Why You're Too Lazy To Study (And What To Do About It)

When a person calls another person lazy, it's usually intended as an insult. Despite the use of laziness as an insult, it's actually not a completely negative action. Being lazy is not being incapable of doing something. Being lazy is being unwilling to do something. This might seem like a minor change in wording but it's absolutely essential to understanding what's behind any bouts of laziness you're suffering through.

If you're too lazy to study then you're not incapable of studying. You're just unwilling to.

But how much do you really want to study? Logically, you may know that the education would be good for you but you most people still struggle with it. Where is this unwillingness coming from?

A History Of Lazy

Not doing stuff may seem unattractive to people today but think about this from an evolutionary perspective. Getting enough calories to survive today might be easy but throughout most of human evolution it was a major challenge. People would have to hunt for hours and hours a day to bring home enough food for survival. Doing anything other than something required for survival is a waste of energy in those situations.

(They didn't run marathons for fun because it would be a dangerous risk of resources. They didn't seek to become bodybuilders either. That may have helped them survive better but survival is the goal not “better” survival. Your education isn't survival. It's “better” survival.)

In fact, if you look at the leaders in many different species, laziness is a rather common trait. Alpha male lions would hunt for only a few hours a day. The rest of the day was used for resting. Any more hunting is excessive and unnecessarily dangerous.

I say this to remind you that your laziness comes from a long genetic line of laziness in the past. Laziness is a sign that you're surviving successfully. The world owes you a big congratulations in successfully setting your life up in a way that allows you to use less energy than you may have had to use.

That's not the whole story though...

You Have To Do It

The alpha's of a species can get away with laziness the most. That being said, you don't have to be an alpha to feel the same desire for the position. What are the real reasons that you want to study?

What are you really studying for? It's it for yourself? If you're mister or misses noble you might say, “I care about furthering my education,” but is that really it? Most people have much different true motivations.

Do you really just want to make your parents happy?

Do you really just want to make your teachers happy?

Do you really just want to make the colleges you apply for happy?

Do you feel like you have to study?

The vast majority of people that struggle with studying do not want to study for their own improvement. If you need to study because of some external motivation then you're always going to have to watch of for procrastination because you're subtly admitting that you're not in control of your own life.

You're not an alpha if you have to do something for someone else. The need to procrastinate is the urge to take back control of your own life. You may know it's temporary but it's your body's way of saying you're still in control.

That brings us to one of the best ways to end procrastination.

You Don't Have To Do It

As long as you think about studying as something that you “have to do.” You're going to struggle getting yourself to do it.

Studying is not something you have to do. You can get subpar grades, heck, most students could still pass all their courses. If you wanted to you could continue to not start studying. Every time you realize that you're putting off studying you should reassure yourself that you can not study anytime you want to not study (and mean it.) Studying is a choice.

We live in the most advanced time in history. If there was ever a time that a person could survive without doing anything that they didn't want to do, it's now. You never need to develop the discipline to farm a field. If you've read this far then you're probably smart enough to do alright in life putting in hardly any effort at all.

That being said, do you really only want part of what you're capable of? (It's okay if you do.)

There has never been more opportunities for you to focus your life on the things you love and do absolutely amazing things with them. Everyone has something that motivates them without even trying (even if it's something seemingly stupid like wandering the web.) You can do virtually anything you want compared to every other time in history.

Knowing that you can do or not do anything you want...

Why Do You Want To Study

In the dream world, everyone would study everything because they absolutely adore the subject. Math fans would spend their time studying math. History buffs would be studying history. Everyone would have their own little joys of learning. The world doesn't work quite so magically but everyone seems to want you to think it does.

You may have a favorite subject. If you do then you probably don't need too much help preparing for it. It just comes natural to you. Teachers tend to want you to feel that way about every subject. Just think about it. Why do math teachers teach math instead of English? It's usually because math is the subject they love. Teachers tend to love their subjects. That makes it difficult for them to understand how it feels to not love them. This leads them to struggling to provide advice when you're not as interested as they are.

You don't have to fall in love with a subject to study it. All you need is a few good reasons. If you're just looking to “pass the course” then, of course, you're going to struggle to get the motivation to study. You're never too lazy to study something you really love though. If, on the other hand, you want to make a career out of the information you're learning, studying will become easier. There are plenty of other reasons to learn subjects.

Every class could have a whole list of reasons. With English courses you could try to learn to communicate with other people more effectively. With Math courses, you could look at the problems like puzzles to solve. At the very least, in any course, you can admit that you're just trying to score a good grade for some external reason like parents or college. While it's not the most powerful motivation, admitting it in advance can help you beat procrastination.

You need to find a real reason that you want to study. It doesn't have to be noble. It doesn't have to be the reason your teachers would give it. It only has to be something that you can relate to.

So, the next time you find yourself struggling with procrastination, don't beat yourself up about it. You're just doing what your body was meant to do. You don't have study if you're too lazy to study. It's always your choice. When you know it's your choice you can find the reasons to study that are right for you.