Do you know what day it is? Or does Tuesday and Thursday feel the same? Are you stuck in an endless loop of doing the same things over and over and over again? Monotony can suck the life out of you leading to boredom, burnout, stress, addiction, and impaired mental health.
The curse of monotony
The despicable sound of the alarm intrudes your dreams and you regretfully wake up from your sleep. As you sit on your bed looking outside at the bright hopeful morning outside your window, you take a deep breath to gather yourself. You realize you can’t afford the time to sit calmly and prepare yourself for the day ahead. So you rush out of bed, run to the shower, get dressed as fast as you can, and leave your house, skipping breakfast yet again. You slog through traffic, cussing and cursing the rows of cars that block your way. You run to your office, and race to log in to your laptop. And finally, you can manage a few minutes to sit calmly and compose yourself. But before you know it, deadlines, meetings, project files, phone calls & emails take over and voila, your day is over. As you reach home at the end of the day, you can’t wait to crash into your bed, only to do the same thing again.
But somewhere deep down you feel something is not right. Something keeps irritating and annoying you, like that food that’s stuck in your teeth which you can feel with your tongue, but can’t pick out with your fingers. That thing is creating an ever growing void in your soul that you just can’t fill. And then you realize what that is – monotony. The sameness of the day. The repetitive daily grind that makes you feel like you are trapped in a time loop with no hope for escape.
Related: The Boredom Paradox: 5 Steps To Take When Bored
The hopelessness of this monotonous life makes you feel drained and exhausted. I do admit that routine is important as it helps us stay disciplined and productive. But excessive reliance on routine can not only stifle our creativity and productivity but can make us feel suffocated. It can make days seem repetitive, uninteresting, and the same. You can’t remember what you did on Monday and what you did on Thursday cause it’s all the bloody same. Life seems like a looping blur of work, home, chores, weekend, and binge sessions on Netflix.
Monotony is deadly
Monotony kills the spirit. It kills the soul. Living a monotonous life kills our happiness, enthusiasm, passion and drive to be our best self. It is normal to experience boredom and monotony when you are doing the same work and living the same life every single day. Monotony chokes our creativity and strangles our ability to think independently. Repetitive routines force us to go into an auto-pilot mode, mute our thoughts and emotions, and prevents us from reaching our goals. And the worst part is most of the time we are unaware of how monotony is destroying our lives.
Studies have found that subjective monotony can adversely affect job satisfaction, result in psychological distress and cause sickness absence in working individuals. Researchers explain that “Boredom and monotony are generally conceded to be negative factors that can have adverse effects on morale, performance, and quality of work,” and cause considerable stress. In fact, monotonous computer work for a prolonged duration is likely to increase our propensity to sleep, cause daytime drowsiness and mood shifts, which eventually affect our performance of the task at hand. Monotony and repetitiveness can lead to boredom which can have “potential negative consequences,” according to further research.
This is why it is crucial that we learn how to overcome monotony.
Related: 25+ Fun Things To Do When You’re Bored At Home
How to break monotony in life
While routine is important in life, we also need to learn how to deal with the monotony of life. There are many ways we can overcome the mundane and make trivial tasks seem interesting by being more spontaneous & open. Here are a few ways to break the everyday monotony and add some spice into your life –
1. Say hello to change
Yes, change is scary, but change can also be exciting. One of the reasons why your life is riddled with monotony is because it is too predictable. There is no change from one day to the next. Change adds variety to your life and eradicates dullness. But that doesn’t mean you have to drastically change every single aspect of your life. Even the smallest changes in your routine, like reshuffling the order of your chores, can help you break the dull pattern of everyday life.
Here are a few things you can try to bring some excitement into your boring day –
- Take an alternate route to reach your office
- If possible, try working remotely or from home for a few days or weeks
- Get your morning coffee from a different coffee store
- Try some new restaurants in your lunch break
- Organize your work space
- Watch some foreign language shows and movies
- Change up your wardrobe and get a makeover
- Take a walk whenever you can find some free time
Be more aware of the small changes that you can bring to better your life. While these may seem insignificant, these can help you restructure your routine and make you feel more enthusiastic about your day. As Barney Stinson said, “New is always better.“
Related: 11 Morning Rituals That Can Change Your Life
2. Invest in your hobbies and passions
If you think your life is a giant canvas of dullness and monotony, then you need to throw in some paint and color it with hobbies. Whether you pursue an old hobby or pick a new one, hobbies can make life a lot more fun, challenging and interesting than what it is right now. Hobbies will help you gain a new purpose in life, overcome daily stress and make you enjoy life. So make sure to invest some time and energy into your hobbies.
