Laziness has been coming up lately
Over the last few weeks laziness has been a theme, and client’s have been surprised to learn: I don’t think laziness exists.
“Wait, what?!” is the most common response.
From clients, mentees, and workshop students alike.
“How can it not exist?” they persist, ready to argue with me.
Let me explain.
To understand why laziness doesn’t exist we want to revisit the idea that motivation is a spectrum:
On the right we have the things we do out of enjoyment, and adjacent to that what we do out of either a sense of identity or because it aligns with our values.\
At the opposite end, on the left, are the things we’re just not motivated to do… and right up next to it are the things we do either for reward or to avoid punishment. When we think about any behavior we’re taking, they exist to the right of the “Amotivation” zone. Those are the things we’re so unmotivated to do that we just don’t do them.
Full motivation geek out here:
How Motivation “hacks” Have Hacked our Motivation Up
Many of us have learned “motivation tricks” over the years. Setting ourselves up with rewards, having accountability buddies, or hiring trainers that yell at us like we’re in boot camp. But if you reference the diagram above, where would all of those tactics fall?
It’s not that those things are “bad”, but when we’re talking about motivation, as soon as the external falls off (your boot camp trainer gets sick or your reward doesn’t feel so powerful) so too fall your habits.
Does that make you “lazy”?
In my opinion, no - it means your low in motivation.
What is “Laziness”?
We all grow up with systems of reward and punishment in our lives.
You eat your broccoli, you get dessert.
You get your homework done, you get to watch tv.
You have a great sales quarter, you get a big ole bonus.
It’s so normalized you might not realize it until you sit back and consider: what kind of motivation are we conditioning? (If you answered “external”, you win the kewpie doll!) Along the course of our lives we learn that “good boys and girls” do certain things, and we start to internalize those systems. All of that is so normal to human cultures it becomes invisible. We don’t even realize it happens.
But what happens when someone bucks the trend?
What happens when someone doesn’t do the things they’ve been programmed to do?
They get labelled as “lazy”.
Oftentimes that laziness comes with punishments, and gradually we internalize that not doing something we feel we “should” do means we are both bad and lazy.
And those “shoulds”?
They’re often the things other people make us feel obligated to.
And the more we tie those actions to the obligation we feel the more we internalize the systems of reward and avoidance; robbing us of the potential enjoyment from the very same behaviors.
What to do about it?
Again, we have an opportunity to learn from motivation research. Laziness is often tied to the word “should”.
I really “should” go to bed at a certain time.
I “should” be eating differently.
I “should” get my taxes done this weekend.
When we fail to live up to the “shoulds” we can slap the ole lazy label on it.
We can consider two things:
Recognize when you’re feeling a low sense of motivation and get curious. Why are you feeling so unmotivated? Is it because you’ve been pouring your mental, physical, or emotional energy into a big project and you’re low on internal resources? Is it because you haven’t been taking good care of ourself and you require rest? Or perhaps you’re focusing on lots of negative aspects of this obligation and it’s sucking the motivation from your otherwise good juju.
If you need, start building motivation: use tactics like the “Choose To Reframe”, try to prime some flow (BTF episode below), or enlist some of the external regulation tactics above intentionally because you know you need the help ~ which is to revisit the idea that external control isn’t bad as long as it helpful to your end goals