The Neuroscience of “I Don’t Feel Like It”

You’re sitting at your desk.

The task is right there. You know it matters. You know it would move things forward. You even know how to do it.

And yet..you don’t start.

You open another tab. You tweak something that doesn’t matter. You tell yourself you’ll do it after this one small thing. Time passes. The pressure doesn’t go away. In fact, it gets a lot heavier.

And at some point, the explanation turns inward. You call it laziness. You make it about discipline, and you wonder why this seems so hard when it shouldn’t be.

Want to hear something crazy?

Before you even touched the task, your body already made a call. Automatically. It scanned the situation and decided whether this felt safe enough to engage with.

So naturally, you feel it as resistance. you start feeling this heaviness. As that familiar sense of “I don’t feel like it.”, and you start looking for distractions.

From the inside, it feels like procrastination or laziness. And you label yourself as someone who does not do the simple and boring things when you need to. What is actually happening is that you think you are avoiding the work, then in reality, you are avoiding.. an emotion.

So let’s explore this together, shall we.

We’ll cover:

• what’s happening in your nervous system when resistance shows up

• how to tell what emotion your body is actually avoiding

• how to bypass the mental tricks, get back to completing your tasks,
  and stop feeling shitty about yourself for being “lazy”

What’s actually happening when resistance shows up

Let me give you a concrete example.

I’ll sit down to write a newsletter. I already know the topic. I’ve thought about it for days. I even know the point I want to make.

And still, I don’t write it.

I’ll stare at the screen. I’ll tweak the subject line. I’ll open old drafts. I’ll tell myself I’m just “not in the right headspace.” Then I won’t send anything. Again.

You know what I realized? Part of what I want to write feels exposed. Or unfinished. Or slightly ahead of where my confidence is that day. And without realizing it, my body registers that as a risk.

Just enough to mess with my head. Just enough to hesitate. Enough to slow down, and eventually do everything BUT the damn thing I sat down to do in the first place.

You see, resistance doesn’t show up because you don’t care. It shows up because some part of you cares a lot, and isn’t sure it wants to be seen (yet).

Your nervous system is constantly making these calls in the background. And as humans, we’re extremely good at avoiding feelings if it helps us feel “safe”. The thing we’re avoiding is rarely the task itself. It usually comes down to something underneath it, like:

• Shame.

• Fear of abandonment.

• Fear of rejection.

• The fear of not being good enough.

And the body does not want to feel that.

So instead of fear, you feel “meh.” Instead of panic, you feel avoidance. Instead of clarity, you feel this constant fog that messes with your “motivation”.

Then.. the mind steps in and tries to make sense of it. And that’s when sh*t hits the fan: You start questioning yourself. Your competence. Your consistency. And most of the time, even your worth.

But the trigger wasn’t the work.. It was the emotional cost attached to it.

Understanding this matters. Because once you see resistance as a safety signal, not a motivation problem, the conversation changes. You stop asking why you’re not disciplined enough and start asking something much more useful:

What, exactly, feels risky about moving forward right now?

That’s a far better question if you ask me.

Why resistance makes everything worse

We don’t suffer because of emotions, believe it or not. All emotions are useful, they are meant to be experienced, they have a reason.

Most of our suffering comes from the resistance to them.

That sounds philosophical until you understand what’s happening in the body: Emotions are designed to be short-lived physiological events. They rise, peak, and fall. Fear, shame, sadness, uncertainty.. all of them move through the nervous system if they’re allowed to (hint hint). 

The problem starts when the system decides those sensations are unacceptable and tries to avoid them.

Avoidance doesn’t make the emotion go away. It keeps the nervous system activated.

From a biological standpoint, resisting an internal state is interpreted as a signal that something is still wrong. So the system stays on. Cortisol stays elevated. Attention stays narrow. The body remains braced.

This is why the feeling doesn’t pass.

I used to be a very angry person. So angry that I would get mad when my partner was crying, in distress. And on the surface, that doesn’t make sense.. Well, I later realized that I was simply too scared of feeling sad, because some part of me thought that if I got sad, I would stay sad.. for eternity. So the best way my brain/nervous system found to avoid that, was to place anger on top of it.

