feel around you? Bring in all the things you can feel. Five, four, three, two, one. Now everything, everything that you can see, hear, and feel. I'm going to give you 30 seconds of silence. Everything that you can see, hear, and feel, go. That's it. Now, that was two minutes.

Two minutes. You did six breaths and then took two minutes. How do you feel? Do you feel more calm? Do you feel more centered? Do you feel more centered? Do you feel like, oh, I feel a little bit better today? This right here is just a simple practice to just calm your nervous system, calm your body down, calm your thoughts down. Imagine if you did this for longer. And what you do is you think

about all the stuff that you can see, that you can hear, and that you can feel because there's so much stuff that's just outside of our awareness that we're surrounded by that we're just not paying attention to. And we're trying to actually be present and feel the boredom. If the boredom comes up and go, okay, that boredom is my withdrawals to wanting to always be doing something. It is showing me that I'm addicted to constantly be moving. So can you be more bored and can you be okay with boredom? So if you love this episode, please do me a favor, share with someone that you know and someone that you love as well. And please do me a favor, share this on your Instagram. If you love this episode,

you know, share it on your Instagram stories, put it out there so that, you know, tag me in it. Rob Dial Jr. R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. I would love for you to do so. Like I say all the time, guys, I'm literally recording this inside of our Airbnb in Sedona. I don't have some big, huge studio with producers and all of those things, but you know, we're one of the top, literally one of the top 100 podcasts in the world because you guys always, always, always share. So I am deeply, deeply, deeply one of the top 100 podcasts in the world because you guys always, always, always share. So I am deeply, deeply, deeply appreciated that the fact that we've been able to grow to millions of listeners just because of the fact of we have grassroots of you guys listening. So please go ahead and share this on your Instagram.

And I'm going to leave it the same way I leave every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.