Perhaps our generation’s greatest failing is how lazy we are.
So many of my readers have sent me emails talking about how they want to stop being lazy and take action… how they want to improve their finances, make more money, or get healthier… or even READ my book (which is sitting under their bed)… but they simply can’t find the motivation to do so. They just can’t stop being lazy.

How many? Thousands and thousands every year.
Interestingly, nobody likes being lazy. We GENUINELY want to change our behavior. We simply cannot figure out how to stop being lazy. We use words like “motivation” (one of the worst words to use in behavioral change since it means almost nothing). We say the “S” word: “Yeah, I really should do that…”
We do all kinds of things that seem productive, but are worthless at best, and counter-productive at worst.

Think about the most common things you want to change. For most of us, they fall into similar buckets: Improve our careers, money, relationships, and health.

Under those, you get specific things like “I want to travel more”, “I want to work less”, “I want to stop procrastinating”.
All achievable. Yet few of us do.

Over the last 12 years, I’ve developed several models that increase productivity, and change behaviors for good.

Here are 6 things you have to know before even trying to stop being lazy.

How to stop being lazy: 6 important behaviors
1. Whenever you say “should” — “Yeah, I really should do X” or “They should just do Y” — you have already lost.
2. Guilt is not a productive emotion.
3. Quick wins produce massive momentum for behavioral change. (Hint: This is why financial books that begin with “create a budget” are almost never effective. This is a massively important and frequently missed point.)
4. Automation is more powerful than almost anyone can imagine.
5. Simply “trying harder” will almost never work, yet most Americans follow this policy repeatedly for their entire lives.
6. Tactics are not enough. Most of us have crippling barriers and invisible scripts that “screen” out even the most sophisticated tactics. (For example, I could give you the best tips on earning more ever created, but if you don’t believe you deserve money, nothing matters — you will not even process the tips.)

I can get into more of this later, but first, I wanted to share an extremely insightful comment I ran across about being lazy.

How to stop being lazy: one Redditor’s answer
The answer one commenter gave was so insightful that I’m re-posting it here for my own readers:

QUESTION: How can I stop being so damn lazy?
BEST ANSWER: “Look man, there are literally hundreds of good ways to get on with the tasks on your plate.
I find a combination of good goal setting and use of things like The Pomodoro Technique work wonders for helping me get stuff done and move forward.
But it’s not so much about being productive. It’s about living up to your word.

I’m guessing that you’re a creative, intelligent sort of person. Are you a perfectionist? That seems likely. Oftentimes, people with those characteristics really get bogged down by the magnitude of the tasks in front of them. Doing something means risking failing at it. Sometimes that risk seems to loom so large, and the drive to perfectionism is so strong, that any sort of meaningful and productive task just seems like it’s not worth it. Why risk failing, when you can just do something else instead?

Of course, in the back of your mind you know that those choices are causing you to fail anyway. That’s why you’re miserable.
So you have to re-think things in a different way. First up, you have to give yourself permission to fail, permission to be less than perfect sometimes. Failing at something, making mistakes, opens up a great opportunity to learn something new.
Second, you have to recognize that laziness and procrastination are destructive to your word. When you take on a task you make a promise to somebody (perhaps just yourself, but somebody) that you will complete that task. Putting that off brings you out of integrity with your word in the matter. That’s not bad, or wrong, it just is what there is in the situation.
But integrity is the thing that makes life work. It is the structure that holds our interactions together. When integrity fails, the structure collapses. Honoring your word is the way to make sure that the integrity of the situation remains intact.

QUESTION: How can I stop being so damn lazy?
BEST ANSWER: “Look man, there are literally hundreds of good ways to get on with the tasks on your plate.
I find a combination of good goal setting and use of things like The Pomodoro Technique work wonders for helping me get stuff done and move forward.
But it’s not so much about being productive. It’s about living up to your word.
I’m guessing that you’re a creative, intelligent sort of person. Are you a perfectionist? That seems likely. Oftentimes, people with those characteristics really get bogged down by the magnitude of the tasks in front of them. Doing something means risking failing at it. Sometimes that risk seems to loom so large, and the drive to perfectionism is so strong, that any sort of meaningful and productive task just seems like it’s not worth it. Why risk failing, when you can just do something else instead?
Of course, in the back of your mind you know that those choices are causing you to fail anyway. That’s why you’re miserable.
So you have to re-think things in a different way. First up, you have to give yourself permission to fail, permission to be less than perfect sometimes. Failing at something, making mistakes, opens up a great opportunity to learn something new.
Second, you have to recognize that laziness and procrastination are destructive to your word. When you take on a task you make a promise to somebody (perhaps just yourself, but somebody) that you will complete that task. Putting that off brings you out of integrity with your word in the matter. That’s not bad, or wrong, it just is what there is in the situation.
But integrity is the thing that makes life work. It is the structure that holds our interactions together. When integrity fails, the structure collapses. Honoring your word is the way to make sure that the integrity of the situation remains intact.
The best way to honor your word is to put it into some sort of reality. Start making and keeping a schedule, and a to-do list, if you don’t already. Start planning your actions, breaking them into smaller tasks that are more easily achievable. Those things serve as a very real reminder that you’ve made a promise that you need to keep. Your word has to be the thing that keeps you moving forward. Honoring that word has to become your primary motivation.
You also need to enlist others to keep you accountable. Get a friend to check up with you, and kick your ass. When you need motivating to take an action, somebody is there to hold you accountable for that action. This piece alone helped me finally finish up a college degree that had been awaiting completion for over 6 years. My friends found out, did all they could to help, and held me accountable to get it done.
But, most importantly, you have to recognize that honoring your word to yourself is absolutely critical. It’s easy to keep promises to others, we don’t like to disappoint. But it’s much harder to keep your word with yourself. You are every bit as deserving of that respect as anybody else who might be involved.
Change your perspective. It’ll change your life.”

Nicely put. Let’s break it down — to stop being lazy, start by:
* Giving yourself permission to fail — remember, guilt is not a productive emotion.
* Honoring your word — when you commit to doing something, follow through.
* Start planning your actions and breaking them into manageable chunks.
* Get others to keep you accountable — a friend or accountability partner that will call you out if you start backsliding.

By I will teach you to be rich .

If you are ready to take control of your life click here

Motivation is a very fickle thing, and successful people learn to live with or without it. If you are doing the same thing you did yesterday you are not improving.