You're Not Lazy, You’re Untrained
Have you ever noticed that you know there is something you should do; wake up from bed and do 10 pushups, make your bed, or even brush your teeth at night before you go to sleep, but can’t just get yourself to do it?
Laziness is more of an emotional than a mental issue. By 'emotional,' I mean feelings like dread, frustration, or even anxiety that make it hard to start a task, while 'mental' refers to logical reasoning or thoughts about what needs to be done.
For example, you might know in your mind that brushing your teeth before bed is important (a mental understanding), but if you are feeling tired or unmotivated (an emotional state), you still might avoid doing it. Let me explain using one of the previous examples.
You know full well that you need to do 10 pushups and that it is good for you, but you also find yourself thinking about the tremendous work it will take to bring your body to the floor, pushing up and down 10 times, and the burning sensation you might feel in your triceps.
All that could trigger a mix of emotional reactions in you.
Laziness is a feeling/state of being, your unwillingness to do work (even though it will benefit you), and it can be caused by many triggers.
Fear
No desire for the task, activity, or duty
Mental exhaustion
Doing too little for dopamine reward, to the point where duties feel like a burden.
Past failures.
Could be a combination of many things (we are too complex to pinpoint the exact problem), something that cannot even be identified yet.
Rest vs. Avoidance: The Question Nobody Asks
Sometimes it’s just a signal to rest. Not every time man needs to work. Not every moment of resistance is a character flaw.
But how can you tell if you really need rest, or if you are avoiding work? One way is to check in with your body: are you physically exhausted, sore, or lacking sleep? Another way is to notice your emotions.
Do you feel drained and irritable no matter what you do, or are you simply dreading a specific task? When rest is needed, even enjoyable tasks can feel overwhelming, and your energy stays low.
On the other hand, avoidance often feels like procrastination or making endless excuses, even when you’re otherwise fine.
But there are other times when something deeper is happening.
“From Psychology: Briefer Course by William James, we have different selves, and we are faced with the necessity to choose one and leave the others”.
And I think at any point these selves can conflict with each other if one hasn’t locked in on one. And when there is tension inside, it manifests itself in our behavior.
There’s a saying my grandpa used to say, “Na eye di fear work”.
Meaning when you see something you have to do, you immediately go “ohh that’s a lot of work or where am I going to start”, but the moment you begin, you find yourself slowly easing into the flow, and you will not even think of it as though it was a lot.
I have also noticed that we (humans) are complex (by complex, I mean it is not always easy to pinpoint exactly what is going on in our minds).
I say that because I believe we never experience the same thing with the same capacity as before, due to the complex mix of factors that will always remain a mystery to us and the ever-changing nature of our emotions, feelings, and states of being.
There have been times when, after doing the laundry, I have been very lazy about folding my clothes, yet I like the idea of having folded laundry. So, I said to myself, "I will fold it later." You can imagine what happened. I didn’t do it.
I started pulling clothes from the clean laundry basket to wear, telling myself just this once, and I will fold them later, even when I have time on my hands. I wanted order, but I also wanted to avoid effort.
That one desire for no work led me to live off my laundry basket until it ran out of the items I wanted to wear, or to do another round of laundry and fold everything together. You see how that one instance translated into days of conditioning.
On the other hand, there have also been times that I will feel like that because when I see the clean laundry, my mind goes “ohh no that’s a lot to fold” but with that in mind, I will tell myself that in reality this will not take too long and when I start, before I know it, I will be done.
It could happen with any other activity in your life.
What I think Discipline Actually Is (And it’s Not Just Willpower)
Emotional regulation simply means being able to notice what you're feeling and choosing how to respond, rather than letting your emotions control you.
For instance, imagine you get home after a long day and just want to watch TV, but you know you promised yourself to go for a short walk.
Emotional regulation in that moment looks like recognizing that you feel tired and unmotivated, then asking yourself whether you really need rest or if you just find the idea of relaxing more appealing and deciding to rest or to put on your shoes and go for a walk, even if only for a few minutes.
It's not about denying your feelings, but about guiding your actions despite them.
Discipline is derived from the Latin word “disciplina,” which means instruction, teaching, learning, and knowledge, and from “discipulus,” which means pupil, student, follower. To sum it all up, discipline is a way of life. At least that’s how I see it.
Discipline is also self-control.
Emotions are very powerful, and to an untrained person, they will override every bit of logic and reason in their mind.
When you are hungry, you eat; when you are in danger, your survival instincts kick in without you sitting there saying, “ok it is time for survival instinct mode to be activated”. I just happened.
I can say, for the most part, that most people are unconscious of the things they do.
Discipline requires self-awareness (being aware of your state of being), and in today’s world, it is easy to get carried away and lose sight in what adds no value to your life or goes against the very standards you try to set for yourself.
And being aware here means being more active and involved in actions throughout the day. Being aware is the gateway to applying logic to use your emotions to shape your life, rather than letting them run you into utter self-destruction.
If you want to start building self-awareness, try a couple of simple practices in your daily routine. For example, you can set aside a minute or two each morning to check in with yourself, sit in silence, and notice how you’re feeling.
