How I Eliminated My Chronic Childhood Laziness For Good

June 12, 2023

Or Rather, How I Built Discipline and Resilience Over Time.

Photo by Graham Holtshausen on Unsplash

Writing about my chronic childhood laziness will definitely surprise all my adult friends who met the disciplined, committed, and hardworking me.

But yes, I used to be a very lazy boy who liked sleeping, playing with his toys, and watching movies. And I wouldn't say I liked any form of house chores. Even though, as the fourth child, I had nothing much left to do except wash the dirty dishes. Which on a good evening, I could fly until around 11 pm until my mother or older siblings would pity my poor self and bail me out.

I decided to write about this to offer help to someone struggling with this ill trait, which is often not discussed in society. So, reflecting on how I took my childhood laziness to my teenage years and how automatically I eliminated it at some point amazes me.

Taking particular consideration that culturally, not all male children from my background outgrow their childhood laziness. For example, most men grow up needing to learn how to maintain good hygiene, clean, or cook a decent meal for themselves.

Though, it seems laziness and poor hygiene are peculiar to most men regardless of cultural background. I am stating this without any intention to derogate men. But I was amazed to find from this report that in the UK, Half of single men only change their sheets once every FOUR months.

Despicable Me Wallpapers Photo From Filmofilia

Collectively, my intention in this article is to employ the steps that I perceive reflectively helped me overcome my laziness to introduce practical solutions to eliminate laziness for personal development and replace it with the skills of discipline and resilience.

1 — Intentionality and Purposeful Living

I knew I could do better academically as a boy because my older siblings were high flyers. But my laziness could not allow me to perform above average.

However, everything changed one day when I answered a question that no one had answers to — even the most intelligent ones in the class. After tasting what it feels like to be acknowledged and be in the spotlight, I went home that day with a resolution to always stand out academically in school from then.

So, I knew it was time to intentionally adjust all areas of my life to achieve this purpose. By the way, I could answer the question because I heard my older siblings, who were over three classes ahead of me, discussing it the night before, and not like I was a genius.

The magic discovery is that if you have an active purpose you are working towards completing, you will understand just how dangerous laziness is. From hence, I discovered that an actual display of intelligence should reflect not just in performing well academically in school but in every other area of your life.

As an adult, moving my focus towards what is essential instead of the loophole of instant gratification and indulgence helps me overcome adulthood forms of laziness like mindless scrolling on devices, watching films, binge eating, etc., which usually becomes an addiction.

2 — Reading

Since the cure to my laziness started from the desire to be intelligent, reading became a vital aspect of my life.

So, similar to most people who love reading, personal development and self-help books are popular book genres mostly read globally. It is difficult to determine the most read book genre as it can vary greatly depending on various factors such as geographical location, age group, cultural background, etc.

Through cultivating the habit of reading, I realised that I could not be perfect, but I can be an excellent human being in most areas of my life.

I also discovered that generally, the foundational knowledge of most self-help/personal development books is helping their readers answer these questions:

Keep their eyes on the Prize.
Think about what can be lost.
Find the root cause.
Just do it!

Here is an article of mine on How to Read More Books in 3 Months Than You Have in 3 Years.

3 — Made Mentors

‘Mentorism’ is simply seeking advice and direction from someone you trust and respect.

Over time, I have seen that pretty soon, the line between them giving you advice and doing you a favour by helping you improve in that aspect of your life you needed their opinion on disappears.

On the other hand, you will notice that you will start closing the line of simply taking advice and direction into trying to impress your mentor. Gradually, this eliminates laziness in that area of life.

How this can be beneficial to adults is to seek mentorship in as many areas of life that you often need to be more active and work on.

Closing thoughts

Things that work will work well when acted upon. In that case, no desire to overcome laziness could eliminate it if the individual is not intentional about living a purposeful life, acquiring knowledge, and having people in their lives to impress and make them proud.

However, although laziness is just a lifestyle of constantly doing so little and procrastinations, which is not a big problem at all — generationally, a life of discipline and dedication to a cause has been more fulfilling and led to a happy life.

Many thanks for reading my perspective and giving feedback. Click_ Discuss…

My fervent wish is for the personal growth of everyone and the success of all young professionals who put their hearts and souls into finding their purpose in life.

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