10 Methods How to Get Rid of Laziness Once and For All

There are days when you feel motivated and you can’t wait to work on your goals and dreams. And there are also days when you feel no motivation at all that you just want to be lazy and do nothing. In this guide, you’re going to discover the cause of laziness and how to get rid of it once and for all.

Let’s be honest, do you think that you are a lazy person?

Well, I believe that no one is lazy. It is just that we do not know how to channel our motivation and our energy in the correct way.

One more thing, laziness, lack of motivation, and procrastination are not the root causes, instead, they are symptoms.

There are many reasons people become lazy or procrastinate. And once you get rid of the root causes that make them feel so, the motivation will come.

Therefore, if you want to get rid of laziness, the first thing you need to understand is what makes people lazy…

What Makes People Lazy?

So what makes you feel lazy and wants to procrastinate? Have you ever thought about that?

If you want to get rid of your laziness, you must first understand and find out are the causes of your laziness.

You have to know the root causes so that you can tackle it and get rid of it completely.

While I believe that no one was born lazy, it is just that people do not know how to use their potential and they do not know how to channel their energy in the right way.

Think about it, do you feel lazy when you are doing things that you are passionate about?

We have heard stories where people are able to burn the midnight oil play computer games until late at night. The crazy thing is that when these people wake up the next morning, they can still continue where they left off and play the games again.

This is what’s going to happen when you’re passionate about something that you can do it and talk about it all day and won’t feel tired.

Why is that so?

People are not lazy, they just have impotent goals; that is goals that do not inspire them.

Tony Robbins

As Tony Robbins said, people are not lazy, they just do not know how to channel their energy into the things that they want to get done.

This is why there are times when you feel totally motivated and there are also times when you feel lazy and have no motivation at all.

Here’s an example, when you set the right goals that connect you with your inner drives and values, you will be motivated to take action and achieve the goals.

On the contrary, if you set the wrong goals that go against your inner values and drives, you find it extremely difficult to have the motivation to work on them.

Thus, it is not about whether you are lazy. It is about how you manage your drives and channel your motivation correctly.

So, before we talk about how you can get rid of your laziness once and for all, you need to understand what are the causes of your laziness…

1. Lack of energy or feel sleepy

Do you feel sleepy and no energy all the time? You have to do the diagnosis on your lifestyle to discover the main culprit here.

Usually, if you wake up and feel tired early in the morning, it could be due to what happened the night before.

Maybe you are not sleeping well. Maybe you sleep late last night. Maybe you went for heavy exercise the day before and you feel exhausted when you wake up the next day. Maybe you drink alcohol before you sleep.

There are many reasons; you have to find out what causes you to feel tired and sleepy.

On the other hand, if you feel sleepy and have no energy in the afternoon, you may want to find out the reason as well. Did you eat too heavy? Or you have used up most of your energy in the morning?

When you’re tired, you don’t feel driven. That means, it makes you feel lazy to do the work that requires a lot of your willpower.

This is why most people choose to do work that are comfortable and more convenient like watching Netflix than creating content for their websites.

2. Fear of failure and success

This may sound a little funny when you think about it. How can you fear success when all you want is to be successful?

Some people afraid that if they have made it to the top, things will change and they just cannot cope with it.

For example, if you make a million dollars this year, does that mean you will have to go higher and earn 2 million dollars next year? Can you cope with the workload?

If you work hard and finally built a successful business, what’s next? Do you need to work harder to produce even more result? Do you have to sacrifice family time to grow your business?

These are some examples of why people fear success.

Conversely, the fear of failure will stop people from taking action. They created negative thoughts in their mind such as:

• What if I tried and things do not work out?
• What if I failed and never make it?
• What if I cannot pay my debts or my bills?

So, do you feel lazy to act because you’re afraid of failure or success? Find out if this is the cause of your laziness and learn to get rid of it.

3. Being a perfectionist

Are you a perfectionist? You do not have to worry if things go wrong or if you did not do it in the perfect way.

It is perfectly alright because you are human. And human will make mistakes because that is how we grow.

Do you worry too much about the details or you might screw things up? If you are suffering from this, you have to overcome the perfectionist part of you.

Some people feel lazy because they want everything to be perfect. They don’t want to start a website because they want to build the best website. And this can be a factor that stops them from moving forward.

4. Feeling overwhelming

Do you feel that the task is just too big and you can’t handle it? Or do you feel the task is going to take a long time to finish? Or maybe you feel you do not have the time and energy to do it?

Feeling overwhelming is a very common reason that makes people feel lazy and does not want to proceed.

For example, I’m a blogger and I understand that writing quality and long-form article takes a lot of time. Usually, it will take me about 2 to 3 hours to come up with a long-form article.

