resistance & regret

holy shit it's hard to sit still these days

Van Gogh’s Smoking Skull

There are many ambitions, ideas, threads I would so deeply love to unravel in my mind. But in the past week or so, my Resistance has been more unruly than usual, raging uncontrollably every time I sit down to write. And not just in the loud, obvious, boisterous ways I’m used to facing, but in these stealthy, subtle ways, too.

For those unfamiliar with the concept of Resistance, it’s the idea that there is an opposing inner force that keeps us from doing our creative work, or whatever work is most important to us. I was introduced to the concept through Steven Pressfield’s book, the War of Art: the Inner Battle of Creative Work. He says:

“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance. Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be. 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.”

resistance as a dynamic force

So: Resistance gets in our way. But it is not just a static force. It’s a dynamic force equipped with all of the self-awareness and intelligence we ourselves possess. It is trained off of a data set complete with every single one of our past decisions, vices, weaknesses, strengths and uses this information explicitly to sabotage us. This shifted my mindset from “my Resistance is a generic, stationery blocker keeping me from doing my work” (like a red light) to “my Resistance is an intelligent, living, breathing thing that has studied me my whole life and knows exactly what to do to keep me from doing my work” (like a car driving directly in front of me, cutting me off every time I try to move around it). This shift was critical because it made beating my Resistance a competition, a game where I am playing against myself.

“Resistance has no strength of its own. Every ounce of juice it possesses comes from us.”—the War of Art

I stumbled upon the personification of Resistance as an active inner force in this podcast episode where Rich Roll interviews Rabbi Mordecai Finley, whom he was introduced to by Steven Pressfield himself:

Roll: What is your interpretation of Resistance?

Finley: The Hebrew phrase for Resistance is actually Yetzer Hara—which translates directly to a “shaping force” (Yetzer) “that is bad or evil” (Hara) [...] There’s this idea presented in Genesis that whatever Man wants to do will be accompanied by a spoiling force, a force that tries to oppose this aspiration—and the more Man wants to do something, the stronger this opposing force, the Yetzer Hara, will be.

Resistance is not your friend. It is an active intelligence in the inner life that is oppositional.

I am honestly impressed by the intelligence of my Resistance. It is so mischievous, convincing, well-adjusted to my self image. I’d be proud of how good it is at its job, if its job was not to directly sabotage me.

When I started taking writing more seriously, my Resistance was playing with a beginner’s handbook—using typical, elementary sabotage methods: tempting me with social media apps, spontaneous social time, mindless tasks. Basic stuff. But as I got better at breaking through the Resistance membrane each day to get to my creative work, my Resistance got smarter, stronger, sharper to fortify itself against me.

My resistance looked at the momentum I was building, and did what any good villain would do: it started using it against me. Oh, people like your writing? You’ll never make anything that good again. You’ve already written about your most interesting ideas. You’re repeating yourself. That sounds obvious. Now people are watching, the stakes are high… you’re really going to put that out?

Resistance knows when the stakes are highest, and kicks into its highest gear in response. From the War of Art:

“The danger is greatest when the finish line is in sight. At this point, Resistance knows we’re about to beat it. It hits the panic button. It marshals one last assault and slams us with everything it’s got.”

I thought all I needed to produce creative work was ideas and time. It turns out I need ideas, time, and a mental army that can go up against my Resistance, because, damn, this thing is good.

when general progress disguises itself as specific progress

Not only does my Resistance shut down my creative ideas, it has also come up with another brilliant tactic: re-training my aim, making me feel good about something other than my creative output. Because my resistance knows me so well, it’s not going to fixate my self-gratification engine on just anything. It’s going to pick something it knows I can actually feel good about. Something that is improving my life, where I can still see progress and pat myself on the back for doing hard things. Something like: the gym, or cleaning, or life maintenance, or waking up early, or going for runs. Things which do nothing to move the needle on my creative work (my highest priority) but give me the feeling of progress, stroking my ego, making me feel productive and accomplished. My Resistance tries to convince me that general progress is just as good as specific progress on my creative work—which: clever, but false.

I noticed that on days where I wasn’t getting through the creative work I wanted to get done, I would throw in the towel early and go to the gym instead of fighting my Resistance. Then I’d say to myself: well, at least I got a good gym session in today! This kept happening. It was becoming a habit, a new rhythm. My creative muscles were weakening but my physical ones were getting stronger. And my brain was temporarily okay with this trade-off? I had been tricked into this cognitive distortion where general progress was disguising itself as the specific progress I needed to make on my writing, and I was letting myself feel good about it. Thanks to Resistance. Brilliant, right?