Ask yourself: Am I tired? Am I stressed? Is there something on my mind? Another practice is to pause for a few seconds before starting a new task and notice what you’re thinking or feeling in that moment.
Even journaling in the morning, before bed, or after a challenging moment can help you see patterns over time. With these small steps, you can begin to notice your emotions and reactions more clearly and, from there, make choices that better fit how you want to live.
It’s not just that I have to workout no matter how I am feeling. That's not discipline, that’s slavery to your own desires. Being disciplined involves understanding yourself, and one thing the brain always wants to do is find the most efficient way to do things. And sometimes that effective way is to avoid work altogether.
What Comfort Is Quietly Costing You
Without a second thought, or if you are just looking at it for what it is, comfort addiction, aka wanting things to be easy all the time (without any physical effort), slowly kills you, and you are not realizing it.
Practice makes perfect. Professional Olympic athletes are so good at what they do because of years of consistent practice. And the activities you indulge in daily slowly become part of your identity (if they haven’t already).
Your brain identifies what you do constantly and slowly starts to make it more unconscious. If all you do is seek comfort, then, in practice, you train yourself to be defeated by anything that requires effort over a long period of time.
Comfort robs you of your joy and potential. Every man aims for some level of comfort in his life.
It is a universal law that cannot be debated. Unless you want to argue that man can be programmed to be a machine that just takes commands, and I doubt you will win that argument.
If you observe and listen more, you might see what I am saying, not just in others but in yourself as well. But what I am talking about here is excess desire for comfort.
So, with that being said, creating the life you admire and want starts with one small choice to act, repeated over and over again.
A tree does not grow in 1 month, and so who you want to become cannot be manifested in 1 month, but over a long period of time.
You have spent years living as you have, and you have decided to change now. Realistically, it doesn’t get easy, but you become stronger, more confident, and more skilled over time.
What’s one thing that I can start doing that will make a difference in my life? Is the question you need to ask yourself; it could be as simple as waking up early or stopping saying certain things.
That should be your starting point, then you slowly add as you begin to live.
Also, there is no formula here for what you need to start with; your life is your own, and you should spend time with yourself to find areas that you can start attacking.
But if you were to ask me, I would say “the soul needs more attention than it gets.”
Motivation Doesn't Disappear, It Just Moves
Motivations don’t fade. It is transferred to something else.
About motivation, I think people get it partially wrong. Because, whether good or bad, destructive or constructive, all behavior is motivated by something (if you don’t think that is true and would like to enlighten me, then I am open to learning, but for now, that is my belief).
Motivation is your “why” for doing something. The common saying “Discipline over motivation”, I personally think, is a cliche because everyone is motivated by something internal or external. Even the most disciplined individuals are motivated by something.
From Britannica, “motivation is derived from the Latin term 'motivus, ' meaning a moving cause, which is the activating property for an action or behavior”. whether the individual is aware of it or not (again, it could be external or internal)
Motivation is always present in an individual, but the degree to which it is present determines how a person approaches a situation. Motivation moves with emotion, feelings, and beliefs.
After watching a motivational video, you feel fired up to go and hit the gym (start a course or go do something), because you think it’s a good thing, and you are falling behind, you want to be identified with the good, and fear.
Or it could be a mix of these and many other subtle emotions.
But either way, you are fired up, and for as long as the emotions last, that’s how long your drive to complete the actions lasts.
Understanding what goes on in your mind and slowly guiding yourself to take the right action is called self-control (discipline).
Sometimes it might work; other times, it might fail.
And the moment you override with conviction, without leaving internal conflict inside you, you slowly begin to build your character.
The very essence of discipline is not a goal for the next 6 months but a way of life that you continually develop. Comfort involves just going with emotions/feelings without questioning or guiding them.
Character building involves trying your best to control your emotions, to question, and to direct them(influence) towards the desired action or behavior.
And when those emotions pass, you are back to your normal state, your true self. Or other emotions/desires take over and motivate your actions in a completely different or opposite direction.
To gain self-control (discipline), you need to continuously try to understand, process, and direct your emotions towards the best possible choice, rather than ignoring them.
And sometimes this will also mean not taking any action altogether. It’s not a one-time learned skill but an ever-developing one.
Every Small Push Is Training
It’s all about practice. And as we all know, even in the things we are good at, we don’t always do them wholeheartedly or perform to the best of our abilities.
Some days are slow. And sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you can’t beat the human nature of things and the universal laws of the universe.
Pushing past the initial internal resistance is the hardest battle. And this is not just pushing without reason because someone said you should do it sad, angry, unmotivated, tired, etc.
You will continue to create more internal conflict that will eventually come back to bite you.
Pushing here means trying your best to understand what is going on inside of you and focusing on feeding the self you want to build with enough emotional depth that its intensity begins to weaken the advances of your other selves and their realities (This is a never-ending process)
Again, there is no universal formula for beginning this process of self-discipline.
The one thing to keep in mind is to start small and build confidence through following through and pushing past your initial limit.
Take away
You're not incapable. You're untrained. And training starts with the next small thing in front of you.