Well, who knows. Maybe you are.
You’re lazy. You don’t follow through. You quit things you say are important to you.
At least, that’s what you tell yourself…Let me explain.
The vibe in the air seems to be that some people are disciplined while others are lazy. I don’t buy it.
We come from tens of thousands of years of primates. Our sole job for 99% of our existence: survive.
In other words: in a world of evading dangerous predators, finding food and water, and keeping ourselves warm in the freezing cold…our brains have evolved to seek instant gratification.
I doubt my ancestor from 15,000 BC ate lunch thinking, “I really need to watch myself. I’m starting to see some love handles.”
Instead, he was probably thinking, “Holy fuck I hope I don’t see any lions today.”
My point is: it takes an incredibly long time for evolution to make even the tiniest of changes to our brains. Since that is the case, we have to realize that in our modern age, we are advancing our technologies and societies MUCH faster than we are advancing our own hardware.
We certainly know a lot more than the average human 300 years ago. But our brain chemistry hasn’t changed that much.
So, what’s the point of me saying this? It’s simple:
Give yourself a fucking break.
Holding yourself accountable is awesome. I playfully shit on myself every day.
“Don’t eat that, fatty.”
“Stop complaining and get your ass to the gym.”
“Get off your phone and do something productive, you lazy piece–“
Anyway. A healthy amount of calling yourself out is great (people hate it, but fat shaming myself is the only way I stay in shape).
However, it is vital to understand that just because you’re not the most motivated or productive person on planet earth…that doesn’t mean you’re broken.
We are working with ancient hardware in a super modern world.
It’s hard for you to build great habits because building great habits is fucking hard.
It’s hard for you to squash bad habits because squashing bad habits is fucking hard.
Most people who are crushing it in life are no smarter than you are. Hell, I’m doing pretty well myself and I’m a just a man-baby with a keyboard.
The things which often set these folks apart are tiny changes which have astronomical impacts:
• Changing the environment to make good habits easy and bad habits hard.
• Removing distractions–social media, news, email, etc.
• Getting over the habit void–i.e. the period of uncomfortable time where there hasn’t been any benefit yet to implementing a habit.
These are all doable for each and every one of us.
That doesn’t mean they are easy. It just means…dare I say it?
You can do it.