The problem comes when I don’t have 2 to 3 hours of free time to do so. I feel overwhelmed. And if I have just an hour of free time, I’d choose to do something else rather than working on the article.

This is how feeling overwhelming can make people lazy.

5. Feeling pain to work and pleasure to procrastinate

One reason people get lazy is that they feel that working on the task is too painful. And hence, they choose to do something much more pleasurable, like playing games and watching TV.

People will choose to go for pleasure instead of pain when they have a choice.

Just like you will choose to go out with your friends instead of staying at home working on your taxes.

You need to learn how to use pain and pleasure to motivate and drive you, and not against you.

So, the next time when you’re too lazy to do something, think about why you feel so.

What makes you feel lazy? What are the causes of your laziness?

When you know what are the root causes of your laziness, you can then proceed to get rid of them. And below are the 10 methods how you can do so.

10 Methods How To Get Rid of Laziness

Once you have identified the causes that make you feel lazy, it is time for you to overcome them.

I have listed 10 ways how you can cope with laziness. Choose the one that is the most suitable to you and put yourself into a position of power again.

You may want to try out a few of these techniques to see which one works best for you.

1. Focus on getting started

Most people are afraid to work on tasks that they don’t like. They feel lazy and pressured whenever they think about the work.

They will have thoughts such as “I have to do this” or “I must get this done”.

What you can do is to choose to focus on starting the work by changing your thoughts. Instead of thinking “I must do this”, change your thinking and ask yourself, “What is the one thing I can do right now?”

When you use the word “I have”, or “I must” or “I should”, you are telling yourself that you need to do it but you just do not want to.

‘I have to do this, but I don’t want to’. Sounds familiar?

The words, “Should”, “Have”, “Must”, and “Need” usually associate with a negative thought that makes you feel powerless.

It is just like you have to make the call, but you don’t feel like doing it. This is what stops you and make you feel lazy.

What you can do:

When you feel lazy and do not want to work on anything, just ask yourself, “What is the one small thing I can start doing right now?”

Once you have identified the one small thing, do it right away and you will build up the momentum.

2. Build a supportive and positive environment

Do you know that your environment can influence your mood and hence, your productivity?

Do you think you think you can focus on your work when all your colleagues are having fun, chatting, and laughing with each other?

No, you would want to join them because that’s pleasure. Unless you have extreme self-discipline, most people will be influenced by their environment.

There’s a saying, “Your environment will shape you or break you”, and it is true.

Try to read a book or do your work in a cyber café where everyone is playing games and having a lot of fun. Do you think you can focus on your reading?

I doubt it. So create a supporting environment that you will want to work in.

If you are working at home, make a specific work area so that you can concentrate your energy. There are just too many distractions and things that will seduce you to be lazy.

What you can do:

If you are in the office, try to get away from all the distractions. If you have a room, lock the room and get your work done before you unlock it. Clean and clear your office desk so that you will never feel like you are working in a mess.

Declutter and apply the principle of minimalism. A clear desk will get people to use it than a dirty and messy desk with papers and files.

Don’t let your surroundings affect you. Set up your environment so that you can win.

3. Take baby steps

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. How do you read a book? A chapter at a time.

For all the work and tasks you have at hand, the only way to get them done is to work on one small thing at a time.

If you are required to make 100 calls a day, focus on just making one call. If you are required to write a book, focus on writing just one paragraph.

You want to lower the resistant and make it so easy that you will not procrastinate on the task.

A lot of people feel lazy because the task is just too huge and they feel overwhelmed when they think about it.

Just like writing this article, I focus on creating the draft at first, and then I focus on writing the first paragraph.

I know that if I wanted this article to complete, I must focus on writing it step-by-step, word-by-word, paragraph-by-paragraph.

If you want to go to the gym, don’t tell yourself that you want to work out for an hour, instead, tell yourself that you just need to get change.

Once you have changed your attire, you are on the move and the momentum will gather and you will find yourself hitting the gym in no time.

What you can do:

Break down your tasks into smaller and actionable steps. The smaller the better. Remember, you want to make it so easy for you that you will have no excuse but to do it.

Break down your work so small that even a lazy person would do. This is how you lower the resistance to get things started.

Read this article: Why Start Small? The 5 Important Benefits of Starting Small

4. Take a short nap or rest

I know that you are busy and you just do not have time to rest or take a nap.

Here’s what you have to know:

Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, Eleanor Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill, John Rockefeller, and more, take short naps to get more things done.

Sometimes when you feel tired after lunch, you might just take a short 10 or 15 minutes nap. Here’s an article on why you should take a nap every day.

You will feel energetic and alert after that. However, make sure you do not oversleep.

When you sleep longer, you will go into deep sleep mode and it will make you feel tired after you wake up. A quick, cat nap will be sufficient.

And that’s what I do on most days. I will just close my eyes on my favorite couch and take a quick 10 minutes nap.

