What If You’re Not Actually Lazy?
A message for the overworked, the exhausted, and the “I should be doing more” crowd
Challenging the Inner Critic That Keeps You Pushing Through Burnout
You’ve had the thought: “Why can’t I just get it together?”
The laundry’s not folded, your inbox is overflowing with tasks, and you’re staring at the ceiling wondering how you can feel so tired after doing so little. If you’re reading this and already judging yourself, calling yourself lazy, unmotivated, or not pulling your weight, I want to offer a different thought: What if you’re not actually lazy? What if you’re burned out, overwhelmed, and exhausted in a way that can’t be fixed by trying harder?
Burnout Often Disguises Itself as Laziness
Let’s get something clear: burnout is not about having too little motivation or needing a spa day to relax. It’s about having carried too much for too long.
When you’ve spent years being the “go-to” person, the one who picks up the slack, the helper, the fixer, the emotional support system for everyone around you, your nervous system eventually hits its limit. You may still care deeply, but suddenly you can’t initiate tasks, stay focused, or even figure out what’s most important. News Flash: that’s not laziness. That’s your brain and body trying to protect you from more overwhelm. Yet so many people (especially high achievers, caregivers, therapists, and helping professionals) misinterpret this shutdown as a character flaw instead of a coping mechanism. Professionally, we understand that collapse and freezing are responses to inescapable and ongoing danger.
The Inner Critic Is Loudest When You Try to Rest
You finally decide to slow down, take a break, or say no, and suddenly, the inner critic pipes up with bullshit thoughts like:
“You didn’t earn this.”
“You should be doing something more productive.”
“You’re just being lazy.”
That harsh inner monologue isn’t random. It was built through years of reinforcement and practice, being praised for overperforming, for saying “yes” even when you were exhausted, for pushing through your needs to meet others’ expectations. Then, when you do try to rest or care for yourself, that internalized voice of guilt and fear starts screaming. And many people respond by doing what they’ve always done: putting their head down and pushing through. But, here’s the thing: rest is not a reward. It’s a basic human need.
You don’t need to collapse before you're allowed to slow down. You don’t need to justify your rest by first exhausting yourself.
The Fear of Being Seen as “Lazy” or “Not Doing Enough”
Let’s talk about the shame. Not just internal guilt, but the external fear of how others will see you if you slow down. Many of my clients say things like:
“I can’t let people think I’m slacking.”
“What if they think I’m not pulling my weight?”
“I don’t want to be the one who drops the ball.”
Underneath that is a deep fear of disconnection. Of being viewed as unreliable or unworthy in our relationships. And in hustle culture, productivity often becomes the metric of worth. Rest, softness, and slowness are framed as indulgents. This fear of social rejection keeps people trapped in cycles of overextension, never feeling like they’ve done enough to rest without guilt. But what if we practiced this radical reframe: You don’t have to earn rest by destroying yourself first. And other people’s discomfort with your boundaries is not your problem to solve.
When Your Identity Is Wrapped Up in Being the Helper
Another reason burnout feels like laziness is that you’re so used to being in motion that you don’t know when to stop or who you are when you stop. If you’ve spent your life being the fixer, the caretaker, the strong one, then stillness can feel disorienting. Questions bombard you like:
Who are you if you’re not helping someone?
What’s your worth if you’re not producing?
Am I still loved if I’m not offering support?
Will my job be safe if I stop anticipating and solving every problem?
The answer isn’t laziness. It’s grief. It’s identity loss. It’s the discomfort of being with yourself without needing to perform for others.
Burnout recovery often includes rediscovering who you are when you’re not in crisis mode. Which can be scary and disorienting. But it’s also where healing begins.
Why Asking for Help Feels So Damn Hard
One of the cruelest tricks of burnout is that the more support you need, the harder it feels to ask for it.
Maybe you’ve been the helper for so long, you don’t know how to be helped.
Maybe you’ve told yourself, “other people have it worse” or “I should be able to handle this on my own.”
Maybe you fear that asking for help will confirm what you’re already afraid of—that you’re failing.
But none of that is true. You’re not failing. You’re carrying more than one person should.
Asking for help doesn’t mean you’re lazy or incapable. It means you’re human. And healing begins when we let ourselves be seen in that humanity. If you’ve been calling yourself lazy when you’re actually soul-deep exhausted, you’re not alone. You don’t have to keep proving your worth through suffering.
What Healing Looks Like (Spoiler: It’s Not Doing More)
Healing from burnout doesn’t mean you go back to functioning the way you used to. It means redefining what functioning even looks like.
It means:
Letting rest be part of your regular rhythm, not just something you “crash into” when you are on fire, looking for the extinguisher
Practicing saying no without overexplaining
Listening to your body before it screams
Accepting help even while feeling the guilt
Rewriting the story that your value is measured by your output
And maybe, just maybe, learning to trust that stillness is not the same as stagnation.
You deserve support that sees past the surface and speaks to the truth underneath:
You’re not lazy. You’re burned out.
You’re not failing. You’re healing.
You’re not a burden. You’re a human being, worthy of care, even when you’re not “doing” anything.
Ready to Challenge the Inner Critic?
If this resonated with you, and you’re tired of living in survival mode, I’d love to support you.