“If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish.” Infinite Jest by bestselling author David Foster Wallace.

For a business to be most successful and growth oriented, there are times when the most productive thing for a business or a person to do is steadily and consistently repeat a working method and ride its success up the S curve. As the old saying goes, “If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.” For example, when a sales script is working for a particular target market, or when a production method is producing results in a predictable way. For some people, that kind of consistency is more calming and satisfying than the disruptive need for newness. For others, the repetition can get boring.

ON the other hand, when businesses are innovating, which we’ll talk about next week, there is a lot of excitement and energy as ideas are bounced around and new possibilities are explored.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, author and founder of the Cambridge Zen Center and Professor of Medicine Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, advises; “When you pay attention to boredom, it gets incredibly interesting.”

Here’s how to deal with boredom:

1. Recognition – you can’t combat boredom unless you recognize how it shows up in your career. What is your boredom cycle? When do you get anxious if there’s nothing new and different going on? Look at your resume. Were there times when you jumped ship? And have you done this frequently? Was it necessary or were you bored? Perhaps what you needed to do was to energize your current career instead of looking for a new career.

2. Acceptance – boredom is only a problem if you declare it as so. Thomas Szasz, award winning author of “The Myth of Mental Illness” says, “Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is.” The steady state of boredom can also be called the serenity - a space many of us seek- the feeling we have when we go hiking, or to the beach. Life’s a beach. Relax and enjoy exploring the next point.

3. Faith and Patience – sometimes boredom is accompanied by a sense of anxiety. We all like to feel needed. When business activity gets repetitious, do you worry about not providing enough newness to add value? Check in before you jump to conclusions. The best way to ride a business growth wave may be having faith in patiently staying the course.

4. Wonderment and Curiosity – The best boredom buster of all is to “be unborable,” as Wallace continues in “Infinite Jest.” Take some time to look deeper at what you’re doing, who you’re being, what relationships you can strengthen by wondering what’s possible.

5. Preparing for Improvement– if you are in a business development role, leadership role or considering a career change, use some of your time to prepare for future changes and refinements. Can you organize a list of things to upgrade your business model or your performance for when the time is ripe? Can you try one tweak at a time to make things better? If you’re a transformational leader, explore how you can motivate your team to discover possible breakthroughs for the future.

Choose to be fully engaged in whatever you do at whatever stage it’s in, and you will get great joy from your business and life. You’ll bring your passion to it.

So, what about you? What are you getting bored of that you could experience differently if you bring a sense of wonder to it?

Next week we’ll talk about innovation and reinvention.