Ep. 150: Is It Laziness… or Exhaustion in Disguise?

Hey there, and welcome back to The Intentional Midlife Mom Podcast. Today we’re diving into something that I know so many of us carry quietly: that feeling of frustration with ourselves. You know the one—where you’re staring at your to-do list, you’re lying in bed, or sitting on the couch thinking, "Why can’t I just do it?"

If you’ve ever called yourself lazy, unmotivated, or undisciplined—today's episode is for you. Because the truth is, what you’re calling laziness might actually be something much deeper: mental and emotional exhaustion.

Let’s talk about what that really looks like—and how to work with it, not against it.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding the Roots of Frustration
• 0:29 Redefining Laziness and Motivation
• 0:41 Embracing the Present as a Midlife Mom
• 1:19 The Key to Effective Home Management
• 1:49 Understanding the Pressure of Productivity
• 4:47 Identifying Hidden Exhaustion
• 11:34 Strategies for Overcoming Depletion

Transcript

Well, hey there, welcome to the Intentional Midlife Mom podcast today. I'm your host, Jennifer Roskamp, and whether this is your first episode or your 144th episode, welcome. I'm excited that you're here. This is a hot topic, isn't it? This whole idea that so often we're staring at our to-do list and wondering, why don't you just do it already? What's wrong with you? And when we're sitting there staring at it and not doing what's on it,

we do so often call ourselves things like lazy, unmotivated, or undisciplined. But the truth is, what you're calling laziness might actually be something totally different. It could be mental and emotional exhaustion. So we're gonna talk about what this really looks like and how to work with it, not against it. So what happens when we end up

calling ourselves lazy, unmotivated, undisciplined. Here's what I know. We live in a culture that constantly rewards output. Our value is largely tied into what you get done, how productive you are, how efficient you are. And if you don't feel productive or efficient or accomplished, well, you have no value at all. This is what happens in our minds, right?

And so when we hit this wall, we internalize hitting that wall, not doing the things on the list, at least not as much as we should. We internalize this as failure. We say things like, I should be doing more. Other women can manage this. Why can't I? I'm just being lazy. But rarely do we pause and ask, what's underneath this? Or even is there something?

underneath this. We don't even consider this. And so we end up living in this day-to-day life where there's this constant pressure to go, go, go, go, go. And it creates this guilt when we slow down. And that guilt makes us push harder until we burn out. It's kind of like this endless cycle, this endless treadmill. It's this loop. And

The only way out of this loop, this cycle, or this downward spiral is to recognize that maybe we're not lazy at all. Maybe we're just empty. Wow, that really hit, didn't it? I know there are plenty of women who are listening right now and that just struck a chord. That hit you deep in your heart and in your gut like someone just punched you.

that resonated so much. here's what, and by the way, if that's you, I'm excited you're here because we're gonna talk about this. We're gonna work on this today. So here's what exhaustion in disguise can look like. It can look like three different things. We're gonna talk about three different things today. The first thing we're gonna be talking about is resistance. So when we have

exhaustion in disguise, we can end up coming up against resistance. Resistance is when you know what needs to get done, but every part of you resist it. It feels like you're trying to pull yourself through mud. It feels like trying to picture yourself taking even just one tiny step forward. Well, that feels impossible. So resistance. Resistance

wants to hold you back because it is just too hard. The thing you're asking yourself to do is just too big. It's too big of an ask. It's too heavy of a lift. And so your brain says, because of course your brain's job is to keep you safe, happy and comfortable. And well, hey, when you are exhausted, you're not feeling any of those things. So here you are feeling not safe.

not happy, not comfortable, and it's due to this exhaustion. But here you are looking at your to-do list. And so your brain is interpreting and sensing the not safe, the not happy, and the not comfortable. And it's associating that with the to-do list or with whatever it is that you're trying to do and you face resistance. Your brain doesn't know the difference. Your brain...

doesn't know how to diagnose the actual problem. But that's what we're talking about here today. We are taking that to-do list, the one that you're not working on, the one that you're not getting done, the one that you are contemplating just turning away from while calling yourself unmotivated, lazy, undisciplined. And we are taking that to-do list

and we are helping your brain diagnose the problem correctly. And it could be that that unsafe, unhappy, uncomfortable diagnosis that your brain is assigning to the to-do list, it could be that it is horribly misassigned. And it could be that you're not undisciplined, lazy, or unmotivated. It could be that you're just exhausted.

