Why You’re Lazy And How To Fix It.

Most people aren’t lazy. They are purposeless. Like robots going through everyday routine without questioning.

I remember the days when I didn’t know what to do. I’d wake up, scroll, watch some anime and laugh at memes. While this made my day pleasurable — deep down I was sick and tired of it.

Tired of being fat and undisciplined. I’d have so many goals in life I want to do but I wouldn’t budge. Looking back at it I had no reason to do it in the first place.

• I had a roof

• I eat 3X a day

• I get to buy what I want

I was comfortable and it destroyed me.

I didn’t know what to do. I had no goals to work on and that made me empty.

In this letter we’ll dive deep into solving procrastination and laziness. I will tackle the higher side of attaining discipline not surface level information.

This letter will go deep into your psyche and convince you laziness isn’t the problem but your lack of ambition is.

Starting with the relationship with yourself.

Your mind likes to play games.

We have demons inside our head. No one is exempted from this. People hide their pain behind their pretty smiles and pretend everything is alright.

• Fear of the future

• Doubts about your potential

• Anxiety from the past actions

Most people cannot take this. Their minds are too soft and they get controlled by their emotions. Your ability to rationalize and use logic will neutralize fears.

While danger is bad, being uncomfortable isn’t. And discomfort comes from doing what’s hard. This means confronting negative self-beliefs and fears or insecurities you have.

Which is—

1. Self-sabotage -

We’re all slaves to fear and that stops us from success. We let the mindless uneasiness and dread take over. Your internal dialogue needs recreation.

Does your mind say:

• “I can’t do this I’m not good enough”

• “Why can’t I do anything right?”

• “I’m so useless I’ll never make this work”

Your internal dialogue determines your progress. If you believe you can then you will. If believe you’ll fail you will.

The universe responds to your thoughts. Whatever it may be, it’ll happen. It’s cliché but that’s why you have moments where you can do everything perfectly and mess up the simplest tasks.

The psychological prisons we put ourselves holds us back. The reason you might not be making any progress is because you hate yourself.

You don’t believe you can become any better. You don’t believe you’ll be able to achieve consistency.

This is negative self-belief at it’s peak.

2. Weak mentality-

A weak mind results to:

• Giving up before starting: It’s when you feel so intimidated by the challenge at hand that you think you’re incapable of achieving it.

• Fear of failure: Your mind thinks of every reason that you’ll fail. Which makes you avoid challenges due to fear of making mistakes.

• Emotional Immaturity: Letting emotions like anger and frustration to dictate your actions. Which turns into bad behavior.

Your mind needs to be your no.1 fan and best friend. Like a friend that helps you get back up when times are tough and give you tough love when necessary.

Weak mentality is different from self-sabotage. Mentality is how your mind thinks. How it operates and views the world.

How you let influence dictate your understanding of your circumstances —whether you see it as a problem or opportunity to tackle.

Attaining discipline is the same. You must allow yourself to view discipline as attainable. You should see it as a way to get better. To achieve your goals and be able to live the dream life.

And how do we do that?

The Truth About Discipline.

Most people don’t have goals. And if they have one it’s because it’s made from necessity not ambition.

• The need to work a job to survive.

• The need to finish a degree to get a good internship.

• The need to get a better job because you hate your boss.

• The need to become happy because you hate your current life.

Following the path of other people will kill your ambition and potential.

If you want to overcome laziness you must have a solid goal. Something that keeps you awake at night. Something that makes you tick. Something that makes you say “Man I’m so glad I did X thing yesterday because I’m making progress on Y project”.

A meaningful life comes from a goal. You’ll love it. Crave it and always look forward for it.

1. Anti-Vision-

Why the f*ck do you want to be disciplined? What’s your reason for wanting to be disciplined? Retire your parents? Get rich? What is it?

What do you want from life?

You must understand what’s your reason for doing something in the first place. This way you can accept the suck and get over hard times.

Being lazy is not fun. Being disciplined is not fun. You have to do it alone and the only way for you to keep going even when your mind doesn’t want to is to have a reason (A why).

• A why to bear suffering.

• A why to bear burdens.

• A why to bear hardships.

Without any goals you will fail. You will suck at doing something because there’s no reason. The only way to keep going is with goals. A vision of the life you want to live.

Ask yourself, what’s kind of life would I absolutely hate living?

This question alone can make you move today, finally start taking action and be consistent till your death or waste another year not trying.

Because I finally took action when I realize how cruel life is to lazy people. The concept of anti-vision shook my nerves. It felt so terrifyingly real that I could feel my bones rattling.

