It’s not uncommon to experience spells of boredom on your job; but staying bored could undermine your career. Working to get out of a ‘boredom rut’ is worth the effort; because it helps you avoid the ‘routineness’ that undermines growth.
Here are some suggestions for overcoming boredom.
ACT SWIFTLY: When you are bored you cannot afford to stay put otherwise your mind will ‘shut down’ or go into ‘recession. This will obviously not bode well for remaining relevant in your organisation or marketable in the job market. Avoid staying in the same job for too long especially where you are doing the same thing.
LOOK FOR NEW RESPONSIBILITY: Find assignments that will push you to become more alert, to apply your skills in different ways and most importantly to get new mental stimulation and new tasks that will shift you out of your old mindsets. You may even consider revising your daily schedule so as to suit your energy levels to how taxing the tasks are.
WORK WITH PEOPLE UNLIKE YOU: This may feel uncomfortable but it’s a good way to challenge your thinking, to learn from how others think. Go out of your way to interact with people very different from you in outlook, in skills-sets, in interests. This is likely to give you new perspectives and enable you interact in ways that stretch you.
LEARN SOMETHING NEW: Learning a new skill for example is always an excellent use of time and effort. The learning opportunities available may not be what you are interested in or be directly related to your job; but go for it anyway because getting out of the stagnation is the more important thing.
CHANGE JOBS: Where there’s little scope to try new things in your job, it may be time to explore opportunities for another job within the organization or failing that in another company. The longer you stay stuck in a rut, the more difficult it’ll be to get out and the more challenging it’ll be to deliver what is expected of you or advance.
Now take action: Identify two ways for staying ‘fresh’ on your job?
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