5 Real Struggles When You're Ambitious But Also So, So Lazy
So many dreams, so little motivation.
We've all been taught there are two different categories of people. There are the ambitious people who do everything and anything it takes to make their way to the top.
And then there are people who do what they need to do to get by, but that extra effort is just way too much to even think about.
But what about a person who, like me, falls into a third, oxymoronic category? The ambitiously lazy person. You know, the type of people who would have their shit together if they just put forth a little more effort.
We occasionally push ourselves, but the majority of the time we can't be bothered to even plug in our cell phone.
Most ambitious-but-lazy people are somewhere in their twenties because while we're kind of adults, we adore pretending our responsibilities don't apply to us. We continue to think we have all the time in the world to be ambitious. So why not be a little lazy?
As an ambitious-but-lazy person constantly choosing between making plans and watching Netflix, I know how real the struggle is for us hybrids.
We have some brilliant ideas, but none of them work out.
Putting in effort is just too much work for us. We can't be bothered to actually make our ideas come to fruition. We just don't want to try that hard. We really struggle with motivating ourselves.
But knowing we lack motivation is actually a benefit for those of us that actually give a damn about our lives. We can hold ourselves accountable by asking someone who is extremely ambitious to call us on our shit and give us a swift kick in the ass when we should get something done.
Honestly, we need all the encouragement we can get.
When I first began blogging and writing, I motivated myself by making it more important than it really was. I scheduled time to write and treated it more like a job than a hobby.
Adjustments like this can inspire you to put more work in your dreams.
We lack the ability to make vacation plans.
The only way we ever go on a vacation is if we have someone in our lives who makes our vacation plans come to life for us.
It took me seven years to finally make plans to visit my grandparents in New York -- and I only live in Baltimore. I would just constantly make up excuses, from work responsibilities to lack of money. There was always something.
But when I got those bus tickets and started researching where I wanted to go while in the Big Apple, I got myself super excited. I ended up having a blast and I felt like a real adult.
No matter our excuses, if we're willing to listen a little more closely to the ambitious part of ourselves, we can experience some pretty epic stuff.
Our Pinterest boards are filled with some awesome interior design ideas we will never get to.
Ambitious-but-lazy people are the kings and queens of Pinterest. We love to look at all the beautiful home decor ideas, wedding ideas and DIY ideas, but we lack the ambition or motivation to actually go back, read and do what is required.
Pinterest is really just a catalog of ideas we put away in a storage box and never, ever get to.
We procrastinate on things we actually want to do.
We channel our inner April from "Parks and Recreation" and don't want to do things. Unfortunately, this happens even when it's something we secretly do want to accomplish.
Whether we want to go back to school, try a new hobby, start a new project or just bake some brownies, we constantly put things off. We'll reschedule plans with friends we actually want to see multiple times until eventually our friends just give up on trying to see us.
The people who are in our lives must really love us.
We are difficult people to get along with. We talk a big game about our ideas and ambitions and then we never follow through.
We are the people who flake on dinner dates regularly because watching TV takes a lot less effort than getting all dressed up to go out and eat.
But somehow, we still have people in our lives who understand our sometimes illogical and irrational ways. Our friends and family are always just a text away from knowing we probably won't show up to the bar, but they still support us anyway.
As human beings, we love categories. But it's important t0 remember there are more than two categories. Most people are actually contradictory, and that's OK.
It's OK to be ambitiously lazy because the thing is, we have some ambition in us, and when we find that motivation within us, we blossom.
Plus, we don't run the risk of burning out because our laziness gives us balance. In a way, being an ambitious-but-lazy person is the perfect balance.
And hey, while some may see us as oxymorons and our loved ones may think we're irrational, we can prove them all wrong by coming up with a great idea and then having someone else do the hard work for us. Perfect balance, right?