So resistance, that's one hidden face of exhaustion. Let's talk about another one, brain fog. And if you're a midlife woman like me, there's enough brain fog all on its own every single day, all day long. So it's real important to understand if we have extra amounts of brain fog, it's real important for us to understand why it's there, what it actually is, so that

we can eliminate it. So brain fog, this is another hidden face of exhaustion. So brain fog, this is when you're sitting down to focus and your mind goes completely blank or it feels scattered or it feels so busy that you know if you start to unravel, if you think even just one little thought in that moment, your entire brain

is just going to come unraveled and it's going to be a mess all over everywhere and you're never going to be able to figure any of it out again. Brain fog. It's when you can't see forwards. It's when you can't see backwards. It's when you can't see sideways because the fog is so thick. It's deafening. It's the most

It's the most deafening silence brain fog. And it is so frustrating and it is so crippling. And again, the brain fog can be completely misdiagnosed. Your brain again is diagnosing laziness, undisciplined, unmotivated because you're not doing the things on your list. It could be.

that your brain actually needs to diagnose brain fog as a problem. But instead, you're the problem. And what happens when you feel like you're the problem? How motivated are you to try to work on anything? You're not, right? So here we are at the starting line of the to-do list, and your brain is diagnosing you as the problem and assigning you with the heavy labels

of undisciplined, unmotivated, and lazy. Is it any wonder that you can't make any progress on that to-do list? Nope. It's not a wonder at all brain fog. That could be another hidden face that will clue you into the fact that you are actually just empty, just exhausted. So a third hidden face of exhaustion is emotional.

heaviness. Have you ever experienced this one? This is huge, isn't So emotional heaviness is when you're not physically tired, but it feels that way. That drain, that absolute emptiness, it feels the same as when you are physically empty. I know these days the workouts that I do, I do the advanced version of the workouts. And let me tell you, I am

physically empty when I get done with those workouts. But in this case, when I'm looking at my to-do list, I'm not physically drained because I haven't done anything on it. But it still is that same heaviness, that same exhaustion as when I get done with one of those 45 minute advanced workouts. So you're not physically tired, but emotionally you feel like

everything is too much. Again, it's like the straw, like you can't even hold a straw on your back. Or again, everything is gonna come unraveled. You are going to collapse. So emotionally you feel like everything is too much, like the weight of your own expectations, it's just heavy. It's heavier than you can bear. And so these three hidden faces, resistance,

brain fog, emotional heaviness, these hidden faces of exhaustion, they don't look like tired on the outside. But they are all signs that your system is running on fumes. So how can I tell the difference? How can I tell the difference between there's a real problem and, you know what, I am just truly lazy here. I am choosing to be lazy. Well, here are some questions that you can ask yourself the next time you think.

You're just being lazy. Question number one, if I had more energy, would I want to do this? Question number two, is my body asking for rest or is my mind avoiding something? Question number three, am I speaking, this is a big one, am I speaking to myself with criticism or curiosity? That's a good question to ask yourself probably in a whole lot of different contexts.

not just when you're wondering if you're being lazy. So am I speaking to myself with criticism or curiosity? Just pausing to ask these questions, it helps you reconnect with yourself. And more often than not, you'll realize this isn't a laziness problem. It's a depletion problem. So when you diagnose that it's a depletion problem, that you're just empty, here's what to do.

Here's a few small shifts that can help you move forward without pushing yourself to the brink because nothing good happens when you're teetering on the edge. By the way, right now I am in the midst of teaching my Write A New Chapter challenge live to the members inside my coaching community, Accomplished Lifestyle. And I was sharing something that one of my Accomplished Lifestyle members shared with me when she first came to Accomplished Lifestyle.

She said something along the lines of, you know, I felt like I was just teetering on the edge of my life and that I was about to topple over and I had no idea what that actually meant. I just knew that I was dangerously close to falling off and I was terrified of what that would look like. So if you're there, here are a few small shifts that can help you move forward without pushing yourself to that brink.

