If you looked at my life a few years ago, most nights you’d see the same scene repeating. It’s 9pm, I’m getting ready for bed, and I feel like a piece of shit. I had a big todo list for the day, full of tasks that were aligned with my big goals for life. Each of those tasks fit into an overarching plan for the next week, month, year, five years… all architected to give me the life I wanted most. But… none of those tasks got done.
I’m staring at myself in the mirror, beating myself up for not just sitting down and doing the work. Tomorrow, I promise my reflection, tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll be better. I’ll be more disciplined. I’ll put in the work.
You know how this scene ends. You know how “tomorrow” goes. Maybe you’ve experienced this exact same evening routine. Underneath all the shame and negative self-talk is an implicit promise. All I have to do is be better. All I have to do is not be so lazy.
Not being lazy is just a matter of putting in more effort, and effort is the one thing under my control, right? If I can’t control my effort in life, then I can’t control anything. So I have to be able to do this.
Tomorrow, I tell myself, tomorrow I’ll be good. Tomorrow I’ll do it right.
laziness is stasis
Laziness looks like: being stuck. Not being able to move. Knowing what to do and not being able to do it. Sitting down to work and getting up again. Staring at the fridge when there’s a blank piece of paper on your desk. Cleaning the living room when you should be writing. Staring at Instagram when you should be doing literally anything else.
Laziness feels like: stuck. Heavy. Frozen. Paralyzed. Worthless, useless, alone. Not enough. Not capable. Not efficient. Not productive. Not enough. Tense. Clenched. Not nearly enough.
Sometimes, a miracle happens. Out of the blue, we break out of laziness. We have a super productive day. We write a few thousand words. We take a big leap on that intimidating project. We feel the wind is at our back, that this time it’s different, that something has shifted within us.
And then… it doesn’t last. The heaviness returns. It comes back worse than before, because of that false experience of hope. Maybe I’m just like this. Maybe I just can’t do it.
In response, we intensify our self-talk. We try to whip ourselves into consistency and discipline. Do this, or else. You piece of shit. Just get up.
Or we resort to pleading. Just do a little bit, and then we can take a break. Just a little bit, please. Just get started.
But always, the paralysis returns.
the roots of laziness
Sometimes our laziness comes from a genuine need for rest. We’re tired, we’re burnt out, we really just need some time to reset. Sometimes, a reprieve is what helps us finally get on track. But most of the time, we spend the time that we should be resting consumed by guilt, shame, and self-doubt.
I’ve heard people describe laziness as a natural urge to conserve energy. All living organisms strive to be as efficient as possible with their energy, since calories are (typically) hard to come by. In this model, it makes sense that we wouldn’t be motivated by anything other than life-or-death, put-food-on-the-table tasks.
But think about the times when you’ve done something energy-intensive and it gave you energy. Working out is a big one for me. I can be tired after a workout, sure, but I often feel more vibrant and empowered. It feels like a net positive. Our felt sense of energy seems more complicated than just “how many calories”. We can be nourished by doing hard things.
So I don’t see laziness an energy conservation. I see laziness as safety conservation. More specifically, I see laziness as stemming from a lack of perceived safe options.
trapped without options
When I approach my cat with the vacuum, she runs away as fast as she can. Sometimes, though, she unintentionally gets cornered. The vacuum is in front of her, there are walls on either side: she has nowhere to go. In that moment, she cowers, and makes herself small.
If you were to describe her in that moment, it would sound a lot like our earlier description of laziness: stuck. frozen. paralyzed. tense. clenched. She’s lying still, with very little movement. She’s in stasis.
She isn’t moving because there’s nowhere to go; nowhere safe, at least. So she conserves her energy and waits for the vacuum to retreat a bit and then ahh—there’s an opening—and she leaps past me and flees.
When an organism doesn’t see any safe ways of moving forward, it freezes. If we’re noticing that same lack of movement in ourselves, or if we’re caught up in the same old patterns that we’d rather break out of, it’s worth asking: what feels unsafe about moving forward?
safety & desire
There are two forms of being stuck: “I don’t know what to do” and “I know what to do but I can’t get myself to do it.”
