Loss of strength and lack of desire to act is something every person experiences from time to time.
Most often, it is laziness and apathy that prevent you from being realized in life and achieving the desired results.
To get out of these conditions on your own, you need to identify their cause, and then choose effective measures to overcome them.
What is laziness and why do you eat it?
To figure out how to deal with laziness, you first need to understand what it is. As they say, you need to know the enemy by sight. Laziness most often means a lack of hard work and self-discipline. However, such a definition does not reveal to us the reasons for its appearance.
The famous Russian psychologist Vladimir Levi devoted an entire book to laziness. In it he identifies several of its most common types. Let's look at them to dig deeper and see where your problem stems from.
- Hedonic laziness is the companion of people spoiled by comfort. It arises from the habit of living for pleasure on everything that is ready-made. This type of laziness very often affects children of rich parents, who are accustomed to getting everything from life without making any effort. The most striking example is the hero of Ivan Goncharov’s novel Oblomov.
- Negativist laziness arises from an unwillingness to submit to someone else's will and recognize hierarchy. All teenagers are familiar with it. It seems like you yourself knew that it was time to clean your room, and you were even about to start, but then your mother came and formulated it in the form of an order. All the zeal immediately disappeared somewhere.
- Demotivational laziness is laziness due to lack of motivation. A person does not understand why he should do something if he doesn’t have to do it. Its root cause is the crisis of the meaning of life, the internal impassability of the individual. If internal or external guidelines are not found in time, laziness can become chronic.
- Asthenic laziness is a consequence of decreased body tone. The person seems to be constantly in a semi-relaxed state and cannot collect himself. The reasons may be trivial - lack of physical activity and vitamin deficiency. In addition, decreased tone occurs in certain physiological conditions, such as pregnancy.
Help from psychologist Daria Milai
If you can’t cope with constant apathy, it makes sense to sign up for a consultation with a specialist. I will definitely help everyone who needs my services. After fruitful individual lessons, as well as practical advice, you:
- learn how to eradicate and shoot your laziness;
- how to force yourself to act despite apathy;
- you will be able to achieve any goal;
- learn to think correctly and save your time;
- you will forget about idleness and will be able to receive satisfaction from active activity.
And that's not all. With a personal contact, you will receive much more than just recommendations on “how to live further.” Entrust your problems to someone who will tell you exactly how to deal with them.
How to deal with laziness: practical advice
Did you recognize your native laziness in the descriptions? Great, now it will be easier for you to deal with her.
Assess the scale of destruction
Before you start work, you need to look at your life and soberly assess the state of affairs. If you work or study, do housework, enjoy taking care of yourself and your loved ones, and laziness visits you in rare moments of physical fatigue - congratulations, everything is fine with you, and there is no need to worry too much.
Another thing is when you lie on the couch all day long, you don’t even have the strength to cook yourself something to eat, and your life is in complete decline. This state is called apathy, and it arises as a result of a crisis in the motivational sphere of the individual. It can be very difficult to get out of it, since the changes already affect the biochemistry of the brain. It is useless to scold yourself for laziness if the body simply does not have enough energy to perform everyday routine tasks.
Laziness is the unwillingness to do something when you have the strength to do it. If you have no strength for anything, this is already apathy or even depression.
The good news is that the methods described in the article will help at any stage, it’s just that the speed at which you get results will vary. Let's just talk about this in more detail.
Take things gradually
You should never try to overcome laziness at once. Working on your habits is more of a marathon than a sprint. You need to spend your energy carefully, not rush into the embrasure, otherwise you will fall back and be even more disappointed in yourself.
Start with small victories over yourself. If, for example, you have always been too lazy to drink 1.5 liters of water a day, promise yourself that now you will do it religiously. The action is elementary, but it still reinforces self-confidence and trains willpower. Then you can move on to more serious tasks. Start playing sports, put your affairs in order, do a general cleaning of the house, then repairs, and then world domination is not far away.
Get rid of the ballast of things put off “for later”
It is simply necessary to do this, otherwise all your efforts will be in vain. Every unfulfilled but urgent task takes a lot of energy - much more than is required to complete it.
