'I'm just naturally lazy. I just want to lie on the beach or the couch and do nothing all day.'I've heard this from a fare few people in some form or another throughout my life. It's never true.I truly don't believe anyone is lazy. I think we can all have lazy moments but that is because we all have a finite level of willpower. But we can train our willpower just like any other skill. I think that when we define ourselves as just being lazy this is dangerous territory. Negative labelling can have negative affects because we can convince ourselves that we are something or project into what others have called us and then become the label, even though, in fact, it might have just been a momentary lapse. If someone says 'you are always so pessimistic', when in fact, you only had a pessimistic moment you could potentially start to see yourself as pessimistic and then become more pessimistic.
The same thing goes with laziness. Once you attribute laziness to yourself, you can lose willpower to do things and just define it as you being naturally lazy. The power of words are tremendous. We have to be careful with them. Constantly saying, 'I'm lazy' is wiring your brain in a negative way. We can reverse this by starting to call sluggish actions or procrastination as lazy moments rather than calling ourselves inherently lazy. We can also use positive affirmations such as, 'I'm really hard working and I give myself time to energise.' or 'I'm industrious and conscientious and I live a life that gives me meaning and energises me.' People are not inherently lazy. Someone never completing anything and just bingeing on Netflix or lying in bed all day is either completely burnt out from life, may be suffering from an unknown sickness or mental illness or has never been taught how to focus or figured out what motivates them to have willpower.
But we can learn to have more focus and willpower, if we think of them like muscles, we can see that they are things that need time and patience to develop slowly. Just like we can't hit the gym and expect to do 100 pull ups without ever having exercised, so too we can't expect to have a natural willpower for everything and be able to immediately focus for hours on end. We can develop these skills by starting small. For example, with willpower a good example could be to start by buying your favourite chocolate, putting it by your bed, then trying to see how long you can go without eating it. Then extend the time each time and try to beat your previous score. The more we work on willpower in different areas of our lives, the more our overall willpower increases. So maybe try working on this in small dosages in different areas one at a time. With focus, perhaps try meditation of deep breathing for a minute a day and see if you can focus only on the breath for that time. Once you feel comfortable with the minute try increasing the time. Don't worry if you're not on track with either of these things immediately. Maybe this method just doesn't work for you. Try something else. Sometimes we can mislabel ourselves as being lazy when all it is, is that we haven't found what works for us yet and we haven't found what motivates us yet. Don't give up if things don't work immediately or it takes a long while. The mere act of trying is what will help you improve.
No-one is lazy. If someone offered you a winning lottery ticket most of us would for sure grab the ticket. The people who wouldn't grab it could either already have more than enough money or be suffering from some kind of illness. We all have our lazy moments and that's ok. We all have areas we need to work on and improve. We can't expect ourselves to be great at everything. But we can try to improve ourselves and our lives one tiny step at a time.
Wishing you strength to increase your own willpower and focus.Be loving to yourself in your lazy moments.
Lots of Love
Naomi LeilaXxx
