Idle, unengaged, and always behind.

These are the dreaded traits of the lazy.

Having this kind of attitude toward your life and your work can do a lot to set you back. In particular, it will prevent you from exploring the joys of creating value. Instead of materializing creativity, lazy people will opt to consume superficial entertainment, whether watching T.V, eating junk food, or simply lying around all day.

Given the many negative consequences of this habit, laziness is considered in all major religions as a sin. It’s one of the seven deadly sins in Christianity and is believed to lead to material and spiritual poverty. For Buddhists, the mind of the lazy is seen as having withdrawn into itself like a tortoise hiding under its shell.

1. What Causes Laziness?

Laziness is not a lack of ability.

Laziness, strictly speaking, is a lack of productivity. It’s the experience of having chronic output failure in the areas where we must act and deliver. This doesn’t necessarily mean that lazy people don’t act at all. One can be lazy at his or her job but find a way to put forth the least amount of effort necessary to keep it. In this sense, laziness also includes the failure to grow.

So it seems that people can become lazy and stay that way because it works. It’s easy. However, what these people don’t realize is that despite the temporary pleasure that laziness can bring, it’s also the silent killer of the creative self that resides inside you. By habituating yourself to “waste yourself” your mind and body become indolent. And in the long run, you can become hopeless about your situation. In fact, people who lead a lazy life tend to look back at their lives with a sense of regret and disappointment. There is nothing worse than looking back at your 20s, 30s, 40s and even 50s and realizing you’ve opted for an easy way out…every single time.

See, we are all born with the resources to be useful, but the extent to which we apply these resources varies for a number of reasons:

1. Social expectations. We experience laziness when we begin to think that our work won’t win the approval of our friends, colleagues, teachers, and supervisors. Hence, we would rather postpone working and sometimes even skip our work altogether just to avoid criticism and disapproval.
2. Our standards are excessively high. We decide we won’t settle for anything less than a perfect outcome. Approaching your goals in that way can make the difference between starting on your work and accepting that it won’t come out perfect every time, or slacking off and never starting.
3. Feeling overwhelmed. Our perceptions of the projects we have to work on, and the extent to which they seem large and ambiguous tend to dispose us toward avoidance and laziness.
4. Mental fatigue. You experience this state when you feel that you never get a break from your obligations. You run around all day trying to solve too many problems and you believe there is no way out. That’s where you reach exhaustion and begin to avoid your social, financial and professional commitments.
5. Lack of meaning. Sometimes the job one has is not aligned with one’s purpose. If our jobs don’t have special meaning to us, then we’re bound to feel useless and ineffective, and that in turn leads to laziness.
6. Lack of purpose. Some people are still not sure what they want to do with their lives. Without a purpose, we won’t have the personal drive to go after what we want. Not experimenting and not having the courage to find our purpose can fuel laziness.

These are the common causes of laziness. There are obviously a lot more, but the majority of people fall in at least one of those categories. And despite the subtle differences among each item, laziness in general has one simple solution. Bloggers vaguely refer to it as: taking action.

However, that doesn’t really seem like a solution to me. Lazy people are well aware that they need to take action, but the problem they’re having is that they just can’t get themselves to do so. It’s hard. In fact, they probably also realize that they need to make serious changes in their lifestyle, but again, the very idea of making such changes makes them disinclined to do any work.

Instead of taking action, I suggest that they begin by spending some time re-conditioning their minds and introspecting their hearts.

Let me explain.

2. How to Overcome Laziness

Laziness is often a symptom of a lack of a compelling end-result. Without a clear vision of where we want to see ourselves in 3 to 6 months or even a year or two, we won’t find enough energy to drive our productive powers. And the only place to find that vision is in your heart. In his commencement speech at USC, Arnold Schwarzenegger said: “Don’t ask yourself what you want to be, but who? Who do you want to be?” So the first thing to do is to craft a vision of yourself that has the power to move you emotionally.

Second, understand that change has to come from a place of profound empathy. The worst thing you can do at this point is to beat yourself up and bring yourself down. That will only perpetuate your laziness.

So one of the things you can do after you’ve listened to your heart is to challenge your thoughts and assumptions about yourself, and for that you need new input.

1. Listen to motivation speakers and speeches. There is a ton of free stuff on Youtube. I recommend Tony Robbins and Les Brown. Their is something in their speeches for everyone, and something about what they say will resonate with you. And it will wake you up.
2. Watch motivational videos on Youtube including interviews with successful people in your desired field. I especially like the videos from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business Youtube Channel.
3. Think of an achievement that you’ve been able to reach in the past. How did it make you feel? Why did you stick with it? Don’t obsess with why you’re stuck now. You need to think differently.
4. Model those who are keeping up with their commitments. What do they do that you don’t do? Do they show up to meetings on time? Do they prepare their food instead of buying burgers on their way home? Do they smile more often than you? Do they seem shy about their life choices? Are they committed to fitness? Find something you like about them and try to model them. Research shows that when we see others perform well at a certain task that matters to us, we start to believe that we can do it too. This approach is particularly useful if you feel unsure about yourself and your abilities.
5. Don’t compare yourself to others from a place of scarcity. Don’t look at others who are better and feel jealous or look at those who are worse and feel triumphant. Experience the joy and the challenges of others and try to learn from them.
6. Become a teacher. Help a few people. You don’t have to go to a soup kitchen to do so. Look around you. There are plenty of people that could use 2 minutes of your time. Don’t ask for anything in return. It’ll help you see just how much you’re able to do. Plus, it’ll come back.

Give yourself the permission to tap into your unique personal resources. The world needs your talents as much as you do. So give it a go.

You may also benefit from my article on increasing your self-efficacy.