How to be a Resistance Killer

Steven Pressfield, author of “The War of Art,” was one of the first people who proposed the idea of using fear as a compass.

“Whatever it is you’re scared to do, do that thing,” he’d say.

Nervous about heights? Go rock climbing.

Don’t want to talk to anybody? Get on stage and speak.

All of this is in an effort to kill the “resistance,” a term he coined to describe that insidious thing that makes us overly worried or hesitant when we’re on the brink of positive action. It blurs our focus and distracts us with perfectionism and halts our efforts with procrastination.

Resistance is not something you play with. Resistance is something you kill.

I deal with it every day. Whether I’m writing for my community or building a tool for a client or hitting publish on a post. The resistance is everywhere.

And it’s not enough to hope resistance just goes away.

You need to trick it into submission and eventually into its own demise. For that, there is one proven effective method: Build a solid routine.

A routine takes thinking out of the picture.

I’ve always had a sleep routine for getting into bed: pajamas, face, teeth, pee, night-time tea, pee again, read, sleep.

What I didn’t have was an end-of-workday routine or a publishing routine or a 5-pages-a-day routine. Which means that doing any of these things was incredibly difficult and strange and new to my brain.

But a routine would make it regular.

Just know that you’re not weak or dumb or lazy if the resistance comes for you — it comes for all of us. It’s a sign that you’re about to do something great.

Take it as that, and plough through.

Resistance makes growth difficult, not impossible. It’s there precisely so you can push through the paralyzing fear your brain experiences when doing something it deems risky.

If you can recognize the resistance, you can kill it with routine.

Excerpt From Love is the Business Plan (and other unconventional ideas)
by Tanya Moushi

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