Ankur (aka “Encore”) is a personal trainer & nutrition specialist who makes health & fitness more attainable for busy people by helping them build easy, but powerful, habits that fit their unique lifestyles. He’s also a lifelong learner and personal development fanatic on a mission to help others live more healthy, happy, and successful lives!

1) Pause and take a minute to dream about your why

Think about why you want to do whatever it is you’re feeling lazy towards. Imagine the value it’ll bring you once you do it, how it’ll improve your life, or just the fact that once you get it done you can check it off your list, stop stressing over it, and stop wasting valuable time trying to decide whether or not to do it (do it, move on, and go live your life)!

Exercise Example (aka one of the biggest PITA’s)

Let’s get real and more specific. If it’s laziness holding you back from something like exercising, don’t feel bad for wanting to do what’s easiest in the moment, which is skipping your workout today (and telling ourselves we’ll “definitely” exercise tomorrow). You already know that what’s good for us long-term can feel like torture short-term, and that’s totally normal, we all go through it! When you feel like that though, take a second to think about why you want to exercise in the first place.

Remind yourself why it’s important and why the grunt work today will pay off tomorrow…

– Do you want to love what you see in the mirror every morning?

– Or get in such great shape that people are immediately drawn to you, including “the one”?

– Or do you want the most energy possible so you can live fully every single day?

How good will you feel about yourself once you’re there? How much better will your life be? And what awesome things will you be doing then, that you can’t do now?

TLDR: Life is short, so make sure you dream big, dream often, and put in the work to make your dreams a reality! On a related note, if your dreams aren’t powerful enough to get you moving, maybe it’s just not a true priority for you right now. Just think about it and be honest with yourself, no harm done or future energy wasted.

2) Break it up and crush a Pomodoro!

This one is deceptively simple.

But, it’s so powerful that it has massively transformed the way I work and skyrocketed my productivity levels, all while actually making it easier to get started working initially (even when all I wanna do is just lay on the ground doing nothing…and I have wood floors)!

Try it, you’ll love it!:

1. Write down what are struggling to get done

2. Break it down into small, actionable pieces that you can do in under 25 minutes each

3. Start a timer for 25 minutes and work 100% focused, to knock 1 task out of the water!

Congratulations, now you’ve beaten laziness, gotten amazing work done, and even earned yourself 5 minutes to celebrate your first win! To keep up your newfound momentum, repeat 3 more 25 minute sprints (& 2 more 5 minute breaks), then reward yourself with a 15 minute break to recharge your focus and energy before powering through even more laziness-inducing tasks! High five, you’re on a roll!

More information on the Pomodoro Technique & the simple, but effective, Chrome Browser Extension I use called TimeDoser .

3) Build your iron willpower by pushing through the…*insert expletive here*

This tip is a mindset hack (and 2 tips in one for more bang for your buck; you’re welcome!).

Loosely defined, willpower is your ability to get yourself to do something you’d rather not do (i.e. something you feel too lazy to do). Willpower also works like a muscle in the sense that it’s exhausted short-term when you use it, but grows stronger in the long-run the more intensely you use it, let it to recover, and repeat.

1. So, first, make sure that you have enough willpower stored for whatever it is you’re dreading doing. As a simple example, that could mean exercising in the morning when you’re motivated with a full tank of willpower, instead of in the evening when you’re exhausted after a long day. Or using your willpower in the morning to pack healthy meals for the day to eat when your willpower is low and you want to grab unhealthy snacks (good ol’ laziness haha).

2. And, when you’re struggling to get yourself to do something, remember that everytime you push past laziness, you’re strengthening your ability to push past it more easily in the future. Meaning, the more times you push yourself to exercise when you don’t feel like it, the easier it becomes to exercise in the future (who knows, you might even end up liking it!). This even applies to being able to resist the temptation of junk food more easily over time (that’s iron willpower for sure)!

So, use your limited willpower wisely, and use it often to make it stronger in the future! Eventually you’ll become a machine that can stomp out laziness with ease! You go!

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* * * THOUGHTFUL GROWTH ACTION TAKER BONUS * * *

Speaking of beating laziness, do you struggle with making time to exercise and being able to exercise regularly, like I definitely have?

I have been learning about health & fitness for about 15 years and I want to help make things much easier for you. You don’t need to feel like you don’t have the time to exercise or fall off every time you try.

* * * I want to walk you through 3 simple steps you can take right now in 2 minutes to make it easier to exercise regularly.

That’s my promise to you, and to make sure you’re 100% ready to get more fit & healthy, I made a bundle of helpful free bonuses just for being a highly-motivated Thoughtful Growth action taker, including a downloadable weekly contract to keep you consistent, a workout guide, and a huge surprise gift you’ll love (I’ve never gifted this before)!

Take the 2 minute steps and get your free bonus fill-in-the-blank worksheet, guides, videos, and gift here: http://ambasthaathletics.com/thoughtful-growth-beating-laziness/

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