A lot of people think they are lazy or that they have become lazy.
In reality, it may be a misdiagnosis. How do I know? I have been there!
The reality, most likely, is that you are in a safety, protection-triggered mental state.
Lack of motivation masquerades as laziness.
The two major duties of your brain are:
1) Safety. It is there to protect you from failure, disappointment (from yourself and others) or shame. This is also what is called COMFORT ZONE.
2) Energy conservation. The brain is configured in a way to take screenshots of events/happenings and record your response/reaction to them thereby creating a pattern.
Anytime a similar circumstance arises, your brain goes into action mode, brings out the pattern and re-enacts it to save you the energy of trying to figure things out all over again. Except you consciously make the effort to break free from that mental cage in order to produce a different result.
It doesn’t want you to exert energy on a situation you’ve been through where a pattern has already been created. It wants you to flow with the already created pattern instead of doing something new that will require energy.
This is the reason why a lot of people keep repeating the same kind of mistakes or even success, it becomes a default mode and replicates itself.
When a person goes through a phase where they lack motivation, it can masquerade as laziness. Motivation propels towards action.
So, laziness is not the real problem. The protective mechanism of your brain to keep you safe from being disappointed or being ridiculed in case of failure, that’s the real culprit.
Motivation, however, doesn’t stay with you throughout the journey (whatever that is to you individually or per time). You’ll not wake up every day feeling motivated to take the actions required for success. What then happens?
The most successful people became successful not just because they are motivated to do all they need to do to attain success.
There’s a common feature among exceptional individuals, it is the habits they cultivate. The habit of doing what they need to do in the face of difficulty and/or resistance.
Where motivation fails you, habits will carry you through.
Habit is a gatekeeper. These high achievers form a habit of doing the things they need to do in order to be successful. They make a habit of it because it can become difficult to do.
A habit is an acquired mode of behaviour that has become nearly or completely involuntary such that it happens naturally.
So when there’s no motivation, your brain already knows you wake up at 5 am and so it wakes up anyways.
Habits configure your brain to function the way you have programmed it to such that, at a point, you won’t need to make so much effort anymore, you just do those things by default.
You need to learn how to override the activities of your brain that are keeping you in a ‘safety nest’ and install a new desired pattern before you can achieve a different result.
If you don’t like your present result, change your habits. Cultivate new habits that are aligned with your desired goal, consistently stay on it for at least 60-90 days. Then watch your brain take over and make it almost effortless for you.
When you know yourself and are aware of how you function as a human being, you’ll be able to tackle problems precisely instead of treating symptoms.
I hope you find this helpful.
Glitters and Sparkles,
Adenike Aweda.
