Are You Uninspired or Are You Lazy?

These days it’s all about following your passion, chasing your dreams and discovering your inspiration. We want to be happy, content and fulfilled.

Things like spirituality, open-mindedness and wanderlust are now considered valuable traits. But how easy is it to hide behind all of these concepts and fake being uninspired to cop out on expectations?

To find out whether your lazy gene has come out to play, take a look at our Inspiration Quiz.

1. Do you wait for inspiration to strike?

It’s a funny thing, inspiration. It’s as though inspiration become this tangible force that knocks on your door, wanders inside and then plops in front of your computer screen. And if it doesn’t knock, then you’re uninspired, right?

After all, it’s not your fault you didn’t complete the presentation/speech/essay/whatever. It’s not like it was even your fault. You were on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest just waiting for inspiration to strike you down and send you into a crazed fervor of creativity. But, well, the little guy never arrived. Just like the cable man, he seems to be late.

Oh well, there’s always that New Girl marathon on.

2. Do you take on the easiest job first?

Picture this: you have five things to do today. Three of them can be knocked over in a few minutes, but the other two are problematic. One of them you don’t even know where to start with and the other requires, ugh, research.

So what do you do? Well, you do the easy stuff first, right? Because at least then you’ve done something for the day. And as for the other stuff, well it’s not due to another couple of days…

3. Are you a procrastinator?

If you’ve spent all morning checking the news, updating your Facebook page and checking out the latest products from your favorite online store, then it’s safe to say you’re probably a procrastinator.

You’re the type of person that writes one line of an email and then switches the screen to browse Pinterest as a reward. You’re the type of person that goes for a walk around the building to ‘clear your head’, before you’ve even started work.

And you’re the type of person that would rather do anything, anything at all, than what you’re meant to be doing.

4. Do you meet deadlines by the skin of your teeth (or not at all)?

And we’re not just talking about work deadlines either. From being late for the bus to missing a sale deadline or not posting a letter in time, deadline-disorder impacts all areas of your life.

Perhaps you only feel motivated if you can feel a deadline breathing down the back of your neck? Or maybe you just don’t like being told what to do?

Either way, let’s just say you and deadlines do not get along. At all.

5. Are you allergic to exercise?

Do you hear Fat Amy in the back of your mind every time you consider working out?

“Sometimes I think I can do a 5km jog around the park, then I think, mmmm, better not.”

Sound familiar? Or perhaps you don’t even come up with an excuse for not exercising, you just watch the hamster-esque athletes whirling away at the gym while you sit outside and eat a donut. ‘Cos that’s how you roll.

6. Is your best friend take-away?

Do you know your way around the food court at your local shopping mall? Are you a take-away junkie? Do you think home-made meals come in Lean Cuisine containers?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you could be leaning in favor of ‘lazy’ rather than ‘uninspired’.

Laziness shows itself in already-prepared meals rather than home-cooked delights. Laziness appears in take-away lines rather than the supermarket. And laziness means that you’re more likely to drive 20-minutes to the local McDonalds than boil up some spaghetti at home. 

The Results

Now it’s time to find out where you’re inspiration meter is really sitting …

Add up how many questions you answered ‘yes’ to. If you have more than two ‘yes’ responses, then you, my friend, are suffering from laziness. And I say ‘suffering’ in the way that the truly lazy can only understand, because the truth is that climbing out a laziness slump is harder than it sounds – not only because you’re unmotivated to start climbing in the first place.

Being lazy is more than just sitting around all day doing nothing. It’s a way of life, a sensation, feeling and way of living that supersedes everything else. And while the advantage of being lazy is that it’s easy, the disadvantage is that you’re missing out on a lot of cool stuff because you can’t be bothered changing your lifestyle.

The good news is that laziness doesn’t have to be chronic. You can turn things around. Here’s how.

Ways to boost your inspiration and knock out your laziness

• Grab inspiration by the horns. In reality, inspiration is rarely going to knock on your door. Sure, there will be those rare occasions that it pops up while you’re in the shower, on the loo or while you’re sleeping. But mostly, it’s a sneaky little sucker and one that you’re going to have to chase down yourself. So don’t allow yourself to believe the myth that inspiration simply ‘arrives’.
• Go outside. How inspired do you expect to be by the same view you see day in and day out every day? Get outside, go for a walk and enjoy new sights and sounds. Maybe along the way you’ll see a color, smell a fragrance or notice an interaction that fires up your imagination.
• Speaking of imagination … too many people assume that you can’t be creative unless you are favored by inspiration. And often, this type of thinking is what got them into their lazy rut to begin with. The truth is that all of us have an awesome imagination. If you don’t believe me, think of all the times you’ve come up with worst-case scenarios when your boss, boyfriend or best friend has said they need to talk to you. Creativity isn’t just for artists or painters. It’s for everyone. It’s how and why we have such cool technology, gadgets and products. So embrace your creative side!
• Take an adventure. When was the last time you went on a road trip, camped outdoors or explored a new place? We get so stuck in our ruts and we forget to explore the wide, wonderful world that we call home. Go and be inspired by what is already around you!
• Meet new people. Everyone has a unique and different take on life. Whether it’s a belief in reincarnation or knowledge of the quantum theory, everyone adds a new and interesting dimension to your personal life experience. By meeting new people you can gather concepts, ideas, thoughts and musings that may never have occurred to you otherwise. And I’m sure that among at least one of these is the inspiration you’ve been waiting for.
• Refuse laziness at the door. Sometimes we need to counteract laziness with stubbornness. None of us actually want to go to clean the dishes, wash the car or write an essay. But the less lazy of us know that it has to be done and the sooner it is completed, the sooner you can get started doing things you really want to do.
• Start exercising. If you answered ‘yes’ to the exercise allergy, one of the greatest tips I can give you is to get started with some form of exercise regime. It doesn’t have to be full on, and you can even start with just a 20-minute walk a day. But I guarantee that once you have been exercising regularly for six weeks your laziness gene will have been knocked down to the bottom of the list. You’ll feel inspired, motivated and more in control. And better yet – healthier and happier.
• Do it for you. And last but not least, ask yourself what advantages you gain by being lazy? Is it helping you to chase your dreams? Discover your inspiration? Follow your passion? No. Because all of these things require work, and work isn’t something the lazy are fond of. But if you want to live the life you’ve always dreamed of, you need to sow the seeds first.

And as much as I have joked that laziness is a gene, the reality is that it really is something that is inherent in all of us. We all have the capability of being lazy. But we also have the ability to be truly inspirational and to lead meaningful and happy lives.

So ask yourself, at the end of the day, what type of life do you want lead?

[ Read: How to Build Self Discipline ]