Is LAZY A Fixable Flaw or A Lifetime Curse? …or benefit??

Are we born lazy or do we earn our lazy time?

Were you born lazy, or did you earn your bouts of lazy? Lazy is a peculiar trait; sometimes a judgment, sometimes an obvious behavior–or avoidance! Is the simple solution motivation or can you be motivated similarly to be lazy? I’m glad I’m sorting this all out now, I’ve been meaning to write about it for a few weeks now…no, I haven’t been lazy, well, like I said, it’s a relative term!

Lazy business owners are another odd lot. The fact that one would choose the responsibility of ownership and yet have that fiddle for success with an inherent habit to find the shortcut. In some cases it may have seemed too much work to go interview for a new job. It turns out that dealing with lazy business owners has been key to growing my practice’s focus on Business Therapy and less on the concept of coaching. While coaching is invaluable, a Coach finds a way to create processes and tricks and behavior modification to get around the laziness while the Business Therapist gets to ask, “Why do you think you enjoy being lazy?”

A quick vocabulary review will help you sort whether you are Born Lazy or Earned Lazy:

BORN LAZY– “I can do it later.” Later: “It’s not urgent today.” 3 weeks later: “What was that I was supposed to do again?

EARNED LAZY– “I’m beat from my accomplishments, I need to take a break but I’ll reschedule it now.”

DOES LAZY EXCLUDE SUCCESS?

No, but it probably limits it. It’s like a restrictor plate. A little lazy on top of great skill and effort mitigates minimally. Of course, a mostly closed valve on a small pipe ain’t gonna flow a lot of fluid. The antitheses is when laziness is vigorously pursued, best exemplified by super villains. They want to take over the world but not so they can lead a new era of greatness, but rather for adoration, absolute authority and zero accountability. So, many super villains do get to be very successful even with absolute laziness as the reward for a diligently pursued goal.

I KNOW IT WHEN I SEE IT

Whether we’ve been to a DMV or discount department store we’ve seen laziness on full display in the workplace and it’s pretty easy to recognize. Mostly, we see it not as stillness but as a purposefully restricted pace of action, effort and minimal concerns outside his self. In these examples we see lacking: leadership, inspiration, motivation, engagement, energy…you get the idea. Where these things lack the next step is automation–there are no lazy robots!

WORN DOWN OR DISTRESSED?

Aspiring to be lazy, like going on an unplugged vacation or turning the phone off for an afternoon or binge watching instead of well, anything, certainly has it’s place as our own system of reward for having acted. In healthy people we use “shutting down” just like a machine that needs regular PM (preventive maintenance). In depressed, or distressed people, laziness can come from a sense of futility or for indifference to the outcome. If you are finding yourself being lazy because being otherwise doesn’t matter, that might be a clue for a conversation with a mental health professional. If you’ve been working it hard, or hard for you, and you want laziness to be a reward, like hammocks and piña coladas, by all means, you’ve earned your lazy.

LAZY MIND SYNDROME

Of all the iterations of laziness most are recognizably human. They may be familiar and harmless, they may be familiar and harmful, however they identify and present there is a definite difference between desiring minimal activity, or work avoidance, or blowing it off because you feel like it….All those are about actions. A lazy mind on the other hand will wither far faster than an un-exercised body! Those who intentionally avoid the opportunities to grow their minds, use their experiences, and those around them, to gain wisdom or keep open to new possibilities may just be too damn lazy to go through the bother of knowledge with self-examination. I can recall my AP History teacher’s banner reading: “Ignorance is no crime, failing to change it is.” If your preservation of ignorance is due to a lazy mind then you are doing no one a favor and will spend time finding comfort in commonality rather than clarity from investigation. Confidence is a great rationalization for mental laziness. Maybe you don’t care to lead you’d rather follow, quietly or boisterously… (Most Super Villain henchmen are lazy too.) Maybe that’s the saddest kind of lazy of all.

(C) 2018 MyEureka Solutions, follow Tom for thoughts on Business Therapy and success strategies here, @TomFoxTrainer or

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