I have been stuck. My blog, journal, emails, and projects have just been sitting there staring at me. And I’ve sat staring back.
But this afternoon I discovered a way to get unstuck. If you're losing in a mindless staring contest with your computer screen, too, this will help.
Resistance.
Steven Pressfield’s book Do the Work is phenomenal. In all great things that we do, he says, there is Resistance. I encounter Resistance each time I pursue a new writing project. It’s as though my mind suddenly decides it is completely incapable of formulating sentences as soon as I’ve got a project before me. Resistance, Pressfield says, can come in many forms. Fear, doubt, procrastination, addiction, perfectionism, etc.
So, in response to severe writer's block, I decided to write a letter to my Resistance.
The Resistance that was sitting before me at the time? Chick-fil-A.
There is a tension between my healthy lifestyle and the temptation to give in to the wonder of Chick-fil-A. It's the same as the tension between my longing to become a better writer and the temptation of giving in to self-doubt and procrastination.
PRACTICE
Go ahead. Try it. Use the Resistance you’re encountering to propel you further. Spend fifteen minutes writing a letter to Resistance. After all, the two of you should probably get to know each other well. You’ll be dancing together for the rest of your lives.
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Dear resistance — thank you for the opportunity to become a better person, and a better writer. Thank you for reminding me I don’t have it all figured out. Also, if you think you’re going to the get the best of me, well… you have another thing coming.
Regards,
Ally
Ha! This made me smile. Love it, Ally.
Joe, thank you for your work and persistence.
Dear resistance — thank you for the opportunity to become a better person, and a better writer. Thank you for reminding me I don’t have it all figured out. Also, if you think you’re going to the get the best of me, well… you have another thing coming.
Regards,
Ally
Ha! This made me smile. Love it, Ally.
it is the artist’s job to
accept that the work will be very,
very hard; to understand the importance
of deep reflection, and to fight the forces
of fear and resistance, all in the
name of filling blank
pages and creating
beauty.
-BLAINE HOGAN
(PS, this prompt was awesome)
it is the artist’s job to
accept that the work will be very,
very hard; to understand the importance
of deep reflection, and to fight the forces
of fear and resistance, all in the
name of filling blank
pages and creating
beauty.
-BLAINE HOGAN
(PS, this prompt was awesome)
Dear Laziness and Undiscipline,
First, you should know why I’m grouping the two of you together and why I’m not happy with how you’ve caused so much frustration in my life. Frankly, I see you two as walking hand in hand with how you treat me. Laziness causes me to sit on my but when there is work to be done, and Undiscipline just sits on it’s but too, letting it happen. And then, when Undiscipline leaves me hanging with an unfinished job, Laziness offers something easier to wander off too. I’m really sick and tired of the two of you. I see what you’re doing with all my kids, and I want you to stop.
I’ve read a biography on J.D. Rockefeller, a tremendous man, who though you may have threatened, was able to leave you at his bedside every morning. Also, I’ve watched a movie on the life of Louie Zambrini, and can see that although he at times struggled with Laziness, was able to push himself beyond your grasp when it really mattered in life. Then I read about my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, of whom it is said was tempted in all points as we are, but yet without sin, and that through his Obedience, many were brought to life. These are the men that I want to look upon as leaders. J.D. and Louie, as men who found strength in their relationship with this same God that I desire to walk with.
That is why this morning, on a Saturday, I woke up at 6 and read and prayed, then opened up the laptop to continue my new Discipline of writing. I don’t need you two in my life, so you can leave. Since I have no way to keep you out for good, as long as I’m in this body, I know you’ll try to return. But be sure that you are not welcomed, and I will find ways and roadblocks to keep your effects minimum and your visits short, very short. Watch as I type away here, you are invisible to me.
Love,
Thomas
Dear Resistance –
How should I address you? You are so slippery, after all. A shape-shifter. You are self-doubt, and then inexperience, then self-hatred, then depression.
Of course, I’ve encountered you before. I like to think that the work I do every day keeps you at bay. But you are, of course, sly! There’s nothing quite like starting a project before my energy burns out, and I am left staring at what I have done, and you begin to creep into my mind.
I have hesitated, I admit. I’ve had my weak moments. Which is terrible, because I need to think of myself as strong, and then I am thrown into you – a cycle of doubt and hesitation which expands from a few seconds to a whole day. That is you, Resistance, and why you are so slippery. You must congratulate yourself – you are a whole cycle in itself.
I try to rest assured that whatever I attempt, I can always fight you back. Be it writing or absolutely whatever else. But you just have to complicate things, don’t you?
Fear is not an uncommon thing, or a sign of weakness. Neither is the chance to catch a breath away from work. But you are a cycle, and you manage to wriggle in to almost every situation I find myself in.
But I get ahead of myself. I can keep you off with whatever makes me passionate. You are inside me, Resistance, and I, spending so much of my time within the confines of my mind, can learn to fight you from within.
But enough dark language and clipped sentences. My, I sound like I’m ranting. Let’s have some more lovely flowers with our description, shall we?
Best,
W.
Dear Resistance,
I’ve found the form you like to take when dealing with me is Intimidation and Self-Doubt. You keep me from trying anything new because “I don’t know what I’m doing.” You convince me I have to meet pre-requisites and qualifications in order to write. But I know in my heart that, dear Resistance, even if I strived to meet those qualifications you’d just move the goalposts.
You haunt my every step. You convince me every decision I’m making is wrong, even if it’s something as simple as what to watch for TV. “Don’t watch Lucifer; you don’t have an hour to spare.” “Don’t watch Ghost in the Shell; there are too many episodes to get invested in.” So I hesitate and idle, waiting for you to tell me what the right decision is. But you never do, because that’s not your job. Your job is to keep me from doing anything at all. And I fall for it to varying degrees every day.
So what can I do? Honestly, I know I’ve done half the work by realizing what’s going on. But I seem stuck when it comes to just pushing through and doing it anyway. Although maybe something I can do was suggested by the book “Fierce on the Page”: stop obsessing over my bad habits. Stop viewing and focusing on my bad habits as problems to be solved. Instead, I should invest in my good habits until the bad habits have no room to grow. So for now, at the end of every day, instead of bemoaning what I didn’t get done, I celebrate what I did do. It’s hard, and I have an aversion to hard, but it’s slowly becoming worth it.
So I have depression. I might have narcolepsy. Both of them feed into the wasting of time. Both of them feed into Resistance. Every day, I wake up thinking this will be the day a switch flips in my brain and I won’t have to deal with you anymore. But epiphanies don’t work in the real world. It’s time for a more gradual solution: focus on the positive.
Karla