Steven Pressfield, has one of the clearest voices I have ever heard on the topic of resistance. My mom kindly gave me a copy of his book “The War of Art” before my flight back to Peru. He describes resistance as the force that wants to keep us small, afraid, lazy, or from fully engaging with the world.

He writes:

Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it. Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that the enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul.

Once I started noticing my resistance last year, I got clearer. I didn’t want to expand into a scary new skillset. The door felt too wide, I felt too incompetent, and the other participants felt really intimidating. I had resistance about reading books and expanding into new ideas that I knew would make me a bigger person.

As Pressfield explains in his person effort to counter resistance:

What convinced me to finally go ahead was simply that I was so unhappy not going ahead. I was developing symptoms. As soon as I sat down and began, I was okaIy.

The amazing part is that once we simply begin the work we have resisted, our misery goes away. The committment to sit down and do something is the most powerful force we have. I am sure of it.