How to Get Out of a Rut, Pain and Boredom, and Knowing When to Quit

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Podcast

Mark Manson

Self-improvement, Education

4.8 • 3.8K Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2024

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today, we’re diving deep into the subtle difference between a healthy routine and a rut. How can you tell if your daily grind is keeping you grounded… or just grinding you down?

Next, we tackle the question of boredom: Why does it feel so unbearable, and could we actually be missing out on its hidden perks? Spoiler alert—boredom might just be the key to unlocking your most creative, inspired self.

Finally, we confront one of life’s biggest dilemmas: When is it time to walk away, and when should you double down? Whether it’s a project that’s going nowhere or a relationship that feels like it’s on life support, we’ll give you insights on knowing when to quit and when to stick it out.

Enjoy.

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01:19 F*ck of the Week: Routines vs ruts

17:50 Brilliant or Bullsht: How painful is boredom?

31:06 Q&A: When to quit vs when to grit?

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Theme music: “Icarus Lives” by Periphery used with permission from Periphery.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Drew, I'm wondering if I'm becoming a boring person, like, which is funny because I spent so many years of my life optimizing to be unboring, to just optimizing my life to be as interesting as possible. But it's funny
0:16.9	because lately I've I've really found a lot of peace and liberation and in
0:21.8	things that are generally considered boring life practices.
0:26.4	And it's weird because like there's a still little piece of me like the inner 20 year old who's
0:30.5	like, dude you're so lame, what are you get out of the house get out
0:36.5	the house go do something but meanwhile you know I'm so happy. Like life is so calm. So I think that's the fuck of the week. We're going to talk about what is a routine, what is a rut, when are you avoiding life by sticking to your routines and when are you embracing and celebrating life when you follow your routines?
1:00.5	And this one gets personal for me too because it's like causing marriage problems.
1:05.0	Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, let's dig into that in a minute, in a minute, but yeah.
1:11.0	It's the subtle art of not giving a fuck podcast with your host Mark Manson.
1:20.5	Bring it up. Some up, what are we talking about?
1:23.4	Well, I'm very similar to you too,
1:25.1	where as I've gotten older, I've found my little routines
1:28.6	that I really like.
1:30.1	And recently it occurred to me, it was something like,
1:32.4	I hit like a five-day streak where I did the exact same thing, five days in a row.
1:37.0	And it's all actually fairly healthy and I enjoyed those five days.
1:41.0	But there was like the same thing, five days, not the exact same thing you know but like I worked out at the same
1:46.4	time I I worked the same hours I went to bed at the same time got up at the same time
1:51.9	and it was nice in a way, but then I thought,
1:56.1	oh God, is this, is this all there is to life? Is this a Ground groundhog day like a healthy groundhog
2:02.8	have like peaks yeah yeah when does a routine become a rut when when do our healthy
2:08.9	habits yeah become actually kind of toxic habits.
	...

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