“When all is said and done, more is said than done.” – Lou Holtz.
In his book, The War of Art, Steven Pressfield (who is probably best known for The Legend of Baggar Vance) refers to the stuff that gets in the way of Creatives, keeps them from producing or finishing their work, as Resistance. He gives the word the status of an entity or a being more than just a word.
Resistance is more than just as a substitute for procrastination or laziness. This thing, Resistance, is nasty. All dressed up with one place to go – your mind.
I know he’s right.
Pressfield wrote the book for people in the creative arts – writers, musicians, painters, etc – to help them recognize one of their main stumbling blocks.
Themselves.
And as I read it, I saw a lot of parallels to health, fitness, life.
Resistance is what convinces you that it’s too late to start just about anything: getting yourself back into shape, losing 20 lbs, improving your posture, or really getting serious about that old, nagging back “thing”. Or do something new or pick back up something old.
I played trumpet for a lot of years and then took, oh, a 35 year break. When I started thinking about playing again, about taking it seriously, Resistance pulled up a chair and laughed in my face.
“Do you know how old you are? Do you know how long this will take? You do realize that people half your age never make it, never get in a band, never amount to anything, right? Are you nuts?”
Resistance is happiest when you’re miserable.
Resistance whispers in your ear that “It won’t work”. “It’s too hard”, or “You can’t do it anyway”. Whatever. Don’t bother trying to change what you eat. Your husband (wife, partner, significant other, children, extended family, roommate, your dog) won’t like it and won’t go along so it’s better to just stick with what you’ve been doing. You don’t know enough and you’re a slow learner. You don’t have the time to pursue it anyway. Just quit before you start.
And this beast, Resistance, feeds on Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD). What keeps Resistance in the game is fear of failure (or success), rejection, ridicule, conflict. Or the fear of looking silly or stupid. Or not knowing what to do, where to start or if you’re really doing the right things.
Fear. I know.
Meeting Resistance: Up Front and Personal
I spent about three months preparing for two presentations for the American Association of Orthopedic Medicine that was held at the end of April , 2011. It consumed me. I was so nervous; scared really. Partly because of one of the most common fears people have – public speaking – and partly because the audience was physicians.
“Who am I to be talking here? They’re not going to take me seriously. I’m not a MD. I’m just a PT and a coach and an old one at that. What the hell was I thinking?” Resistance went to bed with me night after night. And let me tell you, Resistance is not a good bed partner.
Resistance followed me everywhere.
And this is why it took three months to prepare for a total speaking time of two and half hours.
Now, I’m not new to the world of public speaking. I’ve conducted well over 250 seminars. Thousands of hours of speaking in front of people. I’m as natural on a stage in front of 300 people as most people are with their friends at a party.
But it had been several years since I had given a talk or lead a seminar, so I felt like I had lost my speaking “chops” and the last time I spoke in front of a group of MDs, I was belittled and made fun of. Sort of still stings a bit.
So I finally finished my prep work. I overcame Resistance by DOING. It’s called Courage – acting in the face of Fear. I broke the thing down in to little chunks and just did at least one thing a day.
And now the day had arrived.
And all I could do was pee.
Every 20 minutes or so, I had to pee. Really. How old am I again?
Right up to presentation time. “What am I going to do if I have to pee in the presentation? This is NOT going to work!”
See, Resistance is a shape shifter. It finds ANY way it can to keep you from your calling; from your need.
And it got a little worse.
The audio-visual set up was a mangled mess. I stood on the stage in front of about 300 people not knowing how to get my computer hooked up. I was sweating. Felt like my bladder was going to explode. Finally, someone jumped up out of the audience and onto the stage to hook me up.
I then looked out at the crowd. They were just staring at me. And I said, “Well, you’d never know I’ve done a couple hundred of these things by the way this thing kicked off.” And laughter followed. My bladder mellowed. I stopped sweating. And off we went.
The talk was a hit.
And all of this happened before I had read Pressfield’s book. Now I understand the power of Fear and that there is only one way to deal with Resistance.
Act.
Even Ellen Degeneres does this…..
Five Steps to Beating Resistance
There are some things you can do to beat back Resistance and get what you want out of your life; to get off your butt and do something.
Chunk it. Whatever it is you’re trying to achieve, knock it down into smaller parts. It may seem counter-intuitive in this age of “I want everything right now”, but less is more when it comes to beating Resistance. Get good at it. Celebrate your consistency and success then add another.