Number one, go for tiny wins instead of massive effort. This is why I created my daily task list. And part of the daily task list is rapid fire tasks. These are the hidden gems that every one of my coaching clients, everyone in my coaching programs, my coaching community, everywhere has learned from me the skill of the daily task list. Because the skill of rapid fire tasks, there's a few things, there's a few different criteria.

that rapid fire tasks have to meet. But one of those criteria is it has to be something that you're gonna do in 10 minutes or less. And we try real hard to find all of those less things, less than 10 minute things, much less than 10 minute things that we have to do. And it's because choosing the small wins are what help you build momentum. Because if you can knock some of those out,

Before you know it, you have gotten over the getting started hurdle, which is the biggest hurdle that most of us face. And again, you've got momentum on your side. You're proving to yourself, you know what, I actually can do these things. You know what, I'm actually not lazy after all. You know what, I actually can follow a simple to-do list. I don't avoid everything. I'm not broken. There's nothing wrong with me. And that confidence starts to build alongside that momentum and

That's where the real magic starts to happen, but it all starts with these small wins first, because the small wins can help create collectively this massive effort. So that's strategy number one. Strategy number two is to give yourself permission to pause just for a moment. I call it purposeful rest. And rest really is a reset.

not a weakness. Every single day I have purposeful rest planned into my day. And if you're following me on Instagram, you've seen pictures when I've shared what this non-negotiable, planned, purposeful, purposeful rest that is planned into every single day as a non-negotiable, you've seen this on my Instagram feed or in my Instagram stories at times. I know you know what it is. By the way, I'm the IntentionalMom blog.

on Instagram. If you're not following me there, you absolutely should be. I share things there every single day, things that are helpful, just like what I share here in the podcast. And it's especially essential if you are a midlife woman, because we talk about a lot of the things that midlife women actually really struggle with, just like we do here on the podcast. give yourself permission to pause. You've got to have some non-negotiable times of reset.

You've got to have at least one of these in every single day. Again, if you are looking to avoid getting to that brink where you're teetering on the edge, wondering if you're about to go over and everything is going to fall apart and you don't even know what it looks like when you fall at the edge and you land somewhere. Who's going to pick up all those pieces? How many pieces are there going to be? How bad is it going to be? You don't want to be on the edge contemplating all those things.

So give yourself permission to pause. That's strategy number two. Strategy number three, try a reset ritual. It could be a short walk. It could be a two minute journal check-in. It could be as simple as a series of four deep breaths with your hand over your heart. This needs to be something that signals I am allowed to slow down. I am allowed to slow down. So,

Here's a question. Well, how do I know if I'm taking it too easy on myself? Again, let's be honest because sometimes the fear is real. The fear that says, what if I actually am being lazy? Here's how to know if you're stuck in this pattern of laziness that you need to address. Number one, you're constantly avoiding discomfort, even when you know that it would lead to growth. Number two, you're making excuses out of habit.

Not because you're actually reflecting on what actually is happening. You're just making the same old excuses. Maybe you're recycling them around a little bit, but you're just making excuses. You're not actually thinking about what's happening. And the third signal is that you feel restless or frustrated because you know that you're capable of more, but you're stuck in avoidance. And so if this is you, if you discover, man, these things fit, what do I do now? Well, here.

Don't shame yourself. Start with one brave action today. Something small, but meaningful. You can both rest and stretch yourself. Let me say that again. You can both allow yourself to rest and challenge yourself to stretch yourself. Because it doesn't have to be this one or the other, although we try to make it be.

And so it could be, if you identify with this, it is the truth that you are not lazy. You're carrying a lot. And the sooner we learn to honor that truth, the more likely we are to build lives that actually work for us, not against us. So the next time you feel that grief, excuse me, grief, that's a new word. Maybe I should figure out what that means.

Let's try that again. The next time you feel that guilt creeping in, see what I did there? I tried to combine the two words. No, that didn't work, did it? So the next time you feel that guilt creeping in, I want you to ask, what if this isn't laziness? What if this isn't laziness at all? What if this is a sign that I need care, not criticism?

Wouldn't that be something? So you've got this and I'm here with you every step of the way. If you want to learn more skills like the daily task list and the rapid fire task, make sure you check out my coaching community. You'll find it at accomplishedlifestyle.com. There is a coupon there. There is a discount there for you, my lovely listeners, by the way. So this

is an episode that I know is going to resonate and hit home for a lot of women because we are constantly trying to assume that we are lazy, unmotivated, undisciplined, doing something wrong, broken. But that just isn't true. So thanks for joining me here today. If this episode helped you breathe a little deeper, to see yourself with more grace, well, I'd love for you to share it with a friend or leave a review. You're not lazy, you're just caring a lot. And know that you're not doing it alone.

I'm right there with you. So until we talk again, make it an amazing day.