The Value of Sometimes Being Bored

132 people had breakthroughs this week. Will the next one be you?

Two things for you to think about

Get comfortable with silence. That way you will only feel the need to speak when you have something important to say.

Get comfortable with boredom. That way you will only feel the need to do something when it is actually worth doing.

Three things for you to ask yourself

Do you compulsively speak or do something to fill the void? Are you in a constant state of self-induced distraction? How does this compulsive behavior affect the other areas of your life?

One thing for you to try this week

Allow yourself to be bored and unstimulated for a while. Do it intentionally. Do it to see what thoughts and feelings come up. Are you anxious that you’re wasting time? Are you frustrated that you can’t sit still? Are you angry about that thing your mom said when you were seven? What is it? What are you avoiding?

Would you be willing to confront your biggest fears for $10,000?

For the past six months, I’ve been quietly working on a massive project. Today, I’m finally ready to share the first result of it with you. For the past few months, I have been flying around the world, coaching readers through some of their issues, putting them in ridiculous situations and giving them intense challenges. I’ve also been filming the entire process.

The results have been incredible. Yesterday, I posted the first video. Please watch and let me know what you think.

Click Here to Watch the Video

This will be a regular thing that I continue doing. If you’d like to participate in one of these videos (you can be anywhere in the world), please fill out this form. It only takes a few minutes.

Last week’s breakthroughs

In last week’s newsletter, I asked you to take one dumb thing that you give way too much attention to, and cut it from your life.

Kristin’s going to stop obsessing over what she can’t control:

Oh my gosh what perfect timing! I live on the ground floor of an apartment building and recently the guests of my upstairs neighbors have been letting trash fall from their balcony onto my patio. I woke up to red solo cups, some sweet tarts, a piece of gum and several cigarette butts.

I can hear their sliding glass door when it opens and after a few nights of this I was noticing that I was on hyper alert any time they were outside. I would pause the TV, or stop talking on the phone just to listen and make sure to ‘catch’ them in the act. This was sucking the joy out of enjoying my patio and getting things done in my life.

So this week, you’ve given me the permission I needed to give this less attention! I work from home so I need to keep my focus on what’s happening in my own apartment. Trusting that the super will handle the situation and it’s not for me to continuously keep tabs on!

Mary-Ann reported on how cutting social media out from her life has freed up time for her to do what she really wants:

It was nice to see the ‘One thing for you to try this week’ being something I have already done. That thing being deleting my socials. LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook.

I was scrolling my life away on socials, wasting six-ish hours of my life per day looking (not evening engaging, so creeping) at other people’s content/lives and also feeling shit about myself, it had me thinking stupid unnecessary thoughts that were starting to affect my mental health and self-confidence.

Six-ish hours per day I was not being productive at work, not being present with my son or partner (or struggling to be), six-ish hours per day I am never going to get back.

Now four weeks on, I am being more productive in my work day and reading books and after procrastinating for something stupid like 15 years, I have finally opened my sketchbook to do at least 15 minutes (sometimes hours) of sketches per evening.

A number of readers said they were going to cut out toxic people from their lives, which is great. It’s also not easy. Perhaps that will be the next email.

As always, send your breakthroughs by simply replying to this email. Let me know if you’d prefer to remain anonymous.

Until next week,

Mark Manson

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author
My Website — My Books — My YouTube Channel