Can you recall the last time you were lazy? If you are workaholic, perfectionist and overachiever this will probably be harder to do since you really never have time to just do nothing. But sometimes you really want to give in to your laziness and do nothing. But did you notice that being lazy and being tired or even too tired might sometimes be confusing to distinguish one from another?
Feel lazy, but still have a tone of work to do
If you want to achieve something you have to work for it. This is something that we were taught from an early age on. You might not have enthusiastic about working hard since it isn’t easy. But you have to do it if you really want to achieve your goal and be a successful individual.
With that in mind think if you have ever caught yourself in tones of things to do but you just didn’t feel like doing them? How many of those times you thought of yourself as being lazy and feeling bad about it? To be honest all hard working individuals experience that. But can you distinguish when are you actually being lazy or in truth tired which caused you to be lazy?
It is no secret that being an overachiever, who always does at least one extra thing in a day, gets tired on a regular basis. Sometimes even too tired to complete the “to-do” list of the day, which frankly is too long to be completed solely by one person. This unfortunately happens all the time in the modern world.
Hard work makes us satisfied with ourselves but also makes us tired
Reaching beyond your limits is challenging. It is ok to have high expectations for yourself and your daily goals. But you also have to let yourself rest and recharge. Get to know yourself and your limits. Everyone has them. The more strenuous your day is, the less energy it will leave you with in the evening or for the weekend. It might even leave you too tired to enjoy the rest of the day.
Think about your phone for a second. If you interact with it all the time, its battery will die quite quickly opposed to if you just leave it sitting on your desk for the day, right?
It is the same with you actually. The harder you work the sooner you will reach your “empty battery” state and become tired or even too tired to function properly.
Don’t ever get too tired and recharge
Photo by Caju Gomes on Unsplash
Remember that you cannot be at your limit and give 100% all the time. Take into account that you might not know what your 100% are. Remember your phone again and those last 10% of your phone’s battery. It has never 10% of battery left really. Most of phones shut down quite quickly when the battery level reaches below that number.
It is probably the same with you but with a significant difference: your 100% is you functioning amazing and doing your job excellent. But every % that goes down, the quality of your work might be decreasing and you are getting tired. Not initially but when you go below 50% the quality decreases potentially and you get too tired to complete the tasks the best you can. The lower the number the harder it is.
Be careful not to overdo and cross your limit. You have to save some strengths and energy left for your family, friends and hobbies. Don’t miscalculate your limits and abilities because it might cost you your vacation for instance. So instead of having an active vacation you will just lay down, rest and do nothing for the week. Simply because you are too tired (or lazy) to do anything else. You can do that at home, not in a 5 star hotel on an exotic beach. All thou it sure is nice.
Increase your productivity by resting and fight being tired
It is OK if you let yourself be lazy from time to time. Lay down, read a good book and take a nap if you have to. This in fact isn’t being lazy, it’s called rest or even regeneration. Make sure you get enough of it. If necessary set an alarm for when your rest time is. And if you have to set another to remind you it is over. This will prevent you from delaying your chores and tasks and also give you enough time to refill your batteries. If you will be well rested, you will also be more productive and less lazy.
If you noticed that you are too tired to get yourself to function properly at work and in daily activities you have to give it a thought that you might not be getting enough sleep. We won’t be getting too much into it at this moment, but you can try a few things to increase the quality of your sleep.
On the other hand if this isn’t the case and you really think you are being lazy for no good reason you should try to figure out why. Maybe this article will help you with that: Why am I so lazy? Why do I keep delaying things?
Never be too tired to live the life you love
Sometimes you have to allow yourself to be lazy to refill your batteries. Even the best athletes rest to regenerate, so why shouldn’t you, since you are just as hard working as they are, right?
