Overcoming laziness: How to be excited about dealing with your hair
Here’s the podcast version if you’d rather listen:
This should’ve been the first article I ever published on THP. Perhaps I was too lazy to do it. Or I was still struggling myself…(yeah, that was probably it). Who knew when we jumped in this natural hair movement, we were going to meet hair with some personality! Our hair can finally grow the way she wants to and it seems like when she’s at her prime, it can be a little overwhelming for us as “hair mothers” to take care of her vibrant behavior. Sometimes we get a little lazy and just don’t feel like dealing with anything, let alone hair! But neglect just isn’t something our hair can handle. Remember, that’s your child and when you neglect, she’s going to show her resentment by making it even harder for you.
So let’s avoid that:
Think about how much damage you’re causing
Sometimes, we have to shock ourselves into action. So let me give you some scary facts. Every day you neglect your hair, she is becoming dry, weaker and much harder to control. That is true and before you think about skipping out on a detangling session, know that it’s only going to be more difficult the longer you push it off. There’s been times I’ve literally kept my hair in a puff and pulled up for two weeks! And it definitely seemed like it took me just as long to get my hair back to feeling good again—after all the breakage, hair knots and lint was combed out.
Split up your tasks into time slots
Maybe don’t detangle AND deep condition AND moisturize AND style all at the same time. Who said that you had to? Something I’ve found that works for me and eliminates the feeling of overwhelm and like I’ve literally wasted a whole evening doing my hair is to just do one task at a time. Today I may wash my hair and moisturize it. Tomorrow I may detangle it. The next day I’ll probably deep condition it. And the day after that I may finally try a new cute hairstyle. When you pace yourself and split up the time it requires you to do your hair, it definitely won’t seem frustrating and you’ll find that you are actually looking forward to the next day to complete the next task.
Play with your hair
This may sound odd but it’s something I realized I was subconsciously doing at times before I attempted doing certain things with my hair. I have a strong case of Hands-in-Hair Syndrome. Since I wear my wash-n-go A LOT, I’m always touching my hair for various reasons. But I realized sometimes, as I’m mindlessly playing with my curls, I’ll find something I don’t like. Like a hair knot, or split end, etc. And I have this weird “fear” that if I don’t take care of right now I’ll never be able to find it again and eventually that one I let get away will influence the other hair strands to rebel and cause more damage to my hair (I can be very dramatic, I know). So before I know it, I’ve handled that problem and actually started to search for more culprits like it. I’m already there, so why not finish the job?
I find that I am actually more enthusiastic about handling those sorts of problems when it surprises me rather than if I knew “today’s the day I’m going to get rid of all these hair knots/split ends”. When I create a “plan” like that for myself, it feels like a chore and I’m definitely not looking forward to it because I know it’ll be time-consuming and probably a little frustrating.
If I’m playing in my hair a lot, that usually means I’m not too busy. And I actually think it’s essential to feel and play with your hair from time to time. That’s really when you’ll catch some things you would’ve missed. I relate it to playing with your child (something that’s essential and important) and you discover a bruise that you just might have not even seen if you two weren’t playing around. Aren’t you glad you saw it right? Play with you hair too.
Overcoming the laziness really isn’t about not being lazy anymore. If you realized, I played on the strengths of my lazy naturals (I’m definitely one of them). We don’t like to pull long hours and hard labor. We’d rather work in spurts and short periods and all I did was give you some ways to work with the person that you are so you can STILL achieve your hair goals! So take it e-a-s-y