The first case is a bit misleading. In my experience with myself and my clients, we always know what we want to do, at some level. But that might be subconscious. Your body might know what you truly want, but your conscious mind isn’t able to access it.
Why? If that desire is a threat, if that desire means you might lose your friends or lose your job or jeopardize your access to love/safety/belonging, then your subconscious will repress it. No thank you, it’ll say, we’re not doing that, we’re SO not doing that to the point where I won’t even let you know what that is.
In the second case, “I know what to do but I can’t get myself to do it”, once again your subconscious is the culprit. Here, your nervous system says, yeah, I know you want to do that, but I think that’s a threat to us, so no, we’re not doing it. It’s the same instinct that physically stops you from walking to the edge of a cliff. It’s that pull back to safety. My cat can’t go anywhere near the vacuum; her body won’t let her.
So our laziness really stems from this intricate internal wiring that has evolved over millions of years with the primary purpose of keeping us alive. That’s what we’re fighting against when we try to say to ourselves, “stop being lazy.”
No wonder it doesn’t work.
rephrasing the question
Given this new frame, it’s useful to rephrase the term “lazy”. “I’m lazy” just means “I don’t perceive any safe options to move forward.” With this new definition, we can clearly see the next step: figuring out how we can see more options.
The idea here is that when we know what we want and we feel that moving towards it is safe and nourishing, we’ll automatically move towards it. We won’t have to cajole or threaten or push ourselves to do it. It’ll just happen. Because our biology is motivated to seek energy, and because following our desires is inherently energizing, we’ll be pulled towards it, instead of pulled away from it. It’s like if my cat thought the vacuum actually dispensed treats; she would be running after it no problem.
We can start to understand our limitations by looking at what doesn’t feel safe. “What doesn’t feel safe for me to move towards? What doesn’t feel safe for me to want?”
answering the question
The best way to answer each of these questions is to bring a sense of loving curiosity to yourself. As you go about your day (productive or not), notice when you find yourself avoiding or clenching or shrinking away from a desire or an action. When do you feel that “I don’t want to do that” feeling? When do you feel that “I can’t want that” feeling?
Whenever you notice one of those feelings emerging, take a second to pay attention to it. What does it feel like in your body? Where does it seem to be located? When you have a task that you have to do but something in you is resisting doing it, where is that resistance emanating from?
Sometimes it’ll be hard to locate, sometimes it’ll be easy. Whenever you find that you can locate the sensation in your body, take a moment to welcome it. Give it permission to be here. Let it know that is has a place here; that it’s safe within you.
Then, at some point, maybe not the first time you notice it or the second or the third, but at some point, ask that feeling what it needs from you right now. What does it need to feel safe? If you hear an answer, try to meet that need. Maybe this feeling needs reassurance, or permission to relax, or just a moment of love.
As we do this, we’re helping our body have an experience of safety, a feeling of “I am cared for.” When that happens, when our nervous system feels it has more access to safety, then it’s easier to see more options. It’s like someone turning off the vacuum in front of my cat. Ahh, she thinks, maybe I can actually jump over it…
This work is a practice. It’s not an overnight fix. The skill here is learning to give your mind and body an experience of safety when they need it. When that safety is available “on demand”, then a whole bunch of options suddenly seem doable. As you practice this, you’ll notice more desires come to the surface, and a greater ability to act, and more relaxation, joy, and connection with yourself.
In the end, you don’t need to stop being lazy, because you never were. The invitation here is to stop fighting your biology. The invitation here is to help yourself take the next step forward, and then the next, and then the next. The invitation here is to learn to feel safe while taking action.
From there, we’re free to become whoever we want.
With love & appreciation,
Scott
Needed to see this. I really love that new way of looking at the problem as a dichotomy, where I have agency and even further allowing myself time to make an decision and not having to immediately know what to do or where to go.