My Resistance is perceptive, agile, admirably good at its job. Seriously, it deserves a raise. But this means I just need to get better at doing my job. I need to be predict its next move and beat it there.

resistance vs. genius: the inner duel

“Genius is a Latin word; the Romans used it to denote an inner spirit, holy and inviolable, which watches over us, guiding us to our calling.
A writer writes with his genius; an artist paints with hers; everyone who creates operates from this sacramental center. Every sun casts a shadow, and genius’ shadow is Resistance. As powerful as is our soul’s call to realization, so potent are the forces of Resistance arrayed against it. ”—the War of Art

Leaning into our highest calling—our genius—whether it be making creative work or something else, is a path to self-actualization. In an essay I wrote a little while ago, I talked about identifying and manifesting our personal ambition as a path to self-actualization, and Resistance as a force that keeps us from doing so:

“Success is actualizing your personal ambition, and hell is looking Resistance in the face at the end of it all, and knowing it won.” — from my essay ambition as a fingerprint

There is something about activating your personal genius that arouses Resistance in an especially aggressive way. It seems to understand that now it’s your hands on the wheel, so it can really toy with you endlessly. Like you’re a cat with your genius dangling over you like a ball of yarn, Resistance yanking it away as soon as you start getting a good grip on it.

to beat Resistance, own what you want

There’s this notion I came across in one of Ava’s essays that you have what you want. As in: if you really wanted something other than what you have, you would find a way to get it.

I want to make a corollary to this about how we spend our time: if every minute doing one thing is a minute spent not doing something else, then you are making the trades you most want in any given moment. This notion helped me smarten up by interrogating myself whenever my Resistance would try to pull me away. I started asking myself: is this really what I want right now? Do I want to check Twitter? Do I want to go to the gym instead of writing my 1,000 words? Do I really want another coffee? Or do I want to sit here and do the hard work that will get my ideas into the world?

My intellectual answer is almost always the last one. But my emotional, impulsive, first instinct answer is almost always anything but that. So: if we have what we want, and every minute doing one thing is a trade for a minute of doing something else, and Resistance is always trying to convince us to trade a minute of focus for a minute of literally anything else, then clearly, I need to give Resistance the finger as much as possible. Or better yet, find—nay, design—a foil for my Resistance. A force designed to directly oppose Resistance.

Isabel⚡️ @isabelunraveled

been getting in my own way lately with all the classic resistance self talk.. reflecting on this brought me to a prompt: what would it look like to do the *opposite* of get in my way? what would i say if i had the inverse priorities of the voice keeping me from sharing my work?

This is the prompt I am marinating in now. What would leaning into the opposite of the negative, spoiling force that is my Resistance look like? How can I create a stronger force—a purifying, releasing force—that takes me exactly where I need to be to do the hard work and keeps me there until it is done.

But this fairy god mother of creative work won’t just materialize, I need to invent it. It isn’t all that magical or mystical, either. It’s a combination of some pretty basic raw ingredients: discipline, positive self talk, re-wiring or blocking the mental pathways that take me down Resistance lane. This positive, purifying force would be appalled at these Resistance-fuelled thoughts. It would tell me that I’m wonderful and amazing, that I need to release my work.

Because as my Resistance grows stronger and wiser, so must my positive force, my Releaser, whose priority is to get my work out into the world. Because I do want to release my creative work. So why am I listening to this force that has the opposite priorities to me?

regrets are just misaligned trade-offs

If it’s true that “we have what we want,” and I have a pile of near-complete-but-not-yet-published substack drafts, then I need to change my behaviour to match my actions with my supposed wants. Because the biggest source of regret is not the absence of action, but a trade-off that violates our true wants.

The top five regrets of the dying according to a paliative care nurse that recorded the answers of her patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives are:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

“I wish I hadn’t worked so hard” + “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends” = “I regret trading work time for friend time.”

They are saying: I regret doing x instead of y, where x is what they did and y is what they really wanted. What they regret is the trade. Because life is not infinite: we have a limited amount of time, attention, energy. And every minute of this finite life embodies a trade: a minute of this costs a minute of that, and so on.

I can confidently say I regret trading many of the minutes I’ve spent scrolling or procrastinating, for focus minutes I could have had. But if I really meant that, then I would change my behaviour to make the right trade next time, skewing my actions to align with what I actually want, right? Right.

our actions = the truest reflection of our priorities

If I don’t do that, then clearly I want to be scrolling more than I want to be focusing. Because no matter what we say we want, our actions are the truest reflection of our wants. You can’t out-smart your behaviour. The decisions we make = the mirror for our priorities. Not what we say we should do, or what we want to do, or what we advise others to do, but what we actually do.

So (mostly a note to self), if you’re not happy with how you’re acting, then ask yourself: what do you really want? And, even when it’s hard, align your actions with those wants. Because it is when we know what we want and we act out of alignment with those wants that we end up with regret.

And Resistance is fuelled by regret. It grows fatter, hungrier with every one of its wins—every time it gets us to act in a way that we don’t actually want to act.

So: get to know your Resistance enough to out-smart it, and then feed all your wicked self-awareness and intelligence and brilliance to the opposite force, instead. Because we are on a mission to zero regret and bring our unique genius to life in the precious and finite time we have here, people. So: Resistance better get ready for a fight.

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Work with me 1-1: I help people discover their true desires and align their actions with their values to cultivate a life that feels true to them. This unfolds through a guided process of conversation, introspection and conscious action. Learn more about working with me here.

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PS—if this resonated, feel free to say hi on Twitter. You might also like a piece I wrote about doing hard things.