Happy Monday everyone!

This is the first in a serious of Monday posts that I’m going to be doing on fighting resistance. I talked in a previous post  about a book call The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and how he talks about resistance.  This series is going to be my thoughts on resistance and how we can fight it and I’ll use the War of Art as a framework for it.

“Resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be felt. We experience it as an energy field radiating from a work-in-potential. It’s a repelling force. It’s negative. Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work.” (The War of Art pg. 7)

I can’t tell you how many times in my own life I put things off. How often I put off things I know I am suppose to do to help me become who I am suppose to be, and I just don’t do them . I don’t think I’m the only person who feels that way.  I’m not talking about all kinds of extra things for self improvement that will add more things to my calendar. I’m talking the everyday simple “work” of my life.  I have enjoyed putting this blog together but I haven’t posted much here over the last week or so. That’s because the major work of my life has not been getting done.

I am a musician and a creator.  There were several days last week that 9pm would come around and I’d notice that I barely touched the piano that day. The day would fly by and I had been productive at getting “things” done. However they were the busy urgent things of the day. They weren’t the important things or the things I was created to do. 

Then once I realized how little of my work I had done that day I would usually rationalize myself out of doing it, convincing myself I needed some “downtime”.  Now downtime and breaks are important but if I honestly look at my day the things I was doing were my downtime. They were keeping me from doing the things I was suppose to do or created to do.  Some of them were good things but they weren’t the right things. 

For years I would rationalize that I needed to be more productive or prioritize better and sometimes even berate myself for being lazy. Now I’m beginning to realize that something bigger is going on.  Something that can’t be touched, smelled etc. 

I’m not trying to rationalize my way out of my responsibility. I’m trying to call myself to a higher responsibility. Not to get more done but to get more of the things I’m called to done. To fight the resistance that distracts me by telling me I could put that off to accomplish such and such instead which try to make me feel like I have accomplished something but that something usually leaves me feeling hollow.

Instead I want to fight the bigger battle and focus my time on what will add value to my life and the lives of people around me both for now and the future.

In a desire to create an honest environment with this blog I’m going to share some of the things that have been resistance in my life the last while. Some of these are good things. However they were used to put off what I was suppose to be doing instead. 

Computer Games

Exercise 

Cleaning

Snacking 

Over planning

If you’re comfortable feel free to post a comment with some of the things resistance has used to distract you lately.  We can all help keep each other accountable. 

Next week I’ll look at some of the things that we do that make resistance “out to get us”.