How to Overcome Inner Resistance
WHY YOU SHOULD LISTEN:
If you've ever known exactly what you should be working on and still found a way to avoid it, you’ve experienced what Stephen Pressfield calls “Resistance” and this episode shows you how to overcome it.
PAT’S TAKE
Pressfield is, in my opinion, a legend. A hugely successful novelist turned nonfiction best-seller, he is 82 and still shows up like a professional every single day.
His definition of “Resistance” is an incredibly relatable one - that feeling of procrastinating on that piece of work or project that we know we should be working on. Linking this concept into purpose, I love his insight in this episode that the more important something is to your soul's growth, the stronger the resistance to it will be. The task you are most avoiding is usually the one that you need to do the most.
KEY IDEAS
① The bigger the tree, the bigger the shadow. Resistance scales with the size of the project. If something feels hard to start, that's often a sign it matters most.
② Turn pro, stop being an amateur. A pro shows up every day, doesn't take success or failure personally and does the work whether they feel like it or not. An amateur waits to feel ready before they get to work.
③ Once you know your calling, it doesn’t go away. Most people spend their whole lives avoiding it, but once you've found it, it stays. The knowing that you should be doing something and aren't doesn't disappear, that voice only gets louder.
④ Get on the track your soul was meant to be. Doing work that is meaningful is hard, but it sets you on the track that your soul was meant to be on, and you can’t ask for anymore than that.
LISTEN TO THIS IF…
You know exactly what you should be working on but keep finding ways to avoid it
You want a practical, no-nonsense framework for building the mindset of a professional to become more consistent in those areas that matter most
You're chasing something and want to hear how an 82-year-old still shows up daily to do the work
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