Every morning I wake up, I face the resistance. The resistance would rather have me in bed for a few minutes longer, a few hours even, than go brush my teeth and get productive. It’s excuses soon start running thin on most days since I’m eager to get going. So, when I sit up, it tried a different tactic. It starts asking me if I am capable of getting what I want to get done today.
“Can you do it?” – it goads. “You didn’t get to it yesterday.”
”But I couldn’t. There were too many other things on.”
“It doesn’t matter. You didn’t. Why would you today?”
Here’s what I’ve found.
1. The way to vanquish the resistance is to focus on your process. My process involves an insistence that I must keep plugging away and keep making progress. Results come later. The resistance can’t quite use the “bad results” excuse with me and begins to fail at the part where I describe my process and my intention to just follow it for another day.
2. The resistance is a very persistent toxic force. It will show up every morning – you have to admire it’s persistence and learn to laugh at it. It will try to get you to stay in bed longer, procrastinate longer, and stop you from showing up. On days when you’re weakened by illness or consumed by a lack of purpose, it works. Don’t let it work. Do things because you want to.. not because you lost a battle with the resistance.
3. For an interesting piece on how the resistance makes you physically sabotage yourself, read Steven Pressfield’s post
4. Fighting the resistance and winning is a great way to get the day started. Use the force. Win.
A Learning a Day 