Understanding Willpower and Laziness

A large number of people consider willpower and laziness to be one of their challenges, or they consider themselves lazy in certain areas of life. This occurs in many areas of life, especially with regards to health and fitness. Understanding what willpower and laziness really is, will help you to find a much more positive space.

As awareness is the first step to change, improving performance means you must first become self-aware.

The willpower and laziness theory is something that has been seen and heard for a very long time.  The  increasing rise of social media, media influencers and the ability to now compare, so easily to other people’s best or worse, has provided the opportunity to play the comparison game and with that the willpower and laziness mindset.

Do You Should All Over Yourself?

Ever said “I should do this, I should do that”? Often when this is said, it’s not understood why.

Always be curious and question why? Sometimes habits and patterns are just something people do because that’s simply what they have always known.

Social media, mainstream media or how you’ve been educated will impact the actions you take, many of these now being on autopilot.

Without an awareness of how you actually do want your life to look and why you do want to achieve your goals, you’ll end up thinking you should do this and that while living other people’s expectations and lives.

Telling yourself that you just lack willpower and are lazy prevents you from wanting to do anything about your situation and make the necessary changes that would create a positive outcome in your life. Not understanding what you do want and why you have the habits you do, erodes self confidence and fills the mind with limiting beliefs, that actually limit you.

What is Your Self Talk?

The common phrases are “I just don’t have the willpower” “I know I’m lazy” “I know I should but I can’t be bothered” “I really want to but something is holding me back, I’m not sure what it is, I think I just don’t have enough willpower”.

I hear these all too often and these comments and these beliefs do nothing for the desire to achieve your goals. They in fact become a self-fulfilling prophecy, something to fall back on when you don’t follow through and achieve what you want to achieve.

Now it is true that health and fitness need to be a priority. Putting yourself first is a novel idea for many. All having the same amount of time in a day, what’s needed is to take action, even when you don’t always feel like it. Solutions and reasons are needed, not excuses and why nots!!

Self talk is incredibly important and has a huge impact on the life you create and how you create it. If you were to change your self talk and understand why you do what you do, you could progress without the limiting beliefs and self sabotage patterns. Having the skills and tools to change how you think about yourself can be the game changer that builds the habits and patterns that support your goals and the so-called willpower and laziness challenges drift away.

Staying stuck in the “I’m lazy, I have no willpower mode”, only serves to keep us stuck! We need to move to the, I don’t want to do that, I choose not to do that mode.

Do You Really Lack Willpower?

The problem is, it isn’t just willpower that prevents us from being healthy and fit. It isn’t just us being lazy!!!!

When you get up exhausted, tired from life and the kids need to be looked after, tell me it’s willpower.

When you have dealt with your emotions and life for the last 30 years by getting help from your  so called friend (food, alcohol, TV, etc ), and you don’t know how to deal with yourself otherwise, tell me it’s willpower.

When you’re exhausted after a long day at work that you don’t enjoy and it takes an hour to get home, sitting in traffic, tell me it’s willpower.

When you wake, not looking forward to the day because you can’t get your head off the pillow and you don’t have the energy to deal with your colleagues or deadlines tell me it’s willpower.

When you have a loveless relationship or get put down on a regular basis and don’t know where to turn, tell me it’s willpower.

When you are embarrassed that you let yourself get this way and the gym seems scary, tell me it’s willpower.

When you’ve already made hundreds of decisions before lunch, you are tired and hungry and just want something to eat before your next meeting, tell me it’s willpower.

When you get up super early to help the kids before school, do drop off, then go to work, to go home exhausted, to cook dinner for everyone, tell me its willpower.

When you haven’t been taught how to eat for you and you are now on your 10^tth diet that is working in the short term but you feel restricted, hungry, tired and grumpy, tell me it’s willpower.

When you feel generally unwell, tired and foggy and don’t know how to feel better, tell me it’s willpower.

When you think you’re doing everything right to eat healthy and haven’t even been taught the basics and what you’ve googled is confusing or not working, tell me it’s willpower.

When you dislike what you see each time you look in the mirror and you tell yourself so, tell me it’s willpower or that its laziness.

When you have pain in your body and it takes all your energy just to hold that in your body so you don’t scream at everyone during the day, tell me it’s willpower.

When you feel so uncomfortable in your own skin that just moving in your clothes feels uncomfortable and you feel like a fraud showing happiness all day, tell me its willpower or that its laziness..

When you are just tired from life and are desperate to gain energy, to wake up feeling great and looking great, but nothing you do seems to work, tell me it’s willpower.

When you look back to fonder days, when you did bounce out of bed and laughed every day, but don’t know how to get back to that state, tell me it’s willpower.

You see, it isn’t willpower. You are not lazy.

So What Is It?

• Does a lazy person get up early, for a job they dislike?
• Does a lazy person work all day to come home and cook for the family?
• Does a lazy person get up exhausted, put on a happy face and get through the day the best they can?
• Does a lazy person do the things they don’t want to do all day, just to provide for themselves and their family?
• Does a lazy person keep searching because they know there is something better?????
• Does willpower and laziness really make sense?

NO!! It’s Not Willpower and Laziness!!

You are not lazy; you do not lack willpower!

What you lack, is love for yourself.

What you lack is an understanding of what works for your body.

What you lack is an understanding of what it is you really want.

What you lack is an understanding of how to effectively deal with your emotions.

What you lack are the skills and tools to navigate life and what happens in life.

What you lack is a belief that you really can be as great as you are.

What you lack is the education, support and guidance about your body and health, how to understand your body and the signs, signals and symptoms it shows you.

What you lack is the accountability to take those action steps.

What you lack is the community of like-minded people who will bring you up, not tear you down.

I’ve never met anyone with a willpower problem.

I’ve never met a person who is truly lazy, yet still manages to hold down a job, to create a life and do the best they can each day.

We all are doing the best we can with what we know –What if you knew more though? What if you knew what could really help you?

What Else Is It?

I have met thousands of people with priorities that don’t suit their goals.

I have met those with health challenges that don’t know how to heal from.

I have met people that are simply exhausted and don’t know how to feel better.

I have met people who have never been taught about their body, what is right for them and what suits them.

I have met people who want to be the best version of themselves, but they have a set of sabotage patterns, belief systems and habits that keep them where they are.

I have met people who are constantly seeking answers to their health and fitness challenges, only to find things that work for short periods of time, that set them back and that invariably cause them to feel worse about themselves.

Stop calling yourself lazy! Stop telling yourself you have no willpower! Stop allowing other people to call you lazy and suggest you have no willpower!!

Getting to the underlying cause of what leads you to believe willpower and laziness is your problem will help you to take the proactive and positive actions that matter, as will seeking help from those who can provide an environment for you to be the best version of yourself.

You’ll never look back and you’ll see you never had a willpower problem after all!