If you have been planning a trip to the dentist or a spring cleaning on your balcony for a long time, now is the time to do it. You will be surprised how much easier it will literally become for you to breathe, and you will feel a surge of strength to complete new tasks.
Use the carrot and stick method
Motivation is one of the most important personal components that determine a person’s success in life. When performing some action, a person must answer himself why he is doing it.
Ask yourself this question every time performing a task causes internal resistance and activates laziness. The answer to it should be colorful, detailed, and figurative.
For example, you need to write a thesis - the deadlines are already running out, and the horse has not yet rolled around. Imagine how the dean hands you a document about graduation from the university, everyone around you claps and congratulates you. Feel the taste of freedom opening before you.
If such pictures do not motivate you well, you can do the opposite. Imagine that you didn’t write your thesis, your supervisor scolded you for being careless and left you for the second year, and now the same ordeal awaits you, only extended over time. A terrible picture.
As practice shows, the stick method turns out to be more effective for most people, but you need to gradually abandon it in favor of the carrot - this way life will become more pleasant and conscious.
Set realistic goals
An inflated level of aspirations is laziness’s best friend. The brain allocates energy only to those tasks that it considers achievable, and it doesn’t even know how to approach fruitless fantasies.
Adequately evaluate your current self and, based on this, set realistic goals. Imagine a janitor who, during breaks between work, dreams of becoming president. Sooner or later, he will become unbearably lazy to sweep the streets, and the motivation for change will never appear.
Another example: a girl dreams of losing weight, goes on a diet and goes to the gym. But the intermediate results, obtained with sweat and blood, do not please her at all. She has already painted herself the image of a miniature nymph weighing 45 kg, and everything that falls short of this bar seems insignificant. Needless to say, very soon the poor thing will abandon her studies and return to her favorite buns.
Learn to plan
Do you know what distinguishes absolutely all successful people? That's right - the ability to plan competently. There are only 24 hours in a day, and in order to manage everything, you need to be able to manage them effectively.
The first thing you need to do is set your priorities. Stephen Covey, in his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” advises ranking all your tasks according to their importance and urgency—let the most important and urgent be at the top of the list—and then in descending order.
Then you need to allocate time to complete each task. Psychologists advise taking one week as a time unit for planning - the period is not too short, but also not extended in time. Write down all your tasks in a weekly planner, taking into account your normal daily routine, and start doing them. At first it will be difficult for you; your brain will begin to resist and come up with various tricks to maintain the status quo.
Give yourself two weeks to get used to it. During this period, you need to strictly follow the plan, no matter how difficult it is. In half a month you will get used to it and get into the right rhythm, and life according to the schedule will not seem such torture to you.
Consider your biorhythms
We are all different - some are most productive in the morning, some in the evening, and some are inspired to work only at night. In addition to daily biorhythms, there are also biorhythms of productive attention.
Observe yourself - how much time usually passes from the start of work to the moment of loss of concentration and mental fatigue. If this value is constant, independent of any external reasons, then this is the rhythm of your brain tone, and you need to take it into account.
Many adults are characterized by the so-called childish or sprint type of attention - a very short-term focus on one task, a constant need for switching and distractions. If you are one of them, do not force yourself with long and tedious work. Divide the distance into several small segments and cover them in short runs. This way you will increase your performance significantly.
Form healthy habits
Have you noticed that things that are fixed in our brain in the form of habits never cause laziness? And all because they are brought to automaticity and do not require special energy costs.
I had a friend whose parents did not teach him to brush his teeth when he was a child. He complained all the time that he was too lazy to do it. For me, as for most people, this seems crazy - how can one be lazy to perform such a simple and ordinary action. And all because I developed a habit from an early age, but he did not.
Most habits are formed spontaneously and, unfortunately, are destructive. But you can form them consciously through repeated repetitions. At first the process will be difficult and creaking, but then it will become easier and easier.
Not long ago, scientists discovered that our brain is malleable, like plasticine, and is capable of changing throughout life. This property is called neuroplasticity and is used in the neurosophy brain control system that is popular today. The video clearly shows the process of formation of neural chains during the consolidation of a new habit.
So the best way to overcome reluctance to do something is to turn this action into a habit.
