This is for all of my friends, those of you sitting on your couch watching Netflix or maybe in your bed scrolling Insta, just thinking to yourself, “I should be doing my laundry, or applying to new jobs, or going to the gym, or maybe cleaning my room,” but for whatever reason, you can’t bring yourself to actually stand up and do it.

It doesn’t matter if you know it’s good for you or know that you will feel better afterwards, the weight of doing it is just too much to bear. And even though you are bored of Netflix and Instagram, sitting there still seems easier.

As the weight gets heavier, you start to blame it on the motivation. Wishing that you were one of those rise and grind type of people who felt motivated at all times and could just do the thing anyways.

So if this is you, then this is the time that I’m going to let you in on a little secret: Motivation doesn’t mean shit.

It’s a scapegoat. It’s a distraction. It’s a socially constructed way of avoiding the root problem and trying to get the result anyways.

If you find yourself wishing for motivation, this is my message to you to stop.

We are smarter, stronger, know more, and are more intuitive than we ever give ourselves credit for. We are creatures designed to inherently know what is best for us and where we should go. But the weight of society takes away from that. It distracts us, sending messages that we should follow “this path” to feel happier, live better, and be more.

It tells us we aren’t enough right now, because we don’t look like the model who is leading meetings with killer confidence by day, attending continuous happy hours by night, all while wandering the globe in style. Never tired, never sad, never purposeless.

This image of a “perfect life,” this image to strive towards, this image that never stops being pushed on us by the media, our parents, and our peers is only feeding our brains with untrue ideas of what we need to do to feel whole again.

But wholeness is within us, and deep down our body knows that. When it sees us going down the wrong path or taking the wrong steps to get there, it gifts us resistance. It makes it harder for us. This is the body’s signal to tell us to take a step back and think — why don’t things feel right?

If all the right things are in place, and you are certain that the thing you will be doing is good for you, then perhaps there is something off deep inside that you need to address first.

This may seem silly when you think about your lack of desire to do your laundry, but give it a chance. If one thing feels hard, there is a very good chance that the thing deep inside of you that isn’t being nurtured right now also is hurting you in other, more seemingly important areas of your life.

The number one lie I hear people being fed is that life is meant to be hard. You are meant to struggle and feel stuck and unsettled. You are meant to just get through it.

For all of you who cling to this belief with your life, repeating it as a mantra every time you go to complain, I’m going to let you in on a little secret: We are not meant to struggle.

We are meant to be in flow and living easily and effortlessly. We are meant to love the work we do, even when it presents challenges. We are meant to enjoy each moment and the people that are in it, connecting and experiencing fully.

But by feeding into the lie that life is meant to be hard and we need to manufacture motivation to get through it, we start to bury that voice deep inside us that is giving us the roadmap to how to make it easy, flowy, and fun.

So the next time you are sitting on the couch with the resistance building up, rather than feel defeated and wishing you had more control over your motivation, stop. Take a step back and ask yourself why this thing feels so hard right now. Deep down, what is this message trying to tell you?

Then quiet the noise of your surroundings, put down the phone, turn off the TV, and just listen.