How to beat Laziness?
Laziness is a state of living that happens to the best of us. It could be after a long hard working day, but most of the times its a choice. The modern human rather sits on the couch, eating takeaway while scrolling simultaneously on his smartphone during a Netflix movie. Because laziness is a choice, the individual can prevail and become productive if he wishes.
What contributes to laziness?
In the modern day, getting dopamine is easy! The average person wake's up and checks their phone for notifications. These notifications could for example consist of:
- Social media updates
- Messages sent in texting group chats
- News items that are trending
After getting ready, people drive to their work listening to the radio or music and most even text their friends or family's during the ride. During workhours small breaks are taken to scroll through the smartphone's new notification list. After getting home, people order take-away using their smartphone and immediately watch Netflix until they go to sleep.
This may sound like a life that is not fulfilling because of the fact that the person is living through the lens of technology instead of nature, but unfortunately is this way of living average for the working human in the West.
You might think, when thinking back to the time when you were a kid, how the world and its people had changed so much in such a short timeframe. Why is that?
Why did the world turn so lazy?
Why is it that laziness is so prevailing in this time and age?
There are many reasons for this. But the main reasons are as follows:
Lack of masculinity 💪🏻- Since the second World War, the west in particular, has been going through a masculinity crisis. Men are becoming feminine, which has an direct correlation with laziness. Masculine men want to be the best at everything and are striving to get this done. You can't be lazy while also trying to be the best at something. I don't know a single pro boxer, that is both a champion and lazy. All champions work hard! Because of femininization, being average is the norm and also praised. This praising of ''averageness'' leads to effeminateness, and thus laziness.
Lack of purpose 🙌🏻 - Nowadays, the average guy doesn't have any purpose in his live. He eats, works, scrolls on his smartphone and watches Netflix all day. The world turned into a big Social Security Net where daddy government takes care of the individual. Because the government will take care of the individual, individuals don't have a reason anymore to strive for anything. So why strive for anything big, when you can also lay back, order some takeaway with the corona handouts and watch Netflix all day? At the end of the day this is one of the quickest and easiest way to get the dopamine rush the human mind craves! (but of course not the healthiest form)
Technologic Advances 📱 - Where the promise for technological advances was to unburden the human, both physically and mentally, it has only put them into 'technological' shackles. Without leaving the sofa, we can get any information we want, order 20 different styles of food, watch all kinds of different entertainment and talk with our loved ones. You would think, that saving so much time on getting activities done would leave more time to do productive things. But it only made humans addictive to the easy dopamine they could get, without exerting energy.
So, now we know what contributes to laziness and what the most important reasons are for the lazy individual, but what can we do to BEAT laziness?
How to beat laziness?
Before giving you a bulletproof strategy on how to beat laziness, we have to summarize in one sentence what laziness actually is. Why you ask? You can only know how to beat your enemy, if you know your enemy well.
The definition of laziness is as follows:
Laziness is disinclination to activity or exertion despite having the ability to act or to exert oneself.
I want you to read that again. You can interpret the definition of laziness as follows:
Laziness is a CHOICE because I don't want to do an activity or exert myself EVENTHOUGH I am capable in doing so.
After reading the interpreted definition, it's now clear that the reason that you are lazy is actually YOURSELF! This may hurt some people at a personal level, but you need thick skin for self improvement.
Since its a choice, YOU have the ability to be productive and not lazy anymore. Now, the cure to laziness is easy, if you spent your time doing productive things you wont be lazy! You are probably thinking: 'Well, that is easy to say, but how should I tackle the laziness problem?'
Write down your goals 📓 - Sit down, take a deep breath, and think of what goals you want to achieve. They can be anything! Write them down. Okay, now its clear what your goals are. How do we achieve them? Simple, we cut the goal into smaller goals!
Planning is king 📆- Looking back at the last paragraph, smaller goals can be written down in a weekly or even daily planning schedule! For example, lets say your goal is to run a marathon. To run a marathon, you need a proper running plan that consists of weekly, or even daily, training with different intensities and distances. Three times a week you run 1 kilometer, and you keep progressing with 500 meters after each week. Eventually, if you keep doing this over time, you will be able to run 42 kilometers (which is a full marathon!)
Discipline 🥋- You are probably wondering: 'Okay.. I've written down my goal and I created a daily planning on how to get there. How do I stick with the planning, if I don't feel like training?' The answer is simple: DISCIPLINE! Discipline is doing something, regardless if you feel like it or not. You know deep down that it's best for you to do it anyways. Discipline can be seen as a skill, as it needs practice to develop. First you might start out with sticking to 3 things on your planning, and after some weeks it could double to 6! You just have to keep going!