Sometimes I will feel groggy when I wake up, and I will do a little stretch and move my body or just wash my face. After that, I will feel so energetic and totally refresh.

So don’t be afraid when you feel sleepy or tired. Just get a short nap and you will feel refresh again.

“Take time to recharge. You do it for your phone, why not do it for yourself?”

What you can do:

Take a short nap when needed. If you feel this is the right way to keep you up and beat your laziness, you might want to make it your daily habit.

There’s nothing wrong with taking naps to refresh yourself. However, do not misuse this technique and take a long nap and wasted your time.

Below are additional resources to help you on this:

• The Importance of Taking a Short Break According to Research
• 13 Creative Ways How to Take Short Breaks During the Day

5. Get charged up

When you feel like no motivation and just want to put things off, don’t!

Instead, try to charge yourself up and motivate yourself. Here’s what I do when I feel like no motivation:

• I read books to get inspired and ready to work on my goals.
• I listen to my favorite inspirational songs or short video clips to get fired up.
• I review my goals and do some affirmations to get myself up again.

And some of these have become my habits. I will do them regardless of whether I’m motivated or not.

Before I start my work, I will just listen to my favorite uplifting music and then review my goals. I will read out loud what I wanted to accomplish.

Just like athletes. You will see them gather around and shouting before the match. They use pep-talk to motivate them to a higher level.

You can do this as well. If you feel sleepy doing your work, apply some of the techniques like reading an inspirational book before you start your work.

Trust me, it helps a lot and it will boost your energy and motivation.

What you can do:

Charge up yourself when you feel lazy…

• Read motivational books, or a chapter or an inspirational article.
• Listen to uplifting songs or music
• Watch a motivational short video clip
• Visualize your success
• Review your goals, and more
• Practice positive affirmations

• 15 Tips to Quickly Increase Your Motivation for Higher Performance
• 52 Best and Easy Motivation Tips You Can Actually Apply to Your Life
• Why Motivation Doesn’t Last And What You Should Do About It

6. Drink a cup of coffee

There you go, this is my ultimate key to staying productive and motivated every morning. I drink a cup of coffee around 9am each day, without a miss.

I don’t care if you say that this is bad for health, I’d rather choose to have a motivated day and get my work done and feel satisfied by the end of the day.

Do you know that coffee is the second largest commodity traded across the world? Petroleum being number one and coffee is at number two.

Well, I’m not asking you to drink 10 cups of coffee a day, but I’m sharing with you that drinking a cup of coffee can make you alert and fire you up.

It is your choice if you want to follow. You can choose to drink tea instead of coffee or other beverage if you want.

However, I found that coffee is still the best beverage that will keep me motivated and drive up for the day. Probably I have got used to it.

Anyway, you know my secret now. In fact, I have my coffee on my table while I’m writing this.

What you can do:

If you want to do this, drink coffee in the morning than in the late afternoon or at night. By the way, I seldom take coffee at night. It may disrupt my sleep and make me feel tired the next day.

“A coffee a day keeps the grumpy away.”

7. Imagine pain and pleasure

What makes people do what they do or avoid doing what they don’t do is because of pain and pleasure.

You have to understand that as human beings, we tend to do things that are pleasurable, and shun from doing things that cause us pain.

It is either the inspiration or the desperation that will get you moving in life.

Often times, people do not know how to manage their thoughts. They avoid pain and choose for short-term pleasure.

So, what you want to do is to change your thoughts. You want use pain to motivate you to work rather than pulling you away from it.

At the same time, you want to imagine and feel the pleasure you will get once you completed the work.

You will feel lazy and reluctant to take action when all you think about is focusing on the pain. Like, if you think that doing the work is boring and difficult, you will feel lazy to do it.

Instead, change your thoughts. Don’t focus on the pain, focus on the pleasure.

What you can do:

Whenever you feel like putting things off and be lazy, do this:

1. Imagine the pain of what will happen if you did not do the work.
2. Imagine the pleasure and what will happen after you have successfully completed the work.

Make it as emotional as possible. For example, when you feel lazy to make the sales call, think about what will happen if you don’t do it.

Probably you will not have sales for the week, less income for this month and that means no money to pay bills. Your colleague may look down on you and you will feel like a failure.

What if you take action and make the calls? You may close some sales, earn more commission this month and you may be able to buy the watch you always wanted.

Feel the pain and pleasure. Use the pain to push you and the pleasure to pull you to work on what you want.

8. Create a ritual and build habits

If you want to get rid of laziness and start to be productive to get things done, you have to create a ritual.

A ritual is a habit of doing things. Recently I learned how to create my evening ritual from Asian Efficiency. It is a great guide and you should check it out.

You can do that for the morning ritual too, workplace ritual, special task ritual, evening ritual or any other ritual you can think of.

