Laziness, and What We’ve Made It Mean

Somewhere along the way, the concept of laziness, at least in relation to being a woman, became completely flawed. The Oxford Dictionary defines laziness as “the quality of being unwilling to work or be active,” but if I’m being honest, I don’t think that’s how most women experience the word at all. It’s a clear definition, but it doesn’t quite capture the way the label is actually used in day-to-day life.

I’ve called myself lazy more times than I’ve ever called myself productive, and I don’t think that’s unique. When I look around, I see women doing a significant amount every single day, often across multiple areas of their lives, and still walking away with a sense that it wasn’t enough. I’ve watched my mum raise children, hold a family together, show up consistently for the people around her, take care of her health, and stay involved in her community, and still feel disappointed in herself. I’ve seen friends manage work, relationships, family expectations, and everything in between, and still describe themselves as falling short.

Over time, that starts to shape how you see yourself. Not because anyone explicitly teaches you to think that way, but because you observe it so often that it becomes normal. You begin to internalise a very specific idea of what a “productive” day looks like, and anything that doesn’t match that standard becomes easy to dismiss. Effort that doesn’t translate into visible output is overlooked, and days that don’t feel complete are quickly categorised as unproductive. It creates a kind of black-and-white thinking where you are either doing enough or you are not, with very little room for anything in between. From there, the question is not just what laziness means, but why so many women seem to move so quickly between these two extremes without ever feeling like they comfortably sit in either.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand where this feeling actually comes from, why so many women, at some point or another, feel like they are not doing enough. The truth is, there probably is not one clear answer. It is something that seems to build over time, shaped by a combination of expectations, environments, and the way we learn to measure ourselves. Trying to pin it down to a single cause almost feels like an oversimplification of something that is clearly more complex.

That said, there are certain patterns that are hard to ignore, and one of them is the way we have come to define productivity itself. Most of what we recognise as a productive day is built around consistency, structure, and output, the idea that you show up the same way every day and maintain a steady level of energy and focus. It is a model that works well in theory, but in practice it leaves very little room for variation. When that becomes the standard, anything outside of it can start to feel like a deviation rather than a natural fluctuation.

You can see this reflected more broadly in the culture around us. There is a constant emphasis on staying busy, staying disciplined, and making the most of every day. Phrases like “no days off” or the idea of always needing to be moving forward are normalised to the point where slowing down can feel uncomfortable. Even rest starts to take on a different meaning, something that has to be justified, earned, or carefully balanced so it does not tip too far into what might be perceived as laziness.

When you combine that with the reality that not every day feels the same, that energy, focus, and capacity naturally shift, it becomes easier to see how this gap forms. The standard stays fixed, but your experience does not. Instead of questioning the standard, it often feels easier to question yourself.

What makes this even more complicated is that this expectation of consistency does not always align with how people actually experience their energy. For women in particular, there is a natural rhythm that is not designed to feel the same every day. Energy, focus, and capacity can shift across the cycle, meaning that some days feel clear and productive, while others feel slower or more inward. When you place a fixed standard of output onto something that is inherently variable, it becomes almost impossible to meet it consistently, even when you are showing up and putting in effort.

This is where the idea of rest becomes particularly important, and often misunderstood. If productivity is defined purely by visible output, then rest will always appear as the opposite of that. In reality, there are periods where rest is not only natural, but necessary, and in many ways essential to how your body functions. Particularly in the second half of the cycle, slowing down, conserving energy, and allowing space for recovery can be more aligned with what your body actually needs. Within a black-and-white framework, where you are either productive or lazy, there is no space for that kind of nuance. Rest becomes something to justify rather than something to recognise as part of the process.

I realise this probably sounds quite clear and easy to grasp when it is written out like this, but in reality it is anything but. Learning to redefine what productivity looks like, especially as a woman, is not a simple shift. It takes constant awareness, and even then it is easy to fall back into old patterns of thinking. I still struggle with it myself. There is a part of me that agrees with the mindset of always wanting to be doing more, pushing further, and making the most of every day. I find that idea motivating, and in many ways I do not entirely disagree with it.

At the same time, I have had to recognise that there are limits to how far that way of thinking can take you before it starts to work against you. If I do not allow myself to rest, eventually my body will make that decision for me. When that happens, it is no longer intentional or restorative, it is forced. That is the point where I started to question whether the way I had been defining productivity actually made sense in the long term.

One thing I have noticed recently is how differently we speak about ourselves compared to the people around us. There is a trend on TikTok where women describe their day from the perspective of a friend, listing everything they did, everything they managed, everything they showed up for. When you hear it framed that way, it would not even cross your mind to call them lazy. If anything, you would probably think they had a full, productive day. But somehow, when it is your own day, your own effort, your own experience, it is much easier to dismiss it. The same standard does not seem to apply, and what you would recognise in someone else becomes invisible in yourself.

So maybe part of this is not about doing more, becoming more disciplined, or finding a better system. Maybe it is about paying closer attention to the way you interpret what you are already doing. This month, I want to invite you to speak to yourself in the same way you would speak to someone you care about, a friend, a sister, a daughter. You would never look at their effort and reduce it down to something as simple as “lazy,” so it is worth asking why that label feels so easy to apply to yourself.

The problem was never your effort. It was the way you learned to define it.

Until next month,
Ava