You’ve heard the saying before, I’m sure, but it’s true – we are our own worst enemies. We know what there is to be done, but for some reason we don’t do it. We get in our own way.
Like its close cousin, inertia, resistance is a powerful and insidious foe. It crops up in the most innocuous of ways. We put of until tomorrow what we can do today. We give excuses. We don’t make the best use of our time.
We have to get out of our own way so we can do what we really want to do.
There’s an excellent book on this subject, Steven Pressfield’s the War of Art. (not to be confused with the Art of War, which the author credits) In it, he argues quite convincingly that it was probably easier for Adolf Hitler to start World War II than to paint. A bold claim, perhaps, but I personally think it’s true.
Why? Because it’s always easier to hate than to love. It’s easier to procrastinate than do. It’s easier to think than to act. All these are forms of resistance.
I’m not saying that you should find the hardest thing to do and go bang your head into a wall. That’s not being productive…that’s just being stupid. But if there is something that you really have to do, that you feel called to do, that you want so badly you can taste it…but you’re not getting any closer to it, then maybe, just maybe, what you’re facing is resistance.
In it’s own way resistance is helping us, and that can strangely enough be something to be grateful for (link) Because you see, that’s where you have to go. If there’s something that you feel that you have to do but you can’t do it…that generally means that you’re going to have to break through those barriers and DO IT, whatever it is. Think of it as having your own personal compass of the soul.
In short, the more you don’t want to do something, the more it’s telling you about yourself. Dig into yourself. Why aren’t you doing the one thing you want to?
When I started writing this series of article you cannot believe how much resistance cropped up, and in what ways besides. There was email to answer. There were other things to think about. I got up from my chair and paced around for no good reason. I found something else to do. I turned on the TV, and I don’t even watch TV! (I haven’t for many, many years, ever since I discovered video games.)
So as you can see, resistance is nothing if not insidious. I’ve lost count of the amount of people I’ve seen who should be in therapy but aren’t, because they found excuses not to be in it. The same goes for exercise and eating healthily.
If you’re stuck in a rut, if , then it’s time to take a good, long hard look at yourself and ask yourself why you are behaving in that way. Ask a friend or two as well. Get some outside opinions. Is there something you continually put off? Something you talk about but never ever do? An accountability partner can be useful in some situations – two heads are better than one and all that.
But remember – you can beat this. You can be the person that you are meant to be, that you want to become. Resistance is actually leading you in the right direction. The darkest hour is always before the dawn, as they say.
So go out there do your best. Don’t let it have its way with you, don’t let the bedbugs bite, and be excellent.