There are a wide range of hobbies to choose from in case you don’t already have one that you can pursue, such as –
- Reading
- Cosplaying
- Fishing
- Arts and crafts
- Bird watching
- Cooking or baking
- Music
- Gardening
- Chess
- Traveling
- Crossword puzzles
- Embroidery
- Astronomy
- Collecting
- Martial arts, weight training or yoga
- Video gaming
- Pottery
- Hiking
- Creative writing
- Fishkeeping
- Miniature art
- Podcast hosting
- Volunteering
Granted it is really hard to make time for hobbies in our extremely busy lives, but if you are deliberate about changing your monotonous life, you can manage some time to pursue hobbies. Instead of mindlessly scrolling through your phone in your leisure time, use that time to do something you love and enjoy. Hobbies can not only help you relieve stress, but can help to break the monotony and do something else other than eat, sleep, wake up, commute, work and repeat. Hobbies are a welcome break and a part-time happiness that can make your life better and bring on full-time happiness.
Related: 5 Hobbies That’ll Make Your Life Better
3. Be more mindful
Yes, life is chaotic. It’s messy, hectic, challenging and so…constant. Sometimes you feel like you just can’t catch a break no matter how hard you try to solve your problems. There is always one thing after another and everything seems important, demanding your utmost attention all the time. And this state of being busy all the time not only adds to the monotony we feel, but also leads to burnout, which makes us feel even more frustrated. And in all this noise, we often forget the beauty of pausing and just living in the moment. The happiness that lies in the little things. The importance of telling ourselves that it’s okay to slow down and observe our thoughts and emotions for a moment.
“Mindfulness is the miracle by which we master and restore ourselves,” explains Buddhist monk and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. Mindfulness can truly alter the way we think and look at life. When we are more mindful of ourselves and of everything around us, we gain more awareness, respond better to external stimuli, and are in better control of ourselves. When we manage to pause and breathe, we can realize that there are many things in our lives that we should appreciate. Mindfulness not only makes us more grateful, but it also makes us happier, more motivated, and content. If you want to fight monotony, simply pause, breathe and live in the moment.
Related: 5 Mindfulness Hacks To Feel Better Instantly
4. Practice kindness
If you are feeling tired of life and looking for ways to break the everyday monotony, then one of the simplest things you can do is be more kind towards others. According to a 2019 study, performing kindness activities for just 7 days can help to boost happiness and well-being. Further studies show that happy people often become happier by practicing kindness. By shifting the focus from yourself to the wellbeing of others, you can become more compassionate, confident, positive, motivated, grateful, happier and “have more happy memories in daily life in terms of both quantity and quality,” explain the researchers.
So if you are trying to fight monotony, frustration and dissatisfaction and add some meaning to your unfulfilling life, then offer a helping hand to those in need on a daily basis. Kindness is something that we do to serve others and the ability to be of service is intrinsically associated with feelings of happiness. If you are unsure about how to be kind every single day, then here are a few quick tips to get started –
- Give a loved one a hug
- Call, write or visit someone unexpectedly
- Listen to your friends and family without judging or trying to solve their problem
- Smile at people more often
- Give genuine compliments to others
- Send a surprise gift to a friend or family member
- Donate money or time to a worthy cause
- Help and feed stray animals
- Focus on others and be more empathic
- Don’t ignore people who love you
- Be positive and spread your optimism
Kindness is the secret to adding purpose and meaning to your life. Your random acts of kindness can make the world a better place and inspire others to be kind and contribute to the community.
Related: How To Support Someone Who Is Struggling With Their Mental Health
5. Challenge your limits
Ever wondered “why does life become monotonous?” While it is important to have some structure and routine in your life, make sure to break out of your comfort zone and challenge your limiting boundaries. The comfort zone is the place where dreams go to die. And that is one of the reasons why monotony has taken over your life. When you don’t challenge yourself, when you refuse to test your limits, you prevent yourself from experiencing the new and being better than before. You trap your own self in a cage of your pre-defined boundaries, where fear, anxiety, sameness, and monotony keep you company.
Yes, comfort feels good. It makes you feel secure and safe. But it doesn’t guarantee growth or happiness. A monotonous life is never conducive to happiness. So find the courage to step out of your comfort zone and tap into the infinite potential you have within you. Shatter boredom with freedom to do whatever your heart desires, whatever you are afraid to face.
