You must do the things you think you cannot do. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
It’s a new year and the air is full of champions, fist pumping new goals, resolutions and fresh starts. If you haven’t caught the contagion, don’t fret. With every new start there’s a ramp up phase, a regrouping and ultimate butt kicking to get yourself in gear.
For me, the first two weeks of 2012 have been spent doing some well-meaning soul-searching. Taking inventory of the last year, the great wins, the epic fails and everything in between. While I think this time is totally necessary it also feels a bit like a lag (gasp!) And the more I dig deep the more I feel like my soul searching is actually resistance in a cute disguise.
Author Steven Pressfield defines resistance as the internal foe or critic who blocks us from doing what we long to do. I’ve written about the inner critic before, yet she seems to continue to rear her ugly head. The resistance continues to nag, have you putting off projects and taking more time than you truly need to get in gear.
So how do you rid yourself of resistance? My thought is you don’t. Resistance or our “inner hater” is a part of our make up. She’s like that nagging aunt who keeps asking “why are you still single?” Annoying but sadly she’s still your family.
Instead of focusing on removing resistance all together, we can create little prompts or action steps to better deal with it. Just by writing about my resistance has helped to get me moving. Take that resistance! I can’t say that I’ll never get stuck again but the next time I do I’ll be better able to recognize the crafty devil and do the work to keep it at bay.
As for your aunt, next time she questions your love status, prompt back “Why are you still old?” That’ll learn her!
How do you deal with resistance?
I am in the process of a career change and I had to actually create a treatment plan for myself. My plan consisted of my personal goals for the next 4 months and I posted them to the wall in my room. The importance here is to have realistic goals and to use the timeline as a guide. Sometimes looking at the big picture is so hard but when it is broken down into small obtainable steps, that resistance becomes persistence. Great post!
oooh, this is a tough one. I try really hard to remember that 99% of the time the thing that I’m resisting doing, really isn’t a big deal. I very, very frequently spend more time avoiding things than I do deal with them. Like, I’ve been avoiding one specific piece of client work for four days and it’s been hanging over my head something awful.
I just finished it and it took me 1.5 hours. After avoiding it for four days. Forpetessake.