Listen to your laziness
Laziness is not always something bad and harmful. It also has its own specific function, otherwise evolution would have gotten rid of this mechanism. One insightful psychologist rightly noted that laziness is a psychological defense against unnecessary activity. Another question is why your brain mistakes this or that activity for unnecessary activity.
Maybe you tend to spend your internal resources irrationally, and your body signals you about this by turning on an energy-saving mode? Make a list of the most unpleasant tasks for you and think about whether they can be delegated to someone for your own benefit.
Let me give you an example. You really don’t like washing windows and every time you force yourself to do it with great difficulty. The whole procedure takes a whole day, and then you feel like a squeezed lemon. For this day, at your main job you could earn 2,000 rubles, while the service of washing windows in a cleaning company costs 1,000 rubles. Obviously, it will be more profitable for you to work overtime and entrust washing the windows to professionals - this way you will not only save energy, but also put a thousand rubles in your pocket.
Avoid the company of lazy people
Laziness is an incredibly contagious thing. This virus is very easy to catch, but it can be difficult to get rid of. The trick is that when you are in the company of lazy people, laziness begins to seem something natural and self-evident. It seems like only yesterday you were ashamed of the mountain of unwashed dishes in the sink, but today, when you see the same ones at your friend’s, you experience an insidious sense of relief.
Try to surround yourself with people who are strong-willed, purposeful, and ambitious. Their example will constantly motivate you and force you to work on yourself. Even if during the communication process you experience a little stress, feeling the difference is not in your favor, the faster you can become better and catch up to their level.
We quickly mobilize forces
And even an article about laziness is a little too lazy to read. Attention runs away somewhere and gets scattered. The minimum effort required to move your gaze from line to line seems unbearable. It seems like a good idea to check Instagram or go through a couple of levels in the game.
What we are accustomed to consider laziness, in the era of information overload, is the body’s natural attempt to protect itself from an overdose of words, pictures, thoughts, questions. But there are several ways to quickly focus.
Create comfortable conditions for yourself
Make sure you are comfortable where you are. Check if you are cold, if there is a draft from the window, if your clothes are too tight, if hunger and thirst are bothering you. Do anything that can distract you, pour a glass of water. Create a comfortable environment This way, attention, dispersed among hundreds of important matters and tasks, will return to yourself, where you will take control of it and direct it in the right direction.
Make an agreement with yourself
Finish reading the article and reward yourself with an apple, for example. Or post a photo of a cat on Instagram. Or go out for a walk. The scheme is simple - do what you need to do and get a reward.
Clarify the goal
Answer your question: why do I do what I do, take this article as an example. You have already started reading, which means the topic interests you. Perhaps you are ready to adopt tips for overcoming laziness, which means you already have a specific goal, and laziness is not a hindrance to you.
Clean up
Clear the space around you. Throw out the trash, take the cup to the kitchen, remove unnecessary shortcuts from your desktop. Getting things done will immediately become easier when there are fewer distractions, and energy will appear literally out of nowhere.
Before and after cleaning. There is no temptation to go pour coffee into a mug, snack on candy and watch a video on YouTube at the same time
Change your scenery
Move from the bed to the table. Get some air. Move to the window. Throw your hair up into a bun, let your hair down, or simply change from your robe to jeans and a T-shirt. Any novelty causes a surge of energy and a surge of activity in the brain.
Don't put it off until tomorrow
It’s very easy to tell yourself: I’ll read the article after lunch or tomorrow. But there is always less time than it seems. Check your daily to-do list and set aside 10 minutes right now to read, maybe even set an alarm. Afterwards you are free.
The Pomodoro Technique helps you focus by using a work-rest timer.
Give yourself permission to be lazy
Not on your phone or social networks, but just do nothing. But only five minutes. Look at the wall, play solitaire, lie on the floor. You will feel how exhausting it really is to do nothing at all. Better read the article. Next it will be interesting: let’s figure out what might be hiding behind laziness.
To quickly get ready and overcome an attack of laziness, change the environment, turn your attention to yourself, tidy up around, promise yourself a reward, set aside time, but first decide why you need all this, and be lazy from the heart for 5 minutes
How to get rid of laziness without effort: find motivation
The very request “without effort” already reveals apathy and laziness. Don't want to run in the morning because it's too difficult? Then start by finding an inspiring goal. If you don’t want anything at all, it means there is no goal or motivation. What would you really like to do?
