“There are lots of ways to help yourself out if you want to be more focused and motivated… and none of them involve calling yourself lazy or beating yourself up, both of which will decrease your motivation and your energy levels.”
This is a series of posts about different negative thoughts I have on a regular basis and the ways I’ve learned – through lots of therapy, coaching, and trial and error – to counter them. Sometimes I succeed in countering them, but sometimes they stick a little, or more than a little.
I hope some of these examples help you next time your brain is mean to you.
Mean Thought: “I’m so lazy”
My mental rebuttal: “No, you’re [tired, sad, frustrated, in pain, other emotion].
I read a book recently called ‘Laziness Does Not Exist’ recommended by my coach when I said something related to this. The author – and my coach – argue that what we call ‘laziness’ is frequently something very different – our brains forcing us to take a break.
Our current world is VERY overstimulating. There are bright lights everywhere – our tv, our computer screen, our phone. Most of us don’t get enough natural sunlight (I highly recommend a morning walk).
I know my life is over busy. I got inspired to write this blog at 10pm at night after working all day, date night with my partner while we also cooked chicken and processed peaches to freeze, finished up writing some unit tests, and filled out my weekly form for my health coach. And this is a relatively quiet day. And I don’t have children or other people to take care of.
Corporate America does not generally remind you of this, but sometimes your brain needs a break. And scrolling on your phone, or taking a nap, or staring into space – all activities we might call ‘lazy’ give your brain that break.
Usually when I feel ‘lazy’ at work, it’s because of something specific.
Maybe I slept poorly and actually physically can’t concentrate.
Sometimes I’m genuinely pissed off at my job, which – although no one tells you as a child – is a completely normal occasional part of being a working adult.
This past week my grandmother passed away and it’s been incredibly hard to stay focused while I am so sad.
Another lighter reason is sometimes I’m bored of or mildly irritated with the task I’m doing. There are a bunch of ways you can trick your brain into focusing on tasks like this – I’ll cover some of those in another post. But this is also a completely natural, human response, especially in a world where we’ve trained our brains to be constantly stimulated with social media – that’s another post too.
This is going to be a repeating theme, but none of this is saying that you can’t make small changes to help you better stay focused and motivated. As a career coach who helps women in tech with this on a regular basis and someone who has worked on my own behavior with many coaches, there are SO many ways you can help yourself out if you want to be more focused and motivated.
And none of them involve calling yourself lazy or beating yourself up, both of which will decrease your motivation and your energy levels.
What I want to get across here is that frequently ‘lazy’ is not the correct explanation for your behavior.
‘Lazy’ as a concept is almost entirely a negative trait. It does not acknowledge any of the valid reasons you might be a bit slower today.
So next time you are calling yourself ‘lazy’, I highly recommend stopping and reflecting on what is going on that’s causing your current behavior. You might realize you are hungry, or that you’re falling asleep in your chair and really need to take a short walk or a stretch break.
Acknowledge your humanity and your imperfection. They make you who you are and who you are is just right. Take it from another very imperfect just right person.
If you have any thoughts or questions about this, I’d love to hear them! Send me an email at womenintechcoach@gmail.com.