This was what I wrote in my anti-vision:

"I am poor, my family doesn’t respect me because I can’t provide. It saddens me to see all the wasted opportunities I missed. Because of that I feel shit and terrible. I feel like no one care’s about me. Life is so hard but it’s because I’m not taking action. I wake up everyday and realize I’m still the same person. I haven’t learned new skills or knowledge. I don’t read books because I think they’re not useful. And when I try to be disciplined I start things way too hard so I don’t remain consistent. I am still emotionally and mentally weak because I didn’t allow myself to feel failure and rejection".

Deep into my consciousness I understood this would be my future if I kept making excuses and waste my potential. The same can be said to you. We people aren't so different. That's why most articles in the internet are relatable.

It doesn’t matter if no one understands your goals.

Because that’s how it is. Most people do not care about you or ever will. Even your friends or family will laugh and find you cringe most of the times (not always).

You must view yourself as someone capable of doing whatever goal you’ve set up. Not the one that lacks ambition.

Let me explain:

2. Old Identity-

Whether you like it or not. Your self-image is holding you back. If you view yourself as someone who is lazy you will be lazy. If you view yourself as someone who can be disciplined you will be disciplined.

Self-image is commonly known as how you view yourself negative or positive. But I think it’s more on how we perceived our emotions from our past experience and actions tied to our identity. We are not logical creatures but emotional people .

We are more prone to judge and feel than to think.

Your mental picture needs to be nurturing. You must see yourself as someone who is capable of achieving great things.

The way our subconscious works is simple.

Whatever you feed, it will bring out. (No not poop).

• Feed your mind with negativity and all you see is negativity.

• Feed your mind with positivity and you’ll notice good things about life.

Your past self needs some forgiving:

• Mistakes you did.

• Cringe actions you did.

• Hurtful words you said.

• Past failures you can’t get over.

You must accept the old identity you have and allow a new one to be re-created. In that way you let go of unhealed wounds and trauma from your inner self. Only then you’ll be able to move forward when you let go of the past.

Now onto the next topic.

The 4 Pillars of Discipline.

Everything you see is built on something. There are always parts working together to achieve a common goal.

Think of cars. Without wheels a car cannot go anywhere. Without an engine a car cannot power itself to move.

Something is always built on something. And discipline is no stranger to this.

Pillar No.1 (Energy)-

Everything that requires action requires energy. We move because our bodies have energy. Our digestive system is able to break down nutrients and fuel our cells to function because of energy.

Without energy we cannot move. Without enough energy becoming disciplined becomes impossible.

How?

• More energy = Higher chances of being productive.

• Less energy = Higher chances of being lazy.

This is why good habits are vital.

Since they allow you to create and have a higher baseline of energy reserve for your body to use leading to a much healthier body capable of enduring long hours of work or tasks.

I remember when I would sleep at 12 am the next day I would feel sluggish and tired. I would always scroll first thing in the morning and waste at least 2 hours watching YouTube videos. I’d have 0 zero energy to use and always felt drained.

But now I don’t because I fixed it. I slept early, started to prioritized my physical health which lead to more energy and actually helped me become disciplined. I even have sometimes too much energy throughout the day that I get shocked at how much I get done.

If you want more energy move your body often. Do physical activities and make sure you have enough sleep. And if you’re having trouble sleeping here’s a simple step by step process:

1. Tire your body - The reason you are not able to sleep fast at night is because your body isn’t tired. This means your body is not seeking rest or recovery. And when it isn’t, your body doesn’t want to sleep. It wants to use that energy and to get tired. So tire your body during the morning and you’ll have an easier time sleeping.

2. Schedule - You need to sleep at the same time everyday. This way your body clock gets regulated and fixed. You’ll have to put up not being able to sleep properly for a few days but once you get this rolling it becomes easier.

3. No screens or phone before bed - Blue light causes our eyes to go dry and makes our mind stay awake. This means you need to stay away from screens near your bedtime. That way you’ll have an easier time falling asleep.

Pillar No.2 (Recovery)-

A machine needs rest so it doesn’t overheat. An animal sleeps deeply after it finishes eating. A human needs rest in order to function and perform properly.

If you think you can get away without rest you’ll pay with your life early. Without rest you are setting up yourself for future internal catastrophe.

So what do we do about it? Before that understand how recovery works:

• Too much energy consumption without rest will lead to burnout.

• Too much energy in reserve without consumption will lead to procrastination.