Focus on Process; Not Outcome. One of the reasons I wrestled with Resistance for so long in prepping for my talks was I was too focused on what could happen; what the outcome might be. Like wise, if you’re trying to lose weight or gain strength or stop smoking for that matter, you have to focus on what’s important today and DO it. Depending on your personality, this may be very hard to do. If you’re the kind of person who tends to live in the future, like me, DOING is like a Mount Everest climb. I would rather think about all the possibilities.
Avoid “What the Hell”. One of the things that happens when you slip up and make a mistake, bail on a healthy eating strategy or, in my case, miss a day of working on the talk, it’s SO easy to just say, “Ahhh, what the hell!” and eat a bunch of junk, comfort food or for me, just ditch the day altogether and lie to myself saying, “I’ll get back at it tomorrow.” Instead of “WTH”, try “Hell No!” Don’t quit. Do one thing. Stay with it. It’ll keep you on course and shrink the power of Resistance.
Create an “If-Then” strategy. One thing I tried to do was convince myself that in the worse case scenario (which actually almost happened -almost peeing on myself and not having any audio-video support), that I could always just talk. No one paid me to be there. No one really knew me anyway and the attention span and memory of a lot of people in talks like I gave is just this side of a gnat. If’-Then works and believe it or not, there’s research to support this.
Put some skin in the game. When I gave the talk for the group of physicians, I had a deadline. If I missed the deadline, I would look really bad and fall on my face. I had a LOT of skin in the game. When I started playing my trumpet again, I found a teacher. And then I made a commitment to play, on stage, with a band – something I hadn’t done in a very long time and it was terrifying. But knowing I had to perform, forced me to get off my butt and practice.
In the words of Will Ferrell playing race car driver Ricky Bobby in the movie Talladega Nights, “I wake up in the morning and piss excellence.”
Well Doug, I have been a reader, customer and a fan for a long time. You piss excellence. I learn so much from you. My clinical skills and my patients are all the better for it.
Excellent! This is some of your best writing in years. And…anytime you can start your blog with some words of inspiration by Dr. Lou… It’s a double bonus.
Tips #2 and 3 are big for me. I often have to have to convince myself to just do one thing if that’s all I can do right now. And I fall victim to WTH frequently.
Doug, this article is so thought provoking. It is as if you had a window into my mind . When I turned 70 this year my thought processes became scrambled…Thank you so much for the positive input for a negative problem. I plan on journaling my way through this. Thanks for the jump start. juli
Happy this helped. Being a Creative as you are, keeping your mind on point is sometimes a challenge. It is for me. Just ask Elle…where are my keys again?
LOL That was the story of my life back when I ran track! I was so nervous before each race that I often left the starting line to hit the bathroom, making it back just in time for the gun shot start. It drove my coach nuts.
I don’t have to confront Mr Resistance all too often in my physical health activities (though I HATE going to the dr…) , but he is my constant companion in every other area of my life – and he’s a real drag.
I love your practise of focusing on the process. I’m going to post that phrase on the tack board behind my computer.
DK–this is great. Thank you! I’m an artist and when I’m having a hard time buckling down largely due to setting my goals too high (not enough “chunking”), I “lock” myself in the studio. I then tell myself that I cannot leave the studio for at least two hours. It doesn’t matter what I accomplish, but I have to stay in that work room. Sooner or later, the flow begins. The clock can be your best ally.
Hi Doug. I like your Resistance article….I think the steps you mention for overcoming resistance are so true…One thing I would add, that your personal story also showed, is the power of humor…the power of humor to defuse paralyzing situations and roadblocks….The power of humor to let you take a step back, regroup and then move forward. I had a similar public speaking experience once…one that got off to a bungled start and, as the audience and I contemplated how embarassing and awkward my opening mis-steps were, I made a joke about how awkward the situation was…and in that moment I knew that even if the rest of the presentation didn’t go well I was ok with myself…and that gave me everything I needed. That shared moment of realizing it was ok….ok to not do well in public. And my joke broke the tension of the moment, allowed us all to relax, and I re-started and gave a very powerful presentation…perhaps all the more powerful because of those awkward/awful moments shared with the audience members who were able to connect with me in my human-ness beforehand. Humor. I think humor can disarm resistance to a certain degree…Resistance seems to come partly out of taking things so seriously…out of making things so big and daunting. Humor adds some perspective.
