Whenever I hear a student say that they are "bored" with an aspect of training it usually comes from a place of immaturity or lack of emotional awareness on their part. Boredom is generally viewed as an unpleasant emotional state in which the individual feels a pervasive lack of interest in and difficulty concentrating on the current activity -
Shahram Heshmat Ph.D.
If you have ever felt this before congragulations, you are human. In my world boredom can easily creep in to our mindset and impact our performance easily. That happens because we allow our minds to wander. It happens because we lack focus and the process has been lost on us. I have spent almost two decades training people from every walk of life in the self defense and fighting. My students vary in athletic ability, apptitude, aggression, skill and most importantly desire. I have seen extremely talented individuals fail to get the most out of their abilities simply because they could not handle the process. They view the constant repetitions and accountablilty of any real process as constraining. They tell themselves that they are bored and give themselves a pass on training. These types of students will not show up to training or if they do they arrive late and leave early. They aren't willing to commit to a process that requires that they give of themselves and be accountable. Students like this are robbing themselves of the opportunity to reach their full potential , worse yet is that they won't take responsibility for their own self sabotage. In this regard it is a form of mental weakness, to sabotage your own growth and success is self hate. Which brings me to another point.
People who lack self-awareness are more prone to boredom. A bored individual is unable to articulate what it is that he or she desires or wants to do. They have trouble describing their feelings. An inability to know what will make one happy can lead to a more profound existential boredom. Not knowing what we are searching for means that we lack the capacity to choose appropriate goals for engagement with the world (Eastwood, 2012).
Simply put, people are afraid to take that long look in the mirror . They are terrified by what they see looking back at them and this is absolutely stopping them from reaching their goals. If you don't know what you want how in the hell can you commit to the process of achieving your goals? So you see this process of becoming stronger, better, faster etc.... it begins in the mind and your mindset is basically the mirror image of your attitude. Your attitude is nothing more than how you choose to see any given situation. Your attitude determines your apptitude. Can you see how it's a chain? Each link is just as important as the next and without a complete understanding of yourself you are doomed to succumb to "boredom".
So my advice is simple. Stop short changing yourself. Stop avoiding looking at the one person who is responsible for everything that happens, good or bad. Sit down and be still. Look at yourself in the mirror and decide if you are ok with who is looking back at you. If the answer is no, then stop waiting for someone else to motivate you. Get off your ass and fight. Stop whinning about being bored. Get yourself together and commit to the process of being great one rep at a time.
