You know that big, important thing you’ve been putting off doing? That project? That chore? That behavioral change? Yeah, that thing. It’s time to get started.
Oh, you thought I was joking? Get started, right now. Seriously, stop reading this and get started.
Wait, you’re still here? Why are you still here? Let me guess… I bet you’re experiencing some kind of resistance.
Resistance is a psychological phenomenon that arises whenever we try to do something good for ourselves that will require effort or willpower.1 It can manifest as feelings of laziness or self-distraction or the sudden generation of excuses – sorry, reasons – to procrastinate. Resistance saps us of motivation. Resistance makes us get in our own way. Resistance keeps us from becoming our best selves. Resistance is a real jerk.
But there is a bright side. Resistance can be used to guide us toward the right actions. This is because resistance is a compass, as Steven Pressfield noted in his excellent little book, Do the Work:
“Like a magnetized needle floating on a surface of oil, Resistance will unfailingly point to true North – meaning that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing. We can use this. We can use it as a compass. We can navigate by Resistance, letting it guide us to that calling or purpose that we must follow before all others. … The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.” 1
In other words, we feel the most resistance toward the things that matter most. Your biggest dreams and most critical objectives generate the largest amounts of resistance. So if you’re feeling a lot of resistance to doing something, you can be sure that it’s exactly what you need to be doing.
Now, get to work. You won’t regret it.
1Pressfield, Steven. Do the Work: Overcome Resistance and Get Out of Your Own Way
The Domino Project, 2011.
P.S. Here’s a poster you can print out and put on your wall to remind you of this principle.