Maybe “I Can’t Be Arsed” Is Useful Information

I said “I can’t be arsed” rather a lot last week. Mostly during a long chat with my friend and business strategist Nikki about what I actually want work to look like in this next phase of my life.

Not what I “should” be doing or what apparently successful business owners do before breakfast while I’m still drinking coffee in my horizontal office. But what I actually want. And apparently, according to me, there are quite a lot of things I can’t be arsed with.

Traditional networking meetings came up fairly quickly. As did tech stuff and faffing around with funnels. And, if I’m honest, the seemingly endless promotion I feel like I’m doing to sell the last three places on my Sassy Shoes workshop.

I’ve made videos, written posts, shared photographs, talked about the shoes, talked about what happens beyond the shoes and tried different angles, but there are still three places left. And every time I think, “I really ought to do another post about Sassy Shoes”, something inside me goes...

I CAN’T BE ARSED.

Which isn’t particularly helpful when you’re the person responsible for selling the spaces. But the more Nikki and I talked, the more I realised that “I can’t be arsed” might actually be quite useful information. Because it doesn’t mean I can’t be arsed with my business. Bear with me...

The phrase itself is interesting when you think about it. “I can’t be arsed” doesn’t actually mean I can’t do it. It means something much closer to I can’t summon the inclination to expend the effort required to do it.

Which sounds a bit lazy and dismissive on the surface. Except what if it isn’t? What if I’m perfectly capable of expending the effort, but somewhere inside me I’ve already done a little calculation and decided the return doesn’t warrant it?

Because apparently I can be arsed with plenty of things that require quite a lot of effort. I can absolutely be arsed with delivering the workshop. Give me a room full of people, a table covered in metallic foil, shoes waiting to be transformed and the opportunity to get people thinking differently about themselves and I’m there.

I can be arsed with speaking. Put me in front of an audience and let me poke at some of the invisible rules we follow without even realising they’re there and I’m happy as Larry.

And this week I’ve started something called Diva Delves, which involves conversations with ten very different people about their experiences of being squished by the Sausage Machine of Conformity, and I’m very much arsed about it. I’ve deliberately chosen people of different ages, genders and backgrounds because I want to hear their stories. I don’t know what they’re going to tell me and that’s the exciting bit.

Real people, real stories, completely different experiences. I recorded my first conversation last Friday and I genuinely cannot wait to do the rest.

So clearly I can be arsed.

And that’s when I realised it isn’t really about the effort. It’s about what I get back from the effort. Not necessarily financially either, although let’s not pretend money doesn’t matter. I’ve said before that I don’t particularly want to be running an expensive hobby.

But return can be lots of things. Connection, curiosity, enjoyment, impact, making or learning something, hearing someone else’s perspective and thinking, “Bloody hell, I’d never looked at it like that.” Those things feel worth my energy.

And once I’d spotted that, I started wondering where else this shows up...

Relationships immediately sprang to mind. I’ve definitely had relationships where my response to something not working was to put more effort into it. Try harder, be more understanding, make allowances, give it another chance. Maybe if I did this, stopped doing that or just tried a bit harder...

Because we’re taught that effort is a good thing, aren’t we?

✔️Don’t give up
✔️Relationships take work
✔️Businesses take work
✔️Success takes work
✔️Anything worth having takes work

There’s almost something morally superior about being the person who keeps trying. But what if you keep pouring effort into something and very little ever comes back? At what point are you allowed to decide:

This isn’t worth what it’s taking from me?

Not because you’re lazy, expect everything to be easy or only want to do things that give you an immediate reward. But just because your energy has value too. I think I’m only really beginning to understand that.

It’s probably why I’ve been thinking so much recently about what I want the next phase of my life to look like. Somewhere along the way, my work and non-workdays blurred into one big chunk of time.

There’s always something I could be doing, usually some tech thing I’ve been avoiding or something I could be promoting. And because the work is still there, everything else can start to feel like it’s interrupting it.

▪️Going to the gym interrupts the working day
▪️Painting has to wait because I’ve got work to do
▪️Making something for no other reason than I fancy making it can feel less important than ticking something off a list

Which is slightly bonkers when I actually think about it. Especially because when I asked myself what I’d like an ordinary Tuesday to look like if nobody was watching and I didn’t have to justify how I spent it, my answer was...

Pretty much like it does now 😂

I don’t actually need to create an entirely different life. I like my life. What I need to stop doing is treating the bits of it that aren’t work as though they’re what I squeeze into whatever space work leaves behind.

So Nikki and I talked about putting some structure back. Gym days that are gym days rather than squeezing the gym around work. Work days that are actually work days. Fridays for time with Paul or friends. More painting and making things and more space for spontaneity.

Perhaps putting those things in my diary as non-negotiables is just a bridge until I stop thinking they need to justify their place there. None of those things need to generate a lead, make money or result in something I can cross off a list to have value.

Maybe that’s the distinction I’m finally making.

🩷 I’m not becoming someone who can’t be arsed.

🩷 I’m becoming much more discerning about what I can be arsed with.

At 50, I measured success much more financially. These days success looks increasingly like being able to choose what I do and when I do it. We live a relatively simple life. I don’t need to build some enormous empire just so I can say I’ve built one. I want work that feels meaningful and conversations that make me curious. I want to make things, get stronger and more mobile. I want time with people I love and to have an impact.

And yes, I want the business to make money because I want the exchange between what I put in and what I get back to feel fair. Perhaps that’s why “I can’t be arsed” keeps coming up. Maybe it’s not something I need to correct, more something I need to get curious about. Because sometimes “I can’t be arsed” might mean “I don’t want to.” And sometimes it means “This isn’t worth the effort for what I get back.” Which is very useful information.

As we know, the Sausage Machine loves a should:

✔️You should keep trying
✔️You should work harder
✔️You shouldn’t give up

But perhaps Unsausaging sometimes means asking a different question:

Is this still worth my energy?

And then being prepared to listen to the answer. Even when the answer is... “Nah. Can’t be arsed.”