You’re Not Lazy. You’re Just Misinformed
By: B. Remus
Tags: Work, Productivity, Personal Growth, Stress, Procrastination

Unlearn Procrastination

Procrastination has a bad name in the neighborhood.

It’s not your nonchalant feeling of “I’m not feeling well so I won’t do it right now”, but more of “I want to do it, but it feels impossible”.

Your attempts at being productive fail every time.

You want to be productive and enjoy the fruits of your labor, but every time you prepare to do the work, you postpone it for “a few more minutes”. And so minutes turn into hours, and hours into days.

The glass of guilt fills up as each unproductive day passes.

From the outside, people will laugh and point fingers at you. They think you don’t do the work because you’re innately lazy.

Yet that could not be farther from the truth.

It’s here that Neil Fiore jumps in and says: “You are not lazy.”

Laziness is just a cover-up for a greater crime.

It’s the crime of a twisted education we’ve been all given. It’s the norm in our societies and it would be phenomenal to see exceptions to the rule.

To say innate laziness is the cause of procrastination is a simplistic and damaging view.

Underneath the procrastination you suffer daily, hides uncertainty and fear, not innate laziness.

You have been taught procrastination.

Procrastination, as bad as it is, is a strong self-awareness exercise. Through procrastination, you’re not showcasing laziness. If you delay your work to scroll through your social feed, it’s a strong sign you’re avoiding something.

What is it that you avoid?

Simply put — responsibility.

I know you’re desperate for a quick solution, but the purpose of understanding the history and psychology of procrastination is to allow you to never fall in the same vicious cycle.

In the Western world, our sense of individuality is strongly tied to our achievements in our careers.

Doctors, lawyers, engineers are highly regarded as they have built successful careers. This, in turn, allows the person to feel more confident. Without such achievements, their self-esteem would plummet.

As such, work turns into an obligation.

It’s not a matter of whether you want to do it or not, but a matter of how bad or good my peers will perceive me.

A solid counter-argument would be: “This is a necessary stimulus for the motivation of the individual”. I would agree with this argument if this motivation was healthy.

Chronic procrastinators and workaholics share a common trait — they always feel like their work is infinite.

They are overwhelmed by the number of tasks and projects left to do. Because of this, they are unable to enjoy their free time and spend most of the day pondering and stressing over the work they have to do.

You want to do work and be productive, but you don’t go easy on yourself.

Instead of being your pillar of support, you turn yourself into your enemy, cursing yourself for every unproductive day which passes as you stand idly on the side.

The truth is you never do the work because it doesn’t feel right.

Even before you begin to do it, you think it won’t turn out as you imagined. And you’re right, it won’t because you’re imagining a perfect outcome.

It cannot happen.

Perfection is an illusion.

Take writing for example. You can sit down and work three hours, smash the keyboards until you get a perfect draft and you will be completely disappointed.

Because once you go through your draft, you realize it can be improved even further.

There’s no limit to improvement, but perfection always puts limits to improvement.

Your expectations of yourself and your work are too high. You want to get the perfect shot from the first try because otherwise, it won’t be worth the hustle.

High expectations hurt your productivity and mental health.

You don’t have to conquer kingdoms and fight wars every day. The risks are non-existent.

You perceive imperfection as a failure of your capability to rise to your expectations, which in reality might have never been yours.