We all struggle with bouts of laziness – and for many of us it is a very frustrating, de-moralizing feeling that often results in a cycle of feelings where we question our ability, our drive, our character and even our place in this world.
Laziness is an epidemic – forcing those caught in its trap into dangerous defensive behaviors such as addictive behavior as you seek to make yourself feel better in the face of not accomplishing things you really feel you should be.
Laziness doesn’t come from a lack of goals, though it certainly may be an indication that your goals are incorrect.
Laziness also doesn’t mean that you don’t accomplish anything – but it certainly may mean you are not accomplishing the things that matter to you most.
Another problem with laziness is that you can’t hide from it — it is like a cancer that impacts you from within. Even if you are able to hide your laziness from those around you, its effect on your psyche is inescapable.
So what causes laziness…here are just a few explanations:
- fear
- frustration
- lack of control (or perceived lack of control)
- past learned behavior or conditioning (yes, laziness can be learned)
- mis-alignment between goals and beliefs or values
- lack of purpose
Of all these factors, fear is perhaps one of the most common causes of laziness.
Fear not only has an emotional impact, but often a physical impact as well such as negative stress, increased heart rate, and of course…the built-in instinct to flee (kindly given to us by our ancestors).
Certainly – our own self-image has a big role to play as well. To the degree that we are not self-confident or self-assured, we are more suceptible to being fearful living life in a constant state of fear or worry about being able to handle situations. Those with a negative self-image, low self-esteem due to past experiences or tragedies in their lives are often caught in a web of laziness that they just can’t seem to escape from.
Whatever our past, we must realize that we can set off in a brand new direction. Despite the past we can set any course we want for our life moving forward. Being able to deal with fear is something we can decide to take on – HEAD ON starting today.
Overcoming fear will need to become a learned behavior – that means taking small, and then bigger steps consciously many times until plowing through your fears becomes a much less painful and much more rewarding experience. If you really want to overcome laziness, then challenging your current reaction to fear is essential.
Simply moving beyond fear once is a good start, but it’s not enough to turn it into a learned behavior. Just like eating one healthy meal is not enough to change a lifetime of eating habits, the behavior must be repeated again and again until our underlying behavior pattern is changed.
If you look at any high achiever they are constantly pushing themselves to the point where they feel uncomfortable – in effect – raising the bar to entirely new level. It becomes a challenge giving the "boost" that makes them feel great.
Kind of reminds me of running and hitting that euphoric state. It took me 3-years of running to get to the point where I actually experienced the endorphin run – before that it was just a ton of painful exercise.
In the coming weeks we will publish some exercises that you can use to begin expanding your comfort zone, learn to overcome and manage fear and make your feelings of laziness disappear forever.
Jeff
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Comments on Breaking Free Of “Laziness”
I was born, raised and lived in the United States until President Bush and the general right sway of the country changed it to a point where I no longer wanted to live there. I had a growing and successful tutoring business. I now live in Oporto, Portugal. Portugal is a beautiful country, but many of the young students I tutor here are very lazy. I think the reason for this is that no matter how hard they work there is very little opportnity here, and although they can go to any other country in the EU for work, they are stuck here because of their families and family responsilities. In addition, many of them are spoiled to death and have everything handed to them on a gold platter by two maids. I tutor wealthy children.
I find, personally, that I too am getting very lazy in this country. For one thing, I am older and older people have even less opportunity than younger people. In addition, my field is totally flooded here. I am an English teacher. In addition, when I do want to learn a new skill, the courses to do so are not very available, or not available at all. So, I would say that laziness has many components. They include lack of opportunity, having too much too easily, feelings of hopelessness and fear, learned helplessness, and lack of money. Having very little money is at the top of the list for me.
Certainly it can be tough to break out of laziness if you are given a great deal, even if you are not happy, the barrier is set higher, that is true. More reason to place less pleasure and more pain on actually making the changes…that is within your control.
Hopelessness and far are surely two of the worst catalysts for laziness, we often create scenarios in our mind where we just ‘can’t win’ – where the pain associated with winning or worse, rejection or failure, are so high that doing nothing is often the ONLY option we have left for ourselves.
To break out we must reframe that and acknowledge the pain that comes with not doing anything – elevate that to a level where new options become viable – then we can escape laziness, hopelessness and fear in one fell swoop.
This is the focus of Beyond Greatness over at http://www.attractgreatness.com – where we learn a system on how to go beyond frustration, fear, laziness – being stuck in a rut to a much more fulfilling, exciting and rewarding set of experiences.
Jeff
I have a roommate who is very lazy. She only works three days a week, and she spends almost every free moment sleeping. She even describes sleeping as her favorite “sport.”
The problems is I do not have any respect for people who are lazy. I let her move in because it was financially difficult living alone.
How do I tolerate this situation without pulling my hair out?
Sue
Sometimes that is the case, we tend to make things too complicated or do really know about or believe 100% in our underlying purpose in life – certainly, as we document in Attracting Greatness over at http://www.attractgreatness.com – Purpose is one of the 5 major Pillars toward changing your life and achieving higher levels of fulfillment, happiness and financial security. But it’s MORE than just not knowing what to do…sometimes we do know what to do but can’t seem to make progress toward those goals. Here, others pillars are holding us back including low energy (due to a poor physical or emotional health) or fear and anxiety that prevent us from going after the things we want most. What do you think?
@Susan: If shes paying her bills and not leaving a mess then just work on minding your own business
LAZY NESS IS A BAD THING IN THIS WORLD
Laziness is habitual. It starts when you are very young. If you don’t have someone to motivate you while still in elementary school the problem simply gets worse. The longer it goes unchecked, the harder it is to break out of.
So true Roy, in fact the underlying factors associated with laziness such as fear of failure, low self-esteem, lack of purpose and vision, are at the root of the habit. To change the habit (long-term) you need to address these underlying causes which then free you to fight laziness, procrastination and negative thoughts. It may be that you temporarily change the habit of laziness to be more proactive for a period of time, but then you can be dumped right back into those negative places based on a situation that shatters your confidence (for example)…it can be a vicious circle, but improving the underlying factors can be so liberating.
I admit i am very lazy person, what can i do to get rid off this kind of habit, do i need to go to a psychology. i agree with Roy if nobody will motivate you since from young then it is hard to get out over.
I do not have work i stay at the four corner of a little room, i dont like to go out, i dont like to see people or mingle with people i always watch tv, sleep, eat… even a housework i dont like to do. i feel like im living like bam sorry for that word. i dont like to take a bath, dont like to eat either… i dont know what to do anymore. i hope somebody will enlighten my mind with advice of what to do. thank you… hope to hear some of your advice soon 🙂
@Susan:
Sounds like your roommate has a form of narcolepsy. ADD is a form of narcolepsy. The brain actually goes into sleep mode all by itself. Medication is needed to treat this disorder. Don’t be too fast to judge her though. Even though she accepts her state of being it sounds like she has a lot on her plate.
People are conditioned to be lazy and some are just born with a mental disorder that actually causes laziness, i.e. narcolepsy, ADD, anxiety etc.
cause: because some of students are stuck in games, they get lazy to go to school cuz they are just thinking of playing games, or having some friends that influence you not to go to school, or getting tired of waking up early because they dont sleep early…
effect: being lazy in study will not help you in the near future instead it will ruined your whole life and the next thing you realized when u get older you will regret all those thimes you waste doing something that never helped you….
even the children of those royal people study even if they can have everything they wanted to have so why dont we???