My post on why laziness is a lie created lot of buzz in my inbox.
Most of you embraced Pema Chödrön‘s model that observes three states underneath what we label as laziness – Seeking Comfort, Loss of Heart, and Couldn’t Care Less.
Most of you understood how being comfortable with discomfort and embracing the steps in cultivating self-compassion would be helpful.
And most of you were still a bit fuzzy on exactly what needed to happen next. How do you practically apply this to your life
No worries, I’ve got you.
I’m going to break down how to address Seeking Comfort, Loss of Heart, and Couldn’t Care Less as individual posts. This should give you a better understanding how to address your personal flavor of “laziness” without all the messy guilt and frustration that often comes along with it.
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Seeking Comfort:
Chödrön redefines this version of laziness as either rushing from one thing to the other to seek comfort or the the typical manifestation of inaction. In either case she says, “we look for oblivion: a life that doesn’t hurt, a refuge from difficulty or self-doubt or edginess. We want a break from being ourselves, a break from the life that happens to be ours.”
How do you know if you are Seeking Comfort through laziness?
Take a big zoom out look at your life. There are two ways that Seeking Comfort manifests – through busyness and through inaction. The behaviors associated with each will look a little bit different and you may find yourself exhibiting a combination of both – that’s normal!
Be honest with yourself as ask yourself these questions. There’s nothing wrong with you. We all do the things we do because our system believes it is best for us – even if our conscious brains tell another story. It will ultimately be empowering to do something about it.
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Seeking Comfort Through Busyness
- Is your life filled with a lot of stress?
- Are you often running from thing to thing with no time on your schedule?
- Do you feel uncomfortable seeing white space on your calendar?
- Do you often sign yourself up for things you don’t *really* have the time, energy, or money for?
- Do you find excuses to avoid doing things you would consider self-care?
- Do you find yourself commiserating with other people that are busy?
- Are most of the people you know running at the same pace as you?
- Do you feel uncomfortable or guilty when you take time off or don’t have something to do?
- Are all of your physical activities and exercise vigorous or intense in some way?
- Do you look down on people that have what you would consider leisurely lives or schedules?
- Is it “just the way things are?”
If you can identify with these descriptors, you are probably using your busyness as a way to comfort yourself.
Your nervous system is used to the pace even if it’s not healthy for it. You’ll feel really uncomfortable with downtime or the opportunity to rest. You have probably found success and satisfaction with hard work – which may have driven you to continuously seek it out. You may have been shamed for taking time of or seen it been done to other people. You will probably also seek out things that offer lots of stimulation for your system like coffee and intense exercise. You may be using your busyness to avoid things you are uncomfortable with.
If you are loving life and enjoying this pace – have at it. I don’t recommend it, but I’m also not the boss of you.
If you are looking to create a different dynamic for yourself, these are some questions I recommend you ask yourself. Right now. Go find a piece of paper or a word doc and copy these. Take 10 minutes to answer as many as you can.
- If you had space in your schedule, what would you have to deal with?
- Is there something you are actively avoiding by filling your calendar up?
- What do you think would happen if you slowed down?
- What would be different in your life if you wen’t so busy and stressed out?
- How does being busy affect your relationships?
- How is busyness treating you – really?
- What would happen if you took on less responsibilities?
- How has busyness served you well? And are you open to something different?
And finally, if you are open to something different:
- What’s one tiny step you could take to do things differently?
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Seeking Comfort Through Inaction
- Do you find yourself avoiding your to-do list?
- Are you often frustrated with yourself for not doing things that are important to you?
- Do you feel uncomfortable when important emails show up in your inbox?
- Are you a master at finding excuses to do meaningless activities to avoid doing important tasks?
- Do you eat when you get stressed?
- Do you get sleepy when you consider taking action on things in your life?
- Do you say things like, “I’ll do it later. I can do that tomorrow.” and never actually do them?
- Do you hit snooze on your calendar reminders more often than you’d like to admit?
- Do you consider yourself lazy and feel really frustrated with it?
- Are you a procrastinator?
- Are you a perfectionist and don’t act unless something is exactly a certain way?
If you can identify with these descriptors, you are probably using your inaction or avoidance as a way to comfort yourself.
Your system is probably terrified of what will happen if you DO take action. What if you succeed? What if you fail? You probably have a long list you could rattle off about each and how terrible or wonderful it may be. You may imagine that you couldn’t handle either. You may have history in your life where you’ve taken a big risk and gotten burned or rejected. You may shove your feelings down when they come up.
If you are loving life and enjoying this pace – have at it. I don’t recommend it, but I’m also not the boss of you.
If you are looking to create a different dynamic for yourself, these are some questions I recommend you ask yourself. Right now. Go find a piece of paper or a word doc and copy these. Take 10 minutes to answer as many as you can.
- If you took action on the things you are not taking action on, what would happen?
- Is there something you are actively avoiding by procrastinating?
- What do you think would happen if you started moving toward your goals?
- What would be different in your life if you took action on the things you wanted to?
- How does inaction and avoidance affect your relationships?
- How is inaction treating you – really?
- What would happen if you took on more responsibility?
- How has inaction and avoidance served you well? And are you open to something different?
And finally, if you are open to something different:
- What’s one tiny step you could take to do things differently?
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Phew! I realize that’s a lot of information. Let me sum things up for you this way: If you are doing things a certain way, it’s been serving you and helping you in some capacity. Or, maybe it used to and it no longer does. The main indicator is that when you consider something different you will feel uncomfortable. Maybe awkward. Unsure. Nervous. Excited. Scared. All. The. Feelings.
That’s normal.
You can create change anytime you decide to. Tiny steps create big change over time. Take a tiny step. Take another tiny step.
Treat these questions curiously, as if you are running an experiment in your life. Hmmm…What would happen? What else can I imagine? And then follow-through with your promises to yourself. Your body notices when you follow through with the things you’ve said you would do. It builds confidence. It builds trust.
You’ve got this. Take a deep breath. And just start.
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If laziness as seeking comfort is a concept that you totally understand but still can’t seem to make headway on, that’s normal and it’s part of the work I do with people to help them transform their lives. If you’re ready to take that first brave step, schedule a consult chat with me by clicking here and let’s evolve your laziness into action.