If you want to break free of monotony, here is how you can get comfortable with being uncomfortable –
- Set a scary, crazy big goal and pursue it with determination
- Exercise every single day
- Work on a creative project and make time to work on it every day
- Meet new people around your neighborhood
- Clean your house and throw out anything that you don’t use anymore but have been holding on to for a long time
- Spend a day without your smartphone
- Try intermittent fasting for a few days
- Read books instead of watching Netflix
- Wake up earlier than you are used to just by 15 minutes
- Try a competitive sport
- Sit with yourself, identify your weaknesses and work on them
Challenges make us grow. Comfort makes life monotonous. Pushing our boundaries shows us who we truly are inside, it helps us tap into our hidden strength. Staying in our comfort zone kills our creativity and productivity. So if you want to overcome monotony, just challenge yourself a little bit every day. Push your limits just one step at a time, but do it consistently. It can change your whole life.
Related: 6 Lessons You Will Learn Only Outside Your Comfort Zone
Strategies to overcome monotony
Still wondering how to deal with monotonous work and life? Apart from core strategies mentioned above, here are some more easy and simple techniques that will help you to deal with monotony in your daily life-
6. Learn something new by joining an online or offline class, like joining a gym, yoga, new language, art or dance class.
7. Avoid killing time by scrolling through your phone and social media apps. Stay away from the screen.
8. Try a new genre of music that you don’t listen to often or haven’t heard before. You can also try out new artists and musicians.
9. Read more often to learn more about yourself, others, and the world around you. Information is power.
10. Take your parents and family members to a new restaurant and spend some quality time with them.
11. Call up a loved one, friend or family member you have lost touch with and ask them how they are.
12. Go out for lunch with a coworker or ask a friend who works close to you to get together for lunch.
13. Volunteer for causes you believe in and give back to your community and neighborhood.
14. Go for a hike or camping, or travel to the lake and spend more time in nature. Get out of the city with a friend for the weekend.
15. Explore new cafes, restaurants and street food joints and you just might find a new favorite.
Related: 7 Ways Hiking Benefits Your Body, Mind, and Spirit
16. Get a makeover and upgrade your style. Get a new haircut, follow the latest fashion trends, and try a new perfume or cologne.
17. Say yes to invitations, meet new people, introduce yourself to strangers and master the art of small talk. That’s how you make new friends.
18. Explore new areas in your city that you haven’t been to before.
19. Visit your local pool and go for a swim. Enjoy the water and the company of the people around you.
20. Get creative and make some art even if it looks bad. Make the world record for the worst painting ever made. It will be fun enough to kill your monotony.
21. Avoid being in a toxic social circle and stay away from people who create unnecessary drama and spread negativity.
22. Drastically change how you spend your downtime and how you recharge yourself. Instead of doing the same old things to relax, explore what else you find relaxing.
23. Go on vacations more frequently and travel to your favorite destinations in your country and around the world.
24. Set small goals and treat yourself after accomplishing them. Appreciate the effort you put in to make your and others’ life better.
25. Get healthier by exercising regularly if you have a sedentary lifestyle. If you are already fit, then participate in marathons, tournaments and sports events.
Related: 6 Ways Travel Heals Your Mind and Soul
26. Plan for and throw a party on the weekend and invite all your favorite people – friends, family members, coworkers.
27. Visit your local museum and truly appreciate the history and wonder all around you. Learn more about our past and look for what interests you.
28. If you experience monotony in your career, look for a new job or think about your options for a career change and doing something new professionally. Make sure to think it through before resigning from your current job.
29. If you have monotony in a relationship, talk openly and honestly with your partner. Try to make some changes to improve your relationship, and if that’s not an option, then walking away may be best for both of you.
30. Wear clothes that you don’t feel comfortable in or the ones you keep stored at the back of your wardrobe.
31. Ask for flexible shifts, remote working, work from home options at your workplace.
32. Change how you commute to work, take a different route or try different modes of transportation.
33. Listen to your favorite music, guided meditation, audiobooks or podcasts when commuting to work.
34. Make a list of must-watch movies and shows and watch them with a friend or by yourself.
35. Think of things that you can practically do to break away from your normal routine and say yes a lot more to new opportunities.
Break the monotony, don’t let it break your hopes
Monotony, frustration and boredom are common and natural aspects of life. But how we deal with them will determine our outlook and how we live. Having a monotonous life can make us feel empty and uninspired. However, by actively stepping out of our comfort zone, we can add more colors and flavor into our lives.
Monotony is life’s way of letting us know that we are not living up to our fullest potential. So be deliberate about how you live your life. If you want your life to be thrilling and exciting, you have to do things that are thrilling and exciting. So go ahead and do things that you love and experience the true essence of life.
Related: 6 Signs You Feel Stuck and Need To Make a Change In Your Life
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