Posted by finelinebob on May 10, 2004, at 21:33:44
In reply to I need Help!!!!!!!!!!, posted by Angela2 on May 10, 2004, at 20:30:11
Just a thought -- are you sure you're lazy?
I always thought I was lazy. My test scores say I'm a pretty bright guy. My college grades in any course that challenged me beg to differ. I always blamed myself for not having learned the proper study skills, not having the desire, maybe not even having the mental horsepower despite what my test scores say.
It never occurred to me until much later that I might have ADD. Over time, talking to more and more people here, I've found that lots of people who have depression and/or anxiety also have cognitive issues like ADD.
Try to detach any self-judgments for a few minutes and see if you can figure out why you're not doing your work. Is it purely motivation? Or do you have trouble focusing or concentrating? Are you easily distracted?
just tossing out some thoughts from another "lazy" learner...
flbps. "lazy" is a term students learn to apply to themselves from others, most often when they attribute the source of failures to something perceived as internal and uncontrollable. That does not mean that the cause really is internal and/or uncontrollable -- but it's the perception and attribution of cause that counts. It leads to a condition called learned helplessness. You learn to give up easily or to not even try, and you have reasons like your "laziness" ready at hand to explain why (whether your behavior was lazy or not).
If you do have ADD, then this is one cause of failure that is internal but is controllable. If you have motivational issues, again internal but controllable. If you start looking at what sorts of statements you make about why you fail to do what you need to succeed, try to see where they fall along the lines of internal/external/unknown to you, controllable/uncontrollable by the source, and global/specific for any particular problem. Then remember that (1) perception does not equal reality, and (2) there are always factors we can and cannot control. If your reasons for failure keep coming up other than internal+controllable, then you need to identify some factors or strategies that are internal+controllable to counter the others.
poster:finelinebob
thread:345547
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040503/msgs/345578.html