Would you like to turn frustration into success, kill boredom and use those emotions to learn easier?
Emotions are amazing things, and an intelligent person has learnt how to use them effectively. You are not emotional or intellectual. If you are intelligent, you are both – you just use those emotions with a greater deal of sophistication.
In fact the field of artificial intelligence is beginning to mimic emotions in order to help computers make better decisions.
We should not fight our emotions; we should not see them as a weakness. We should cultivate them and learn to communicate with them. When you’ve mastered this, frustration and boredom will become great allies in your successful learning.
You have the chance to develop a skill that is like balancing on a tightrope. If you fall off either side you stop learning. On one side is boredom and the other is frustration. If you land on either side you will stop making progress. You need to learn how to stay on that tightrope.
How to kill boredom
Boredom is quite simply the state you go in when your mind is unoccupied. The brain isn’t built to switch off so it goes into a daydream instead. This is especially noticeable when you’re trying to concentrate on something that is not particularly interesting.
Subjects that are not interesting are subjects that have no relevance to you. Your brain essentially has little pegs, ready to catch anything that seems connected to something you already know. So if you want to kill boredom, you need to make what you’re doing more relevant to you.
The most obvious thing you can do to kill boredom is, of course, to find something more interesting to do when you feel bored. This will stimulate your brain by feeding those pegs with things that it finds relevant. Keep it occupied and you will not be bored.
Many people associate boredom with learning. This usually comes from an association to school. But if you were bored at school you were not really learning. In fact when you are learning you cannot be bored. It is against the very definition of boredom. You were either not being challenged enough, or you were being challenged in areas that were of no interest to you.
Because of this we can use boredom as an indicator. Boredom tells us that we need to either find more relevance in a subject, or take the subject to a more challenging level.
If you create a life full of the things that stimulate your interest, you’ll have a life which is reasonably boredom free.
However, responsibility brings with it the need to do things that you do find boring. Sorting out our finances, cleaning the house, politely looking at Aunt Maud’s holiday snaps...
To kill boredom in these situations we need to change the way we think about these activities.
This may take a little time to master, but, believe me, it will be worth it. It will make every moment of your life fascinating.
All you need to do is find things in whatever you are doing that will interest you and keep your brain engaged. With some things you may have to be a bit creative.
As an example, let’s take something really boring like doing your accounts. First, you need to make it more challenging. When you have a challenge you start learning, and that occupies your mind.
So get rid of the calculator (or use it only to check your answers). If you’re still bored, see how neatly you can write. Or, if you’re doing it on a computer, practice touch-typing. Or try to spot connections between the numbers. Be creative and find ways to keep your mind occupied while still focusing on the matter in hand.
This is directly linked to skills in concentration. If you learn how to concentrate you will not become bored. A meditation focused on a mantra will help because it teaches you to find interest in very subtle things.
Dealing with Frustration
Frustration is the opposite of boredom. Whereas boredom was not being challenged enough, frustration is being challenged too much.
There are several reasons why this happens.
Our brains can only take in so much before they become fatigued and overloaded. When we have been studying a subject for too long, our brain cells can’t take any more. They need a rest, and any desire to carry on will lead to mistakes and a lack of progress.
You can therefore use frustration as a signal that tells you when you need to take a break. When you find things getting too difficult, and when you can’t grasp something to the level you had previously, you need a rest. When you take a break, the brains cells that you have just stimulated strengthen and consolidate within your brain. So when you return to what you were doing before your break, you will actually do so with a greater understanding than when you stopped.
You should take a ten minute break regularly, but you will also need the occasional longer break if you’ve been working for a long time. If you listen to what your body and mind tells you, you’ll know when you need a break and for how long.
A break is simply doing something different. You do not need to switch off your brain completely; you just need to give the bits of your brain that have been overloaded time to rest. The most effective breaks are therefore those where you are doing something completely different. For example, doing something physical will give you a good break if you’re had your head in the books.
Very challenging subjects can be constantly difficult and frustrating. If we take a break every time these subjects get frustrating we would never get anything done.
Any subject that is completely new to you is going to cause you difficulties because you haven’t yet built a network of basic ideas in your head to attach the more complex ideas to. To return to the peg analogy, when we approach a subject from only one angle you are trying to make one peg really big and strong, but there is still only one peg.
But if you approach it from many angles you build a network of pegs that you can use to attach new information. Doing this will help make the subject easier. If you keep approaching it from the same angle, however, you will keep hitting road blocks.
If you’re reading about a subject, as soon as you become confused read about it from a different book. If you have access to only one source for the information, read the whole thing over and over again, rather than getting stuck in one spot.
Even when tackling something creative, if you’ve become stuck you are probably either suffering from brain fatigue or you are approaching the problem from a narrow perspective. You need to learn to look at things from different perspectives; come at it from different angles.
And finally if you want another tool to kill boredom, why not sign up to receive my stimulating newsletter, Intelligence Report? It’s free and you can easily remove your subscription. Try it out by filling out the simple form below:
