Last year resistance got the better of me. It made me stop midway on the things I truly wanted to do and it made me feel the pain of not giving my best potential.
But I also understood resistance so much better and today I want to talk about this- Resistance, and how to overcome it.
This year how many of you want to read more, get into the exercise habit, start a creative project or work on something that has been at the back of your mind since forever?
I think we all can raise our hands here.
But then, how many of us really end up doing it?
We all know the answer- So very few.
There is ALWAYS something that comes up.
We think it’s demotivation, inconsistency, indiscipline, fear, procrastination or generally things not working out, but it’s actually resistance.
Resistance is the sum total of all these and we don’t like it when it comes.
We hate when we can’t show discipline.
We hate it when we procrastinate.
We hate it when we can’t show consistency.
We would like us to be determined, to do things easily, to not have any fear, to not be lazy and do our best work.
But when we can’t do that or become the ideal versions that we have in our heads, we think we are lacking.
We think we are not good enough and that we don’t have it in us and hence, give up midway.
And this way, resistance has already won.
But here, you must know that resistance even though its nature is inherently bad, it is a wonderful indicator.
Resistance is an indicator that you’re involved in a good fight.
You will never face resistance to binge-watching a series.
You will never face resistance watching reels all day.
You will never face resistance in going to bed late.
They’re all so easy.
But the moment.. (and I want to stress again..)
The moment you try to improve yourself- start a routine, wake up early, sleep early, start exercising, take up a course, learn something new, make a long-term commitment, or change any negative into positive, resistance WILL show its face.
This is because resistance never wants to see us achieving our goals, our ambitions, our dreams.
It never wants to see us becoming our truest selves.
Resistance always wants to make sure that we remain where we are, never growing, never daring to venture out of our comfort zone.
So when you try to move higher, when you try to grow, when you try to learn something new, you can be certain that resistance WILL come.
If you ever notice, you will see that we only struggle when we move out of our comfort zone.
We only struggle when we try to become better.
If you don’t face any resistance, if you don’t struggle, that might seem good, but it also might mean that you’re not growing enough.
So you must know that there is nothing wrong with resistance coming up.
It’s a good indicator of you fighting the good fight.
Just be mindful when resistance comes up and try to give it a name.
You can ask yourself, “In what way is resistance trying to stop me this time?”
“What is resistance telling me this time?”
How Resistance tries to talk you out of your mission
Table of Contents
To be quick, here are the most common ways resistance tries to talk you out of doing your work which you should be mindful of:
- It says that you need to wait for the perfect time
- It asks you to wait for when you will be able to overcome the fear before starting (which never happens because fear will always be there)
- It tells you that you must do much planning and preparing first instead of working.
- It gives you valid excuses which seem too logical and reasonable to you
- It rationalizes your problems about why now may not the right time and you can always start tomorrow
- It makes you keep procrastinating and not sit down.
- It makes you think that it will take a long time and that you don’t have that much time to wait. In short, it makes you do things only for immediate gratification.
- It makes you look for easy distractions, or in other words, cheap dopamine even though you don’t truly enjoy them and feel satisfied by them.
- It injects you with fear of rejection
- It injects in you the fear of being seen and judged and won’t allow you to take risks.
These little talks by Resistance can seem small, but when they speak to you, and if you’re not very mindful of it, it is enough to stop us from even ‘starting’ our work, leave aside ‘doing’ our work.
Steven Pressfield says in this book, ‘The War of Art’ says,
“Resistance has one object: to prevent us from doing our work. The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more resistance we will feel towards pursuing it.”
But…
How do we beat resistance and overcome it?
One way I am trying to beat resistance is by focusing on tiny wins throughout the day. I have also heard someone call it the ‘little successes’ approach.
Try to have little wins or little successes from the moment you wake up and begin your day.
I have again started waking up at 5 am and when I get up early at 5 am, that itself is a win for me. It means I have beat resistance successfully.
Then when I move on to my first morning ritual of writing in my journal, that is my second win against resistance.
Thereafter when I sit down for my morning read and meditate for 15-20 minutes, those are my next tiny wins.
By the time it is 7 am, I have had a series of tiny wins that help me build up the momentum for doing my most important work for the day.
We think exercising is hard. Reading is hard. Writing is hard. But no, it’s not.
Sitting down to write, opening that book you want to read, laying out your yoga mat, sitting down to do your work is what is hard.
But if you beat resistance one after another and have tiny wins throughout the day from the moment you wake up, you are more likely to build the momentum of doing your most meaningful work and not let resistance beat you.
Even if you get up half an hour early to do your morning prayers, that too is a tiny win and it will propel you to have another tiny win.
Let it be You Vs. Resistance this year.
Let it be You-1 and Resistance-0
It doesn’t matter if resistance knocks you out at first, or second or third. What matters is you rise up again and beat it at last.
Doing things one by one without overwhelm works best in beating resistance.
You only have to focus on doing one thing, not rushing, not multitasking, and just sit down with it before resistance can even have a single word.
And you’ll see you have beaten resistance successfully.
I hope this helps you.
I hope we fight the good fight every day and have a series of tiny wins throughout the day.
P.S This was a part from my Mindful Monday Newsletter. If you liked what you read and want to receive my updates, join below. It would be wonderful to have you ❤️
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