You must find a balance where you are using enough energy that can be replenished tomorrow. In this way it becomes sustainable. There are people who can work 12 hours a day no problem and there are people who prefer to work only 4 hours daily,

There is no right or wrong answer. You must find where your caliber of energy stands.

If you are lacking in rest or cannot find a way to recover properly.

Apply:

• Short walks in nature

• Practicing deep breathes in the middle of the day

• Doing 5-10 minute NSDR sessions in the afternoon (Personal favorite).

Doing intentional breaks will allow your energy to be replenished even for a bit.

This way you are able to go further and keep going. To sustain discipline you must allow recovery to happen. This means getting enough sleep, practicing stress management and eating healthy foods.

So you don’t bag down and end up crashing one day.

Pillar no.3 (Passion)-

If you find yourself feeling:

• Nothing matters.

• Boredom from repetitive actions.

• Uninspired and intimidated to start new hobbies.

You lack passion.

Everything starts from curiosity.

If you have genuine curiosity to develop and understand something you will survive the tough days when every cell in your body doesn’t want to work.

Discipline and passion are partners. Passion is the mechanic and discipline is the engine. The key to sustaining passion is consistency (aka the mechanic fixing the engine).

The problem is people rely only on discipline. They exhaust the engine too much forgetting that a spark is needed to start.

When you’re interested in something.

• Your brain lights up.

• Your problems go away.

• Your excited and ready to tackle.

This is called interest. But something much deeper is called passion.

Passion is not tied emotionally. It’s not fleeting and doesn’t go away after a few days. Passion is a deep sustained effort to something that matters for you. It’s what makes you willing to invest time, energy and money to attain a skill or finish project even if it’s hard.

Without passion discipline becomes emotionless. Like a robot that copies and does what it’s programmed to do perfectly but lacking original thought.

You need accept the suck and rely on a much bigger mission than yourself.

You need to reason to pursue something meaningful. (Like what I talked about above in the anti-vision part)

Pillar no.4 (Goals)-

Most people fail don’t fail because they’re lazy. They fail because they have no roadmap to follow.

They don’t know which direction to face and walk. Lacking the fundamental vision in order to capitalize their energy and channel it onto something meaningful.

And if they have goals it’s not from their inner self:

• Parents forcing their children to pursue X career

• Losing independent thought from other people’s opinion.

• Burning out from doing unmeaningful and mundane work.

All of us have goals we want to achieve. We know what we have to do but we don’t want to do it.

When you are in a journey without a set of goals, you are doomed to fail. You do not have quests that allow you to level up and get access better gear.

To way to navigate and solve this problem is to set a hierarchy of goals.

A set of vision that will stack on each other that will allow each to compliment and lead each parts to a bigger result (Your dream life).

You achieve it by breaking down and planning thoroughly.

Here’s how you do it.

• Daily Goals- What daily habits or activities can I do that will lead to my future self becoming physically and mentally stronger? Brainstorm possible habits you can do. For example a writer will write 1 page daily in his journal to do mental exercise and get his mind used to putting out ideas daily.

• Weekly Goals- What work do I have to do that takes at least a week to finish that will stack on each other after a month? For example writing my newsletter takes at least 6 days. 5 days of writing and 2 days of editing. Which takes 1 week to complete.

• Monthly Goals - What key idea or problem am I trying to solve here that will take me at least a month to complete? This is a progressive work from your weekly and daily goals. They are progress checkers to see whether you are moving in the right direction. For example it takes me a month to write 4 newsletter articles. But in the same time I can create an e-book lengthening 10,000 words monthly.

• Yearly Goals - What big 1-3 goals do I want to achieve that will at least take me a year to complete? For example I plan to hit 10k newsletter subscribers by the end of 2025. Which is a big goal. To achieve this I’ll have to hit at least 800 subscribers monthly.

If you haven’t notice. Each goals stack on each other. They are like parts working together to achieve a common goal. With each complimenting and leading to the big result.

Putting it all together.

Now that you’ve understood the pillars of discipline and how the mind plays tricks, you should be able to see clearly on how to overcome laziness and achieve self-discipline.

Your task with this information is to create your own hierarchy of goals.

• A vision to follow in order to remind yourself why you started in the first place.

• A set of good habits that will allow you to have higher energy reserves you can use to endure long hours of work.

• A set of goals that’ll stack with each other that will aid you to achieving your vision (Opposite to anti-vision).

I hope this helps.

And be sure to implement not just read any of it.

See you next week.

-Noat (Author of Improvement Letters).