For example, my recently created evening ritual is:

1. Set my alarm at 10.45 pm.
2. I will then switch off everything; TV, laptop, and stop doing my work.
3. After that, I will wash my face and brush my teeth.
4. Read for 15 minutes.
5. I will do some affirmations.
6. Get to bed and take 5 deep breaths before I sleep.

These 6 steps are my evening ritual. I will practice this ritual until it becomes my habit.

As for my morning ritual, it has always been the same. Here it is…

1. Wakes up at 6.30 am.
2. Brush teeth and wash up.
3. Drink a full glass of water.
4. Review my goals, practice affirmations, and visualize my dreams for 15 minutes.
5. Exercise and do some stretching for another 15 minutes.
6. Take a shower.
7. Take my breakfast.
8. Start my work.

I have a strict morning routine because I believe that my morning time is my most productive time.

This is because I feel fresh and energetic in the morning. Plus, I won’t have any distractions early in the morning. That’s why I love mornings.

If you do not have a set of routines or habits or rituals whatever you want to call it, it is time to create one.

Develop your own rituals and habits to help you get rid of laziness.

What you can do:

Take a piece of paper and write down your morning and evening rituals. Your ritual must consist of at least 3 to 10 steps. Do not make it too complicated.

Make sure you follow through and do your rituals. This will develop a productive habit and you will never feel lazy anymore.

• The 7 Best Evening Rituals for Success You Should Consider
• 7 Simple Habits You Should Develop to Wake Up with Motivation

9. Develop self-discipline and commitment

One of the most important keys to living a successful life is to keep your words and promises that you made to yourself.

What does it have to do with overcoming laziness? Everything!

You want to train yourself to be disciplined and did what you say you are going to do. In fact, it is one of the most important keys everyone needs to possess to produce amazing success in life.

When you say you are going to wake up at 6 am, do that. Wake up when your alarm goes off and do not hit the snooze button and sleep back.

When you say you are going to make 80 sales calls, do that. Do not procrastinate and do not put it off. The more you procrastinate, the more likely it will become your habit.

Thus, if you tackle it and do the task you said you are going to do, you are telling yourself that you have self-discipline and the next time, you will do what you say you are going to do.

Let me tell you a secret, successful people are successful because they have a strong self-discipline. They do what they say they will do.

If you do not have self-discipline, nothing will work for you. Goal setting will not work if you do not work on it. Affirmations are not going to motivate you if you do not even have the discipline to do them.

And how do you become discipline? By keeping your commitments. Do what you have committed.

Luckily, self-discipline is like a muscle. You can train and grow it. Whenever you make a promise to yourself or when you say you are going to do something, no matter how big or small it is, keep your commitment and do it.

If you decide to go to the gym, just go. Don’t procrastinate. When you say you are going to jog for an hour, do it and do not stop until you reach your target.

The stronger your self-discipline, the less likely you’re going to feel lazy.

But in order to get rid of laziness, you need to develop self-discipline through keeping your commitments. It’s like the chicken-and-egg story.

Thus, just push through and when you feel lazy, tell yourself to just do it. Build up your discipline now so that laziness will not be an issue to you.

What you can do:

Keep your commitment. Do what you say you will do.

This is the most powerful key to fighting laziness and getting out of procrastination. When you say something, mean it. Once you have set your goals, do whatever it takes and do your best to achieve them.

Read: 10 Great Tips How to Discipline Yourself to Achieve More

10. Have some fun

If you feel lazy to do something because it is all work and no fun, this is your time to redo your schedule.

You must include fun time and breaks into your daily, weekly and monthly schedule. Take at least an oversea vacation once a year. Do something you love or follow your hobby each week.

When there are all work and no fun, you are telling your mind that life is boring, and this will create a feeling of pain and make you feel lazy

This is why the Pomodoro technique works so well. It suggests that you work for a certain time frame, and then you take breaks in between.

For instance, you can work for 30 minutes and take a 5 minutes break. Repeat for a few sessions and then take a longer break like 30 minutes.

This prevents burnout and makes you more productive because you know there are breaks and fun waiting for you.

So recharge yourself from time to time. Take breaks and schedule fun time into your calendar.

What you can do:

The first thing you need to include in your calendar when you do planning is to insert your fun time. You want your brain to know that there will be a lot of fun so you tend to work harder.

So, include breaks in between your daily tasks. Create time for fun such as 30 minutes of dancing or an hour of swimming. Make good use of your weekend as well.

This is how you can use fun to motivate yourself to work and get rid of laziness.

Conclusion

So now you know why people are lazy and you have also learned how to get rid of your laziness.

Use these techniques to be more productive. Apply them and use them.

So what do you think works best for you? How do you fight your laziness? Share with me in the comment section below.