The Psychology of Listlessness — Not Wanting to Do Anything May Not Be Laziness. It May Be a Signal From an Injunction Inside You

“Why do I always feel like doing nothing at all?” The things you have to do are piled up in front of you, your body will not move, and you spend another night looking at yourself and blaming yourself once more. Is this scene familiar? Today we want to look at that listlessness through slightly different eyes. In Transactional Analysis (TA), an injunction is an unconscious prohibiting message. It is passed on in childhood from parents or other important adults, not in words but through faces, mood and repeated reactions, and it blocks a particular direction of life: “Don’t,” “Don’t succeed,” “Don’t feel.” Listlessness may not be a problem of character called laziness. It may be a signal that this injunction is still at work.

First, one thing should be made clear. The listlessness discussed here is not a medical diagnosis. It is a story about a pattern of the mind. If your listlessness has gone on for several weeks or more and is breaking down your sleep, your eating and your everyday functioning, we recommend that you get help from a professional as well. But if it is the kind of listlessness in which “the tests show nothing wrong, and yet strangely the engine won’t start” — the point of view offered in this article will help.

Listlessness is not laziness. It is “standing still”

In fact there are almost no lazy people. Look inside a person who seems lazy, and in most cases you find someone standing there who does not “not want” to do something, but is “afraid” to do something. The Schiffs (Schiff & Schiff, 1971), who founded the Cathexis school of Transactional Analysis, called this passivity. Passivity is a state in which, instead of using your own power to solve a problem, you do nothing, or strain too hard and wear yourself out, or finally collapse — and so wait, unconsciously, for someone else to solve it for you.

There is an important twist here. Passivity is not a state of “having no energy.” It is a state in which you are using a great deal of energy in order not to use your energy. You have surely had the experience of lying down all day and yet being strangely exhausted by evening. That fatigue is not the price of laziness. It is the price of a tight tug-of-war inside you, between “the me who is trying to move” and “the me who says I must not move.” So we have to ask. Who on earth is saying “You must not move,” and why?

Three injunctions that work behind listlessness

The Gouldings (Goulding & Goulding, 1979) set out the injunctions that appeared again and again in counseling. Injunctions are not planted by parents with bad intentions. The parents’ own anxiety and wounds seeped into the child, and the child, in order to survive, accepted the message and made it a rule of their own life. Three injunctions are found especially often behind listlessness.

• “Don’t” — this is the case of a child who grew up getting the reaction “That’s dangerous,” “What do you know?” or “Stay still” every time they tried something. For a person carrying this injunction, “starting” is itself a danger signal. So they make plans well, but always stop in front of the first step. If you don’t start, you don’t get scolded.
• “Don’t succeed” — this is the case of a child who got more attention when they failed than when they did well, or whose achievements brought out the parent’s jealousy or discomfort. This person’s listlessness arrives, oddly, when things are starting to go well. It is the pattern of letting go just before the finish, or of suddenly running flat after a promotion or after passing an exam. For them the threshold of success is the threshold of danger.
• “Don’t feel” — this is the case of a child who was ignored or punished for expressing sadness or anger, and who learned to switch feelings off before anything else. But feelings do not switch off selectively. When you switch off pain, excitement switches off with it. “There’s nothing I want to do” is often a confession that the feeling of wanting itself had its lights put out long ago.

The script’s greatest power is that it cannot be seen. The same is true of injunctions. The voice saying “Don’t” no longer sounds like a parent’s voice. It sounds like your own. So we believe it is a fact and not a command: “I’ve always been a person with a weak will.” But once you know its name, it is no longer a fate that controls you. It becomes something you can look at.

Discounting — how listlessness keeps itself going

If injunctions are the root of listlessness, there is an everyday mechanism that keeps listlessness going today as well. It is discounting, as set out by the Schiff school (Mellor & Schiff, 1975). Discounting is a habit of mind in which, without knowing it, you cut down or pretend not to see the information you need to solve a problem. If you listen quietly to the monologue in your mind on a listless day, discounting proceeds in roughly this order.

First you erase the problem itself: “Oh, it’s nothing. I’m just a bit tired.” Next you cut down the importance of the problem: “It’s not as if this is serious. Everybody has it this hard.” Then you cut down the possibility of solving it: “It won’t work anyway, even if I try.” Finally you cut down your own ability: “Other people, maybe, but I can’t.” Once you have gone through these four steps, doing nothing feels like a very logical conclusion. This is how listlessness renews its own contract every day.

This is why it matters to notice discounting. Injunctions were written decades ago and are hard to change right away, but discounting is a sentence of this very moment. When the thought “It won’t work anyway” passes through, you notice: “Ah, I’m cutting down the possibility right now.” That one act of noticing is the first snip of the scissors that cuts the automatic renewal of listlessness.

A recovery that starts very small

The trap that people trying to get out of listlessness fall into most often is, paradoxically, the “big resolution.” It is the plan to get up at six from tomorrow, exercise, and start studying for a qualification. But to a mind carrying the injunction “Don’t,” a big resolution is a big threat. When the injunction detects a threat it steps harder on the brake, and in front of a plan that collapsed in three days, all we do is collect one more piece of evidence for the script: “I knew it, I can’t do it.”

So recovery has to start so small that the injunction does not notice. Not reading a book, but reading one paragraph. Not cleaning the room, but taking one cup from the desk to the sink. Not exercising, but going as far as outside the front door and back. It looks laughably small, but this small action has a precise psychological function. It builds up in your mind the experience that disproves the rule: “I can start, and nothing happens.” What the Gouldings called redecision comes down to this as well. The decision you made as a child in order to survive (“Don’t move. That’s how I stay safe”) is made again with the strength you have now as an adult (“It is safe to move now”). Redecision is not a dramatic declaration. It starts at the fingertips that move one cup.

And one more thing. Be sure to recognize yourself for having started small. Not “All I did was this one thing,” but “Today I was one step ahead of the injunction.” The script of listlessness keeps itself going by discounting achievement, so recovery grows out of the practice of not discounting a small achievement.

Find the name of your listlessness

Listlessness is not a problem of will. It is a signal: a signal that an injunction you took down from someone long ago is still sitting in the driver’s seat of your life. If so, the first step in recovery is not to wring out a stronger will. It is to know the exact name of that injunction. The knot you need to untie is in a different place depending on whether your brake is “Don’t,” “Don’t succeed” or “Don’t feel.”

The free injunctions test on Lifescript is based on the injunctions the Gouldings set out, and helps you look at which prohibiting message is at work behind your listlessness now. A few minutes are enough. If you felt like doing nothing at all today — then in exactly that frame of mind, how about doing just this one small thing? Once you know its name, listlessness is no longer a fate that controls you. It becomes something you can look at. Take the free injunctions test