Deep Thoughts: When You Don’t Feel Like Doing Anything

I don’t feel like doing anything and it would be great if I didn’t have anything to do. Maybe I should just lie down and take a nap. Yet I have assignments to do, I have work to do and even reading which I do enjoy feels like such a drag. Letting my mind peruse what I am feeling, I find that I am not sad, sick or worried, neither am I excited or angry. My state of mind should, in fact, thrive in working, however, something is just off. I lack motivation, I am bored and I haven’t even started doing anything yet. Imagine that!

The thing is, when we feel like we don’t want to do anything, in reality, we do not want to do the things we have set our mind to do. Literally whatever we consider as work. What does this mean? Our minds have a way of stressing over things we consider work. Psychologists have said that we humans tend to connect every action with either pleasure or pain. Therefore when we find ourselves lacking motivation, work at this point is a pain especially if we are just about to start and the work looks daunting.

So what to do. In as much as you don’t feel like doing anything, don’t just sit there moping or be tempted to lie down thou sluggard. You still need to get busy, get busy with what you consider fun, and when I say fun, I mean fun things that add value. Billy Preston said in his 1974 Billboard Hit: Nothing from nothing leaves nothing.

Don’t forget it’s about where you are going and doing “nothing” will not get you there. Therefore, even the fun things should point in that direction. Starting with that would put you in a good mood to consider doing the actual work.

Then you must switch to doing the actual task, not making the switch means you are lazy, indolent, lethargic, a sluggard, give me more expressions to use. Reveling in doing what you like is to put you in the mood for work. So at the end of the day, the work still needs to be done and you got to do it to succeed. Chris Widener’s quote cinches it:

“The measure of your success usually comes down to who wins the battle that rages between the two of you. The ‘you’ who wants to stop, give up, or take it easy, and the ‘you’ who chooses to beat back that which would stand in the way of your success – complacency.” Chris Widener

So for me what did I do when I felt like doing nothing? I took to Google to find out what to do when you don’t feel like doing anything. Surprise surprise, I am not the only one feeling so. That calmed me down a bit as there was also some hilarious articles and comments on the net. I noticed that while I was finding out the root of the above dilemma, my mind became active once more. Puzzling right? Interestingly, my search resulted in this write-up hence browsing at that point was an activity that added value. And once I was done writing, I did a task I had been postponing for days. It felt really good to had made that switch.

So when you feel like doing nothing, get busy with what you consider fun first.

To sum it up, it is a part of our nature that, in spite of all that we need to do, and even desire to, we may find ourselves not wanting to do anything. And what separates us who will become highly successful from the ordinary, is the decision we make about what we do at that moment. Which is to first get busy doing something we like that adds value then switch back to the task and not yield to complacency.

Jaa Mata!