I would like to make a distinction between laziness and executive dysfunction, which can look like laziness at a surface level. It’s very common for people with undiagnosed ADHD to absolutely hate themselves for their inability to willpower themselves out of being lazy.

ADHD in particular doesn’t just perceive a low emotional return for work invested, it fails to produce the chemicals that give a higher emotional reward in the first place. People with executive dysfunction can’t just convince themselves that the task will feel good once it’s complete, because the brain almost never actually feels good after completing the task. Trying to focus on the good feeling doesn’t work, because there is no good feeling. This is why, for people with more severe ADHD, behavioral/attitude adjustments hardly ever help, and medication is necessary to make the behavioral/attitude adjustment stick.

Of course ADHD is a spectrum, so everyone’s mileage will vary, each person will have different “tricks” that work for them to hijack their brain. And people with ADHD aren’t the only people who experience executive dysfunction.