On Laziness, Learning, and Showing Up Anyway

Sometimes I get stuck in a loop of being lazy, unmotivated, and procrastinating just like everyone else, I guess. When that happens, I usually turn to YouTube productivity videos or scroll through articles on Medium to feel inspired again. It’s like tricking my brain into thinking, “Yeah, we’re doing something useful now.”

Today I read another Medium article about productivity. The author recommended practicing certain skills every day to improve yourself: learning how to learn, writing, public speaking, meditation, building habits, negotiation, mathematical thinking, coordination, and flexibility. Sounds like a lot, right? But it made sense and it got me thinking.

Out of all those, “learning how to learn” really stuck with me. I’ve always studied when I had to, like for a test or a deadline, but I never really thought about how to learn better. Lately I’ve been overwhelmed by how much I need to learn in a short time, and it finally hit me—wow, I actually don’t know how to study efficiently. How did I go so long without realizing that? Then I remembered the 10,000-hour rule from Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers—you don’t need to be super smart, you just need to put in the time. Practice enough, and you’ll eventually outperform people who rely on raw talent but don’t try. That idea gives me hope!

One of the habits I’m starting with is writing. Partly because I want to improve, and partly because IELTS writing is killing me. I always freeze and have no idea what to say or what side to take when it comes to Task 2. So here I am, writing this, hoping that doing it regularly will help me think faster and express myself better. Even this post took forever and gave me a bit of a headache, but at least I showed up.

So now I’m slowly building new habits: writing more and being more intentional with how I learn. I’m curious to see how I’ll feel after a month of doing this stuff consistently. We’ll see if I actually become one of those who “have their life together” or if I just end up with more drafts. Either way, it’s a start.