Know the feeling?
A few months back, I put a name to something that kept popping up on the podcast.
The Comfort Trap.
It's when you're not miserable, but you're not motivated either. You've stopped learning. You've overstayed your time. And some part of you knows it, long before you fully realize it.
That email follow-up? It can wait for tomorrow. Someone from Engineering didn’t show for the Zoom? Oh well.
This is how my guests described it to me.
❝ I probably had overstayed my welcome by a year or two at the company... I was starting to feel like, okay, I'm not learning anything new.
❝ You do get a sense of like, I'm in the waters and I'm just kind of floating along. But what am I doing? Where am I? Am I just adrift at sea waiting for the next thing to come along?
❝ You can't stay comfortable in your same thing that you've been doing and you're going to have to go do something different.
Different people, but the same story.
They drifted. They got comfortable. And comfort turned out to be the most dangerous place they could be.
In physics, an object in motion stays in motion. An object at rest, well, it’s getting comfortable. The same can be said for your job and career, according to what my guests have said.
Here's what I didn't know when I first started noticing the pattern.
It's been studied.
And it has a name: Boreout.
Two Swiss consultants coined the term back in 2007, in a book that argues the opposite of burnout deserves just as much attention.
Burnout is being overwhelmed. Boreout is when you stop caring.
It affects people like a burnout, only quietly, so nobody notices until they're already gone.
And it’s global!
Researchers in Finland studied more than 11,000 employees across over 80 organizations.
The bored ones were twice as likely to want out of their jobs. By quitting or having the relief of being laid off. Some simply retired early. They were so bored, they stopped working all together!
They also reported worse health, a lower ability to keep working, and more stress.
From Finland to your backyard
Surveys put it at nearly half of US workers feeling bored at least a few days every week.
And nothing screams boredom like a newsletter post about boredom.
So, if you have ever sat at your desk wondering why you feel bored in your job, you’re in the Comfort Trap.
You are not lazy. You are not ungrateful.
(Ok, if you're like me, you're a little lazy.)
You might be experiencing something that has a diagnosis, a body of research, and a real cost attached to it.
Higher turnover and worse health.
And what’s super important but most companies and employees overlook: the people bored to tears are not the weakest ones on the team. Often, they are the most capable, under-used, and slowly checking out.
The Comfort Trap shows up before you recognize it. It's like the longest day of your life, then you check the clock. It’s still mid-morning.
In the human form, the Comfort Trap looks like someone who is fine. Right up until the day they are relieved to be laid off.
Now, the good news.
Boredom is only half the story. There is a name for the way out too, a whole body of research on what actually shakes off the boredom, and it lines up almost exactly with what my guests who rebuilt did on instinct.
But that’s for later.
For now, if you are bored at work, it is not nothing. It means you’re entering the Comfort Trap.
It’s worth recognizing before your life and career get upended.
Know someone who is bored in their career? Forward this article and let them know it’s not as hopeless as it seems!
Until next week - Brian
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