Why is that, a lot of the time, we want to get ourselves out of certain habits or situations, we know exactly how we can do it, we know the exact steps to take, but we don’t do it? We get stuck in this loop of retaining information about what to do, why it’ll be so good for us, feeling really motivated for a few days, then suddenly getting unmotivated and not taking any action at all?

 

Being stuck in this loop is quite frustrating because you know, deep down, that you’re playing yourself. You know you’re letting your laziness and procrastination take over you. 

 

I’ve actually come to this realization about myself recently which is why I began writing this. There are a few things that I’ve learned to help me start to get out of this loop that I thought would be worth sharing with you all.

 

Dopamine Fix

 

Be mindful of the other things that you’re engaging your mind in. One big thing for me was social media. For a while, I had actually deleted all of my social media permanently; I went a good few years without it and genuinely had no desire to get it back. 

 

Suddenly, I had the idea of starting a public page about my studies and just overall lifestyle things to potentially benefit others. I began posting on there and without even realizing it, I found myself back in the loop.

 

You would think that because I had the page with the goal of actually benefiting other people and building a community on there that that’s what I would use it for. But that wasn’t the case. I started to consume more than I was producing. I kept looking at other pages like mine, seeing what they’re doing, and comparing myself. 

 

I wasn’t actively posting anymore. I had completely forgotten about my goal of building that Instagram page because of how flooded my mind was with everything else. Because of the excessive dopamine, the constant stimulation, the drive to produce content myself had completely disappeared. I was aware of this and felt disappointed in myself. 

 

What I learned from this is to keep your mind at a normal level of stimulation. Because my mind was so occupied, it had completely forgotten about the other goals and plans I had set. Or maybe I didn’t actually forget, but the act of consuming content from others felt easier for my brain than making content myself, so I tuned it out with this artificial dopamine. 

 

It is not normal for your mind to consume hundreds of completely different videos/information in less than 30 minutes. This overstimulation of your brain is what numbs the pain of taking action yourself. It makes you not work for real, natural dopamine. It just gives it to you, without doing any work at all. That is where laziness begins.

 

Control Laziness

 

You have to remember that you have control over your laziness, your laziness does not have control over you. If you constantly give the excuse of “I just feel too lazy, I don’t feel like doing it right now” you are NEVER gonna do it. It is your responsibility to take that power that you have over what you do and just do it.

 

See Yourself as Someone Who Can Do It

 

Whenever we set new goals or plan on building a new habit, without realizing it, we see a barrier between what we want to be and who we are now.

 

Let’s say for example, I want to start waking up at five in the morning every day. I set this in my mind, set my alarm, then when the alarm rings at 5 am, I turn it off and tell myself, “This is not for me, I’m not built for this.” Then I proceed to go back to sleep.

 

The problem here is that I immediately disassociated myself from that action by saying that to myself. I made myself think that I can’t do this, that waking up at 5 am is impossible for me to do instead of just getting up and believing that this is who I am now.

 

I could’ve said, “This is really hard to do, but this is who I wanna be.” Then I’ll actually get up.

 

Don’t say, “Okay I’ll start trying to wake up at 5 am.” Say, “I will wake up at 5 am. This is a habit that is a part of me now.” 

 

It seems like such a minor difference but I am telling you, from experience, that it makes the biggest difference. As long as you feel that feeling of “oh I’m just not there yet” or “I’ll start doing… when…” you’ll never see yourself as someone who can actually do it so you’re never gonna do it. You’re making a break between who you are now and then who you want to become, making that “future self” never actually reachable.

 

Remind Yourself of Your End Goal

 

Personally, I don’t believe that someone should work hard for something just for the end goal in mind. I do think that you should learn to enjoy the process, create a system, and be able to just dive in without constantly worrying about the end goal.

 

But despite this, when you completely just forget about why you’re working so hard, you either end up losing your mind or you don’t care enough to do it anymore. In the beginning of when you first started working on something new, it is likely that you had a lot of excitement, you were just up and ready to go. But later as time went on, you realize that doing the actual, real work is not as exciting. So you become unmotivated.

 

Like if someone were to say, “I will start reciting 20 pages of the Qur’an everyday.” They feel excited to begin this and start reading 20 pages every day. A few days pass and then they say, “Actually, I’m gonna skip today. I’ll just do it tomorrow.” Then they continue this for the next couple days…

 

The person here has forgotten about why they started. They have forgotten their intention of pleasing Allah سبحانه وتعالي. Once they remind themselves of the pleasure of their Creator, the reward they’ll receive, the mental clarity they’ll receive, they will want to start again.

 

Take yourself back to when you first started, all the things you imagined, and remind yourself of why it’s worth working so hard for. Then you will surely get back to it.

 

Don’t Expect Yourself to be a Machine

 

There might be a person in your life or maybe someone you see online that works endlessly. They have such a high drive to work and it seems like it never ends. People like this should be an inspiration to you. Make them the people that you look up to and aspire to be like.

 

But, you have to remember that you’re likely to not do everything perfectly and consistently all the time. Even the most consistent and work-driven people trip up and have off days. What makes these people special is that they just don’t stop trying, they keep going no matter what. Just because you missed one day of doing something doesn’t mean that you should let it get you down. Just get back up the next day and keep going.

 

Whatever happens, don’t think about what happened yesterday, think about what you can do today. Dwelling about the time you’ve already wasted is literally only wasting more time. As one of my teachers always reminds me, “لكل جواد كبوة”. For every fast running horse, there is a trip.