Nov 8 2011
Winter Is Just Around The Corner
"Ant's don't think summer, they think winter" Jim Rohn
Have you heard Aesop’s fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper? The Ant works diligently through the summer collecting food for the winter. Meanwhile, the grasshopper goofs off all summer long not collecting a single scrap of food for the winter. When winter finally comes the grasshopper has no food. He asks the ant for food but the ant tells him he should have been working instead of goofing off. The Grasshopper then dies while the ant has plenty of food to last until spring.
Kind of harsh, right? My first thought was: “Wow that Ant is not very nice! He should give the Grasshopper some food! “ (Soup kitchens were invented after Aesop)
In our modern times being lazy in America probably won’t make you literally die of starvation, probably the opposite. BUT it can metaphorically starve your dreams to death.
That’s why I believe laziness is so insidious. It can completely derail the best intentions.
This fable, while morally interesting doesn’t really offer any practical advice on how to beat laziness. Aesop certainly didn’t write a “How to Guide”.
Here are 5 ways to beat laziness and become more like the ant instead of the grasshopper
1) Take a small step or a small action – This is the best way I’ve found to beat laziness. Identify what you are procrastinating. Is it going to the gym, writing a paper? Maybe it’s working on a project. Work on it for 10 minutes. Or even 5 minutes. But build momentum. One of my goals has been to write more. In some cases I’ve sat at the computer screen and just stared at it blankly, or I would start reading news articles. Before I knew it I had put off writing and wasted a whole hour of my time. Now what I do is I will force myself to write for 5 minutes. It doesn’t matter what I am writing just as long as my hands are banging on the keys and writing sentences. Sure it’s not that great all the time but once I do that, it’s like I poked a hole in the dam. After the 5 minutes goes by I’ve written for 10 minutes and then yesterday before i knew It I’d written for 3 hours straight just on pure momentum alone. Now I don’t believe in writers block. I say to myself, “You don’t have writers block, you’re just not writing.”
That’s what taking a small action is going to do for you. It’s going to break your through your laziness. Even if I only did write for 5 minutes and stopped at least I got 5 minutes of writing in. That’s better than nothing. Once you finish reading this, pick something you have been putting off. Try working on it for just 5 minutes. See what happens!
2) Schedule A Time In Your Calendar- A common excuse for not taking a step is that you don’t have enough time. I bet you have 10 minutes. If you don’t have time, schedule it in your google calendar. Everyone has 10 minutes. That’s not a good excuse, it’s just the grasshopper talking.
3) Tap Your Social Network - If you can’t do it on your own, find a friend. Make a friend that has a similar goal and work together on it at the same time. Hold each other accountable. Be careful though, if you try this strategy and start hanging out with other grasshoppers instead of ants it’s not going to work.
4) Block out all distractions – In many cases it’s not that I didn’t have every intention of working on my goal it’s that I was completely distracted by something else. I would get so distracted that I would even forgot about what I was working on in the first place. If you work on a computer, I know you know what I am talking about. The Internet provides instant gratification for just about everything, it makes me wish I had a typewriter so that I can be away from the temptation of 24 hour distraction! Not only that but if you have an iphone it’s like you have a distraction devise at your finger tips all the time. So turn off your phone, allow no distraction and focus on the task at hand. You will be amazed at how much you can get done when you block out all your other distractions.
5) Imagine how amazing it will be once you complete what your working on - I know you are not just working for works sake, right? Most of us are doing work because there will be a payoff or reward at the end. Think about the end result and not just the work itself. Really visualize how amazing it will be and use that as motivation to use step one.
Closing Thought:
The reality is that we put off things because we believe there is going to be some huge pain involved in doing the work. We will sit and imagine how difficult it will be, or how it probably won’t work out. So we procrastinate until it becomes too late. What you will find if you start working on what you were putting off it is never as bad as you built it up to be in your mind. If you take one thing away from this post: Take a small step. Take a small action. Taking a small step or action is by far the most powerful way to beat laziness and the grasshopper within.