Self discipline for Lazy People
Yoga for Geeks by kk+
We have reached the end of the Lazy People Series and this one is for people like me who want to start developing self-discipline to help with things like personal development but don’t want to give up their lazy ways.
Lazy people can use self-discipline
Having self-discipline and being lazy are not mutually exclusive! To explain: imagine wanting to keep a daily yoga practice routine going (yup, this one’s right out of my life) but finding that you often lack the motivation on days where you’ve not slept as well, or whatever. Well, self-discipline can be about remembering why you wanted to do it in the first place, thus meaning that the lazy person realises that they do want to do it really, et voila! Yeah, it doesn’t always work, but that’s ok – it helps me not have to fight the fact that I’m a lazy guy, so I thought it might help others.
Self-discipline: the basics
Self-discipline can, at it’s core, be broken into two parts:
- Awareness
- Choice
These two things are simple, but not easy, thus qualifying as key to personal development, and bloody annoying.
Non-lazy people can simple make the requisite effort to stay conscious and aware of a particular situation and then make the suitable choice as preferred. This guide is for lazy people however, so I’m gonna break it down into itty-bitty, easy, bite-size steps.
Awareness
There’s a few rules that will help a lazy person (any maybe anyone else too) when they are working on awareness.
- When you realise later on that you forgot, get mad
- As soon as you get mad, get over it
- Think about when you wanted to remember
Notice I said when, not if. This and getting mad is the easy part for everyone. Part 2 is easy for lazy people – staying mad is a lot of effort, so forgive yourself and let it go. Part 3 is key, just think about what the situation was where you wish you’d remembered. Nothing more, else it’s too much like effort. Again, this will probably happen naturally anyway, but if not just take 2 seconds to remember.
The idea here is that slowly, over time (but with minimal effort at any one point), you will remember sooner and sooner until you remember before you go to act.
Seriously, this really works, it’s how I learnt changes to my customer service technique and is really great for something that comes up fairly often as you’ll start to see results pretty quickly.
Once you remember before you are about to act, you are now fully aware and ready for step 2.
Choice
The boring rinse and repeat part is over now and you are ready to take some very easy action. Here, all you have to do is remember the reasons you wanted to use self discipline in the first place and then choose what to do next. If remembering something feels like too much effort, write it on a bit of paper and keep it in your pocket – or just write it on your hand or forehead.
An example is called for here.
I want to practice yoga in the mornings. Some mornings I just plain forgot, but slowly over time I remembered as I was walking downstairs, and even getting out of bed, that I wanted to do this. Next I had to remember why I wanted to do this. The increased flexibility, the feeling after having had a good stretch for 20 minutes, the increased strength, the chance to show off at how much progress I’ve made at the next class (oh yes, when it comes to motivation appeal to your ego, it’s a genius at getting you motivated for no effort at all). Having remembered those things I could drag my sleepy head over to a yoga mat, do a few sun salutations and then relax into corpse pose (the lazy person’s favourite – lie flat on your back and relax).
Hey presto, two weeks later and I’m reaping the benefits from doing no yoga most days to doing a little bit most days. And, to quote Dave Navarro, sometimes shooting for OK can give incredible results.
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