The question of finding a life purpose occupies many people; today this topic is actively discussed on the Internet. In fact, this is the only thing you need to understand. What do you love, what do you dream about, who do you want to be? Find something that inspires you, then you won’t even think about laziness.
Play some sports
How to get rid of laziness once and for all? Open your own energy supply - provoke an acceleration of metabolism and the breakdown of carbohydrates. Proper nutrition plus physical activity is a direct path to excellent health, increased tone and good mood. What kind of laziness are we talking about? It is not necessary to resort to drastic measures. Start by charging.
A morning set of exercises will tone your body and, by the way, protect you from the development of cancer. Then you can sign up for the gym or jog outside. Just start.
Sports: Pixabay
How to get rid of laziness: find out the reason
You need to do something, but you don’t want to. Is this a familiar state? How to deal with laziness? Try to explain to yourself why you don’t want to do this? There may be several reasons:
- too much work;
- lack of an inspiring goal;
- overwork;
- sat in one place.
Perhaps it's time to move to another level, advance your career and do interesting work. In any case, identifying the cause of laziness is the first step towards eradicating it.
What makes people lazy?
Imagine: Do you feel lazy when you do what you love?
For example, gamers who play their favorite game all day and night. But at the same time they do not feel tired, they are cheerful and energetic. Here is one of the famous quotes from psychologist and personal development coach Tony Robbins:
Quote: “There are no lazy people. There are goals that are not inspiring.”
No one was born lazy, people just don't know how to use their potential and how to properly direct their energy. Therefore, we need to understand and learn to direct our energy to achieve the desired goals. Why do you go to work? To get material benefits, realize yourself in life, build a successful career, etc.
But, if you go to work according to the principle “the day has passed and okay.” It’s worth thinking radically and changing your field of activity. Listen to yourself, what you want to do, what inspires you, and how you can benefit materially from it.
Let's return again to our gamers. Many of them run their own video channels on YouTube and earn decent money. Any office employee would envy their income level. And they get high from the process of their activity and at the same time receive material benefits.
Or people who like to grow vegetables on the plot. Have you met anyone like this? Many of them quit their jobs and open small agribusinesses, achieving great success. And all because they are doing what they love.
But what to do if you like your job, but it’s not clear why, laziness torments you throughout the day. There are several reasons.
Use the Swiss Cheese Method
How to get rid of laziness forever? Remember the mouse that gradually nibbled pieces of cheese from a huge piece. If your reluctance to do something is caused by a large amount of work, then divide it into parts and do it in any order.
Cleaning your workplace will also provide a boost of energy. Believe me: order and cleanliness on the table directly affect performance and activity. By the way, chaos in your home and on your desk is one of the manifestations of laziness.
Workplace organization: Pixabay
One minute rule
This rule will help those who find it difficult to perform the same type of actions.
For example, attend courses or sports training. Based on the Japanese kaizen method (or the one-minute rule), you need to do something every day for one minute. In this case, you will not feel tension, but only joy and pleasure from what you have accomplished. Short classes will inspire you, help you believe in yourself and motivate you to greater achievements. Gradually, you need to increase the time until you reach the required duration.
Of course, this method is suitable only for those who do not seek quick results, but want to eradicate the very cause of laziness.
How to get rid of laziness and fatigue: rest, don’t be afraid of obstacles
Perhaps you are overworked due to a complex schedule and working on a large project. Then it is not surprising that apathy and laziness appear. Get some sleep, spend the day at home, light some scented candles and relax. Now go to work with renewed vigor.
Psychologists advise not to isolate yourself, not to stay in your comfort zone, but to go beyond its boundaries and do everything to achieve your goal. Only mistakes and trials lead to results. It won't work any other way.
Follow the recommendations, try different ways to combat laziness. Perhaps one of them will help you get out of stagnation and move towards your goal.
Original article: https://www.nur.kz/family/self-realization/1580409-kak-izbavitsa-ot-leni-10-prostyh-sposobov/
