"The Devil often finds work for them who find none for themselves."
If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.”
Seth Godin.
"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."
-Mark Twain.
Some people believe that a healthy degree of laziness can lead us to innovation, inspiring us to create a new method of getting things done. That only works if your laziness hasn’t completely taken over, and you still want to reach your goals.
Explore the laziness quotes below and see how you can harness the power of laziness for good, without letting it take control of your life.
Overcome Lazzininess with these steps
Make goals
Once you have set your lifetime goals, set a five-year plan of smaller goals that you need to complete if you are to reach your lifetime plan.
Then create a one-year plan, a six-month plan, and a one-month plan of progressively smaller goals that you should reach to achieve your lifetime goals. Each of these should be based on the previous plan.
Then create a daily To-Do List of things that you should do today to work towards your lifetime goals.
At an early stage, your smaller goals might be to read books and gather information on the achievement of your higher-level goals. This will help you to improve the quality and realism of your goal setting.
Finally, review your plans, and make sure that they fit how you want to live your life.
Be better every day
A productive day is a day when you grow as a person.To feel good about yourself at the end of a given day. you also need to clearly see the progress you're making in life. One kind of progress is the external, namely promotions, bonuses, taking on more responsibilities.
What can you do to make laziness work for you?
Always keep your objectives in mind. Everyone experiences a lapse in motivation from time to time, but knowing your goals and keeping them insight is key to fighting laziness.
Write your goals on a whiteboard or your mirror, change your desktop or phone background to depict your objective, or pin-up a photo that reminds you of what you want to achieve.
Start small
For example, if you are planning to start hitting the gym, the toughest part is getting into the right outfit and reaching the gym. Once you reach the location, working out isn’t too hard. The barrier created by the first step becomes the task harder.
When the first step seems hard, try making the first step as easy as possible. If you feel lazy to find your clothes for the gym in the morning, keep them ready before going to bed. The smoother the first step is, the higher the chances of completing the task.
Use visual cues
As human beings, we are visual creatures. You can process images faster than words. Let us say you’re driving down the road, and you notice a large board that reads, “This is a table.” A little further down the road, you see another board that has a picture of the table.
Which one among the two can you analyze faster? The answer is obvious. The picture of the table conveys the message more quickly than words.
You can use your visual senses to motivate you to get work done, especially the long-term projects.
If you want to start a blog, stick a chart paper on your wall, and use a marker to draw a circle for every task you complete. It does not matter if the task is as small as spending 10 minutes talking to a friend who has a blog. Write it down and circle it.
Design a reward system for yourself
As a kid, what did your parents do to motivate you to complete a task or earn good grades? They promised a reward. You got ice cream for cleaning the yard or a bicycle for doing well in your studies.
Did the method work? Of course, it did. You have done things as a kid to bag that reward. Sometimes, the joy was not the reward itself but the pleasure of earning it.
Even as an adult, rewards are still in use to motivate people. Organizations pay bonuses to the person who did the best and promote outstanding performers to a higher roles. All these are nothing but rewards.
Unfortunately, you may not always have an external person handing out rewards to complete your personal goals. To bridge the gap, reward yourself for completing a task.
Introduce friction for distractions
James Clear suggested the method of introducing friction for bad habits in his book Atomic Habits. Your mind loves reacting to distractions. The practice of turning on the TV and checking the refrigerator is a sneaky way your brain uses to avoid work.
The technique suggests adding an extra step between you and the distraction. By making the distraction harder, your decrease your chances of wasting time.
Let me explain with an example. When you sit on the couch, you pick up the remote and turn on the TV. Your brain has wired such actions into your behavior. You act without applying any thought.
To break such unconscious action, you must introduce an additional step. If you unplug the TV or leave the remote in the kitchen, the next time, you cannot turn on the TV. You must get your ass off the couch to turn the TV on or walk to the kitchen to fetch the remote. Your brain isn’t prepared for such friction.
You will avoid such distractions by breaking the loop of your habits. Since your brain loves any act of laziness, one way to tackle the problem is to make laziness itself harder to achieve.
Convert bigger goals into a simple task
When you look at a bigger goal, the effort required will seem overwhelming. Also, the goal might require effort in so many different areas that you give up before even starting.
Let us take an example where you want to make a billion dollars within the next 10 years. When you look at the goal itself, it seems so enormous that you dream about it, feel good about yourself, and do nothing.
In no time, 10 years would have passed, and the dream will remain only a dream. To make bigger goals easier to achieve, break them down into manageable tasks.
To make a billion dollars, what should you have accomplished in 5 years? Should you have a business of your own? Do you have to reach an executive position in a massive firm?
Whatever you believe is necessary, break it down further. What should you do within the next 2 years? Keep going until you find a task to do today.
The task can be something as simple as thinking of possible business ideas for 1 hour. Unless you break a huge goal down into smaller tasks to work on daily, you will have a hard time accomplishing it.
A smaller task helps you overcome laziness because it seems easy to do.
Don’t let the fear of failure bother you
Do you fear attempting a task because you do not want to fail? If so, start looking at the task from a different light.
Look at the rewards that you will receive if you succeed. If you still fear the act, narrow down the exact reason behind the fear. Chances are, you can find a solution. Many a time, your fear does not cause the disastrous consequences you think.
Are you afraid to start working out in the gym because you do not know the right technique or because you’re not fit? Pay for personal training for a month. If you’re worried people will judge you, your fear is invalid because people don’t bother you much.
If you’re worried about starting a venture and failing, ask yourself, what is your fear? Are you afraid of the impression you will create after a failed business? Or are you scared about losing the comfortable job you have?
I had the fear that people will make fun of me if my business fails. I went ahead anyway and the business failed. But no one said or did anything. People were too busy with their own lives. The fear was only in my mind.
If you’re scared about losing the job you have, ask yourself how difficult is it to find another job? If you’re confident enough to start your venture, you will have enough organizations waiting to hire you even if your business fails.
I admit that fear of failure isn’t easy to overcome. But you know what is worse than the fear of failure? Regret.
It is better to have tried and failed than not have tried at all.
Conclusion
To understand how to overcome laziness, you have to battle your natural human instincts and the influence of your surroundings. But finally, the sole person capable of making the change happen is you.
Overcoming laziness starts and ends within your mind. The day you make up your mind to punch laziness in the face, you have won half the battle already.
“I attribute my success to this:—I never gave or took any excuse.” – Florence Nightingale
Success is not as easy as winners make it look nor as hard as losers make it sound.” – Orrin Woodward
“Someone may have all the technical knowledge, scientific intellect, and business know-how but when he- she decides to choose laziness, excuses, procrastination, complaining and other bad attitudes, his- her relevance is meaningless.” – Israelmore Ayivor
If you like my blog please let me know in the comments 💓😍😘😊
Thank you
.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment