Resistance is a very interesting concept, one I knew I would talk about sooner or later. It is not mine, and it was very well developed by Steven Pressfield in his book The War of Art.
Resistance is a force that works against getting things done. It has different faces (rationalisation, fear, distraction, procrastination, self-criticism just to mention a few), but very generally speaking it is the story we tell ourselves to give us reasons not to do something we want to do.
If somebody offers their help, for example, in a generous and passionate way, the most rational part of us would say: “Thank you, I take it. Here is what you could do”.
But then resistance kicks in. And here is what it says. “They must be busy”, “Just offering their help to be kind”, “Don’t want to bother them”, “There’s no such thing like a free lunch”, “They don’t really care”, “I don’t have time to tell them what they are doing”, “This is not so important after all”, “I don’t even like them and their work”. And so on.
The point is, will you get what you wanted done or not? If the answer is no, be mindful of resistance. It’s the one talking, not you.
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