Why Boredom and Stillness Aren’t Bad

Ally Bremer
Oct 1
6 min read

We’ve all experienced boredom or times of stillness and/or we’ve heard our kids say “I’m bored!” For many people, boredom is one of the most uncomfortable emotions we face on a day-to-day basis. Most of us have an innate desire to avoid boredom and the discomfort that comes with it. Perhaps boredom makes it more likely our brains wander to unpleasant topics. Or maybe the act of sitting still and “doing nothing” makes us feel unproductive or like a failure. Regardless of why boredom or stillness make us uncomfortable, we do have to remember that these things are part of life.

Accept the Discomfort

As previously mentioned, boredom is uncomfortable. Often our attempts to avoid discomfort end up not serving us well because we don’t actually learn how to deal with it- we learn how to avoid it. By accepting boredom and learning how to sit with it rather than avoid it, we can become more comfortable with the inevitable and unavoidable moments of stillness we face. If boredom tends to lead you to thinking about uncomfortable memories, thoughts, or feelings you can start to practice acknowledging and accepting those experiences rather than fighting against them. Remember, your thoughts and feelings don’t have to be scary nor do they have to control you. Practice saying “I feel uncomfortable with what’s coming up in this moment of boredom” and sitting with that discomfort for a few minutes. Over time, you can extend the amount of time you sit with it and learn that you can get through it without running to your phone or another activity to avoid it. You can pair this practice with a breathing exercise to encourage a bigger sense of calm.

Challenge Unhelpful Beliefs

If being still and “doing nothing” makes you feel like you’re failing or being unproductive or that you’re lazy, maybe it’s time to reconsider whether these are reasonable beliefs. Maybe these beliefs are our attempt to avoid the discomfort that comes with boredom. Or maybe we negate the productive things we’ve done when we have still moments. Either way, it’s important to remember that we all need down time and that taking that time doesn’t equal failure or overall laziness. Sometimes being bored is a needed reprieve from the stress of day-to-day life.

Get More Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

So, we recognize that sometimes being bored is a necessary part of life. But how do we get better at managing it? First, PUT YOUR PHONE AWAY!! Okay, sorry for shouting that but phones (and other screens) are, in my humble opinion, the biggest reason we have gotten so bad at dealing with being bored. And a big part of the reason why it feels so darn uncomfortable when we are bored. So, in addition to acknowledging and sitting with the discomfort, you can practice taking control of your thoughts in these moments rather than drowning them out with a screen. If your brain goes to unpleasant places when you’re bored, practice telling yourself “I don’t need to think about this now” and shifting towards more pleasant thoughts- perhaps plans you’re looking forward to this weekend or memories from a fun outing with friends last weekend. If you’re into writing or artwork, brainstorm ideas for your next piece. Try turning off the radio or podcasts in the car for a few minutes at a time to get more comfortable with silence. Find other activities like reading, cleaning, journaling that you can turn to rather than a screen. That way, you’re not completely numbing yourself from thoughts and feelings.

Helping Kids with Boredom

If you’re a parent, I’m guessing one of your least favorite phrases from your kids is “I’m bored, what can I do?!” I’m also guessing your first thought is “how can you possibly be bored, you have 9863494 games and toys and friends!!” First, it’s important that kids are less able to sit with and tolerate discomfort than adults are. But, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be challenged to learn how. Encouraging them to build skills to manage these moments independently can go a long way. Create a boredom bin or a list of things they can do when they’re bored (that aren’t screens). When they come to you saying they’re bored, send them to the list or bin and have them engage with those items for a period of time before asking for help from you. You can also normalize boredom with them- remind them that everyone feels bored and that we can’t always avoid it.

Boredom may not be fun, but it’s real! By practicing managing it and slowly extending the length of time we can tolerate being bored, we can set ourselves up for success and maybe even rely less on those screens!

Growth Mindset: What is it?

If you’ve been in therapy before or if you have kids in school, you may have heard the term growth mindset. It’s something that comes up in my sessions with clients frequently and clients and parents often misinterpret parts of the concept or don’t know how to apply it. So, let’s talk about it!

What is Growth Mindset?

Growth mindset is a way of conceptualizing how we approach challenges, tasks, abilities, and intelligence. People who utilize growth mindset often believe that their skills and intelligence can be developed with hard work, learning from mistakes, and practice over time. The opposite of a growth mindset is a fixed mindset. Folks who utilize fixed mindsets believe that their skills and abilities are just that: fixed. They believe that hard work or practice won’t improve their intelligence and the skills they have are the skills they’re stuck with.

On the surface, it might seem obvious why growth mindset is a more supportive option. Of course our skills can be improved with practice! In truth, most people don’t operate with a fixed mindset all of the time. In my work, I frequently see people struggle with fixed mindset tendencies when they are frustrated or confronted with a challenge. So, in short, they’re utilizing thinking patterns that make a tough moment even tougher. Clearly, that’s not an ideal situation for anyone- nobody wants or needs a difficult moment to be harder! How can we employ growth mindset in the moments when frustration is at its highest? Let’s talk about it!

Catch Your Self-Talk

The first and most important way we can employ growth mindset is by catching ourselves when we use a fixed mindset. This often comes out in our self talk. When we are frustrated or hit a wall and we say “I can’t do it” or “I’ll never figure this out” or “I’m not good enough”, we are using fixed mindset. Even if we just say this to ourselves in our heads, we aren’t talking in helpful ways. If we repeat these types of messages to ourselves often enough, we will start to believe them (or maybe we already do). And, as you might imagine, nothing good comes from believing these types of thoughts. Even if we go on to complete the task or develop a skill, we’ve made it harder to to do so.

So, how do we shift the self-talk? It’s not about trying to convince ourselves that something isn’t hard or that we face a challenge. It’s okay to acknowledge that something feels intimidating or challenging but we have to tell ourselves we can overcome these challenges with hard work and effort as well. So instead of saying “I can’t do this” you can shift to “this is a challenge but if I work hard, I can overcome it” or “it may not go perfectly, but I will learn something from this”. Growth mindset allows us to recognize and acknowledge when we face challenges while also reminding us that we have the ability to face them.

Find the Grey Area

People who use fixed mindsets often also think in all-or-nothing ways. For example, something is either a total success or total failure. Or the goal is perfection or nothing. Most things in life aren’t all-or-nothing and success isn’t based off of perfection. Our teachers, coaches, bosses, and families don’t expect us to be perfect and don’t view the things we do as only success or only failure. When we utilize a growth mindset, we help ourselves live in the grey area in the middle between success and failure. We may not have fully mastered a skill or gotten 100% on a test, but we tried our best and we learned something. Or, we noticed improvement and can build off of that for the next time. By recognizing that we have areas we can continue to improve on, we aren’t deluding ourselves by thinking we are perfect or a failure. And, when we take the next step of approaching those areas of growth with encouragement and positivity, we set ourselves up to conquer the challenge!

Using growth mindset takes practice! And, there may be times when we still have an automatic thought that tells us we can’t. Everyone does from time to time! But, we can recognize them and challenge ourselves to reframe those thoughts rather than believe them!