How Laziness Sneaks In
There’s common laziness, of course. It’s usually expressed as procrastination, channel surfing, and basically not doing anything.
This is the first hurdle most of us face when we’re trying to start a business or keep one running. We’ve got to overcome inertia to get things done.
Here’s the thing. Once you’ve overcome ordinary laziness and consider yourself a “hard worker,” chances are you’ll slip back into laziness again.
It’s the laziness of always doing the same things because it’s easier than improving — even if what you’re accustomed to doing is not nearly as effective as you know it could be.
Example: You figure out a process that works for generating leads and landing clients. It works. And so you use your process over and over again.
Eventually you reach a limit to what you can do and earn. You now have a choice. Keep doing what you’ve always done… or… change.
Most people don’t make any changes because they are too hard to make. That’s laziness. A different kind of laziness, but laziness nonetheless.
It takes intense focus and dedication to break out of patterns and habits that no longer serve you as well as they should. You literally have to find a way to stop the old way of doing things and invent a new (and better!) way of doing things.
So which kind of lazy are you? The kind who doesn’t do anything — or the kind who resists making improvements?
I’ve rarely suffered from “normal laziness.” I’m a pretty action-oriented guy. But I sometimes find myself in the second category… doing things the way I’ve always done them because it takes too much effort to change.
And this is the kind of laziness I’ll be working to overcome in 2009.
How about you?
-Ryan M. Healy