It’s not the emotion that’s painful. It’s the sustained tension of not wanting to feel it.

Here's what the research shows: Shoving emotions down doesn't make them disappear, it just keeps your 'thinking brain' working overtime to control them, while the deeper emotional part stays lit up and stressed. Boom: that heavy mental fog and exhaustion you know too well.

This is also why distraction feels temporarily relieving, and why we chase them: It shifts attention away from the sensation.

But..it doesn’t resolve it. And as soon as the distraction ends, the nervous system checks again: The emotion is still there, so the brakes stay on.

When you avoid a task because it might bring up shame, or uncertainty, or self-doubt, the avoidance prolongs the very state you’re trying not to feel.

That’s the trap that we later call Laziness. It’s not laziness. You are not lazy.

Which means the problem isn’t starting. It’s misdiagnosing what’s happening when you don’t.

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Here’s a framework I run when I feel too lazy to do something. Try it this week. And if something changes, come back to this email this weekend and tell me what happened.

The Laziness Autopsy

The goal isn’t to analyze forever. It’s to bypass the mental noise, get to the real issue, and move on with the task at hand.

Think of it like this: your nervous system is trying to protect you. Your brain is very good at lying to make that protection feel rational.

These questions are designed to cut through that. So run them once, then write down the answer that makes you uncomfortable.

That’s usually the truth.

1. What am I actually avoiding right now?

Not the task (!!) The experience attached to it.

• Uncertainty.

• Exposure.

• Judgment.

• Decision-making.

• The feeling of starting over.

If you can’t name what you’re avoiding, your nervous system assumes the worst and keeps the brakes on. So write the first honest answer that comes up.

2. What specifically feels unsafe about doing this?

Be concrete. No abstractions.

Not “I might fail.”
Fail how?

Will I look stupid?
Lose status?
Waste energy?
Expose that I don’t actually know what I’m doing?
Open something I don’t know how to finish?

Now take it one step further.

If the worst actually happened… and I did get criticized, rejected, or judged… what would that mean about me?

Don’t soften it. Don’t explain it away.

Just finish the damn sentence.

3. This is where it gets juicy, my friend…

If that meaning were true, would it mean:

– I’m not good enough
– I’m behind
– I’m disappointing someone
– I don’t deserve what I want
– I was wrong about who I thought I was

Let the sentence complete itself.

This is usually where things tighten in the body. And that’s the signal you’ve hit something real.

4. Where did I learn that this was dangerous?

You don’t need a full childhood documentary here, but ask yourself:

When did failing start to feel unsafe?
When did looking stupid become a threat?
When did disappointing someone start to feel costly?

The first memory, pattern, or relationship that comes up is enough.

You’re not fixing anything here. You’re naming the rule your nervous system has been following.

Once it’s conscious, it loses a lot of its power.

A note on time (important)

Please don’t rush this. Spend 5 to 20 minutes.

The work you are doing isn’t just about this task. It’s about all the tasks that trigger the same reaction in your life.

This is one of the highest-ROI questions you can sit with for a life filled with a lot more peace and superhuman-like productivity.

Alright. Back to logic.

So let’s say you did the autopsy.

You realized you weren’t avoiding the newsletter.
You were avoiding what it might say about you.
You traced it back. Dad. School. Being judged. Whatever.

If you write the newsletter and people make fun of it, are you going to die?
No.

Your nervous system thinks you might.
You know better.

So set a five-minute timer. Start the task. When the timer ends, you’re allowed to stop and go do something fun.

That’s it.

Most people find the five minutes turns into more once the initial barrier drops, because the real fear loses its grip when you start.

Until next time,

Benoit

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P.S.
If the autopsy hit hard and you want to truly stop getting bullied by your own brain, grab Unf*ck Your Thinking here on Amazon.

And here's the PDF version if you prefer something you can read offline or share with friends who need this too.