Episode 27: What Are You Resisting?
Do you ever find yourself procrastinating on something? A conversation, an email, a simple task.
But if it’s not the thing itself that you are having the most trouble with you could be experiencing resistance.
Resistance is the negative emotion associated with the task or action we don’t want to take.
It’s rooted in fear or shame and can hold us back in even bigger ways than procrastination.
Full episode show notes and transcript at http://www.nicolecasespeaks.com/podcast/27
Full Transcript:
welcome back to the Upgraded Career podcast. I'm your host Nicole Case, and today we are talking about resistance. Have you ever found yourself procrastinating on something or you know that you have to do something or you should be doing something and you're not doing it, or you're haven't done it for whatever reason, and it's like it's this black cloud that ends up hanging over you and the longer time goes by The worst.
[00:01:27] You feel about it and like, and it feels so silly cuz it's often something like a conversation or an email that needs to get sent or just again, a likely smaller type of, Task or action. Uh, or it could be, you know, it could be like maybe you gotta get started on a really big project. Perhaps you just, you, you are procrastinating getting started and it's likely that it's probably not the task or the action that itself, it's.
[00:01:59] Probably what could happen, like say during the, or after the conversation or during or after you get started on the project, right? It's probably more of an emotion that is coming up. It's probably not, not anything physical or not anything super tangible, right? Which is why it can be really, really frustrating and it can feel again, kind of silly or shameful almost in a way.
[00:02:27] When we're procrastinating on some of these things, and what I'm finding is that this isn't just your run of the mill procrastination. This is what is called resistance. Resistance is the emotional feeling that you have about a situation or a task that often. Emotional feelings that feel negative, right?
[00:02:48] And again, this is not to be confused with general procrastination. Procrastinating is the lack of action that you're taking on a task that could be caused. Again, by procrastination, you can
[00:03:00] So you can procrastinate doing the laundry, but it might not be rooted in resistance. Right? And you might feel resistance about going to the gym in the morning, but you still do it. Um, although I will say, I'll admit. Today I did choose to skip the gym and sleep a little bit longer. It's called Balance People.
[00:03:18] Right? But I had, um, I had a client session with a client last week and they were telling me about this particular task that they needed to do. It was send an email. That was it. It was sending an email. That's all it was doing. And they, we had talked about a bunch of different things that was, that were going on and, and you know, things seemed to be going really well, except they admitted.
[00:03:42] I'm really procrastinating on sending this email, and I was like, okay, well tell me more and. They shared that there was something in their job. They, they are head of a department and they recently got given another department to, to ha be under their, under their remit. And it's an area of the business that they have never.
[00:04:05] Worked in before. It's all related. It made sense that they would, um, also take on this particular area of the business, but they just had never specifically done this type of work before. They've never worked in this area of the business before and it was really so. Kind of, uh, frustrating for them that they couldn't just jump in and just figure it out on their own.
[00:04:27] They knew they needed to get some help and they had found somebody that could help them. Somebody that they had really admired, that they really looked up to in this area of business. And they had talked about, um, collaborating on this before or getting, or my client getting some additional. Additional support in this area.
[00:04:46] And they had talked about it at the beginning of the year, and so they were like, I have this email that I need to send this person, and I've been. Procrastinating on it since February, and it's just a really small email to say, Hey, let's get together and talk . So it's not a really long email. It should not take them a ton of time.
[00:05:03] So being busy and not having enough time was not the issue. The issue was they were feeling resistance and it was showing up as procrastination. And so my question then to them was, What are you resisting? What is happening here? This is not just, oh, I don't have a whole lot of time. You know, I'm struggling with time management and getting it all in.
[00:05:25] This had nothing to do with that. I said, what is it that you are resisting? And what we got down to was it was the fact that they needed to ask somebody, they. They respected for help and they didn't wanna look like an idiot. They're like, oh my gosh, I'm sure this person thinks I'm such an idiot. And once they acknowledged what was happening and where this resisting was coming from, then we could start moving forward together on talking about what it means to ask for help, how they've done it in the past.
[00:05:54] You know, what it feels like to be a beginner with something. You know, what it feels like to be. You know, or a senior executive at a company and still have areas where they're just not sure about certain things, that they're a beginner with certain things and just kind of what that, what that emotion is and how that's showing up.
[00:06:12] So, So for them, the resistance was showing up in their inability to really move the department forward and really get some things done. So resistance can really have a big impact on our lives and our work. One, it can really keep us again, just from getting stuff done. Right. It's really. Impeding our progress in, you know, moving forward with either a project or, you know, a situation that, um, that maybe isn't going well.
[00:06:44] Maybe there's a co a really uncomfortable conversation that needs to happen and like, Everything else is kind of stopping or nothing is able to move forward until we sit down and have this uncomfortable conversation. So it's really keeping us from getting stuff done and it's lowering our productivity, right?
[00:07:02] Like we're not, you know, there's always, um, you know, other things that this is getting in the way of, right. Like this is likely the bottleneck of what's keeping you from being able to be productive in other areas. You're probably not feeling like, Wanting to put your best forward or put your best, uh, put, put your best foot forward or put forth your best effort.
[00:07:23] You're kind of, um, maybe you're half-assing something, right? Just because like, oh, you're feeling super resistance to it. Like you're not feeling like you wanna go all in on something because. What happens if you go all in on something? I see this a lot with business owners when I'm talking with my business owner clients that like, oh, you know, if I go all in on this idea, then you know what happens with this, with this other idea?
[00:07:45] Or my identity might have to change. And so that's where the resistance is coming up and we have to talk through that. Obviously there's just lots of additional stress and anxiety. It just takes up so much more brain space when we're feeling resistance to something. Right. And you know, like the, my client, they had been resisting sending just a, a few lined email since February.
[00:08:09] Right. And so, I can't even imagine. Well, I can't imagine cuz it certainly happened to me. What all of this additional stress and anxiety and just, you know, just, it's just taking up more brain space and it's been happening now for months and what would've happened or maybe what could you have focused your energy on instead?
[00:08:30] Had you just done the thing back in February, right, you probably would've been well on your way to developing this new department. And, you know, really making some major strides with your, with your customers. Had we just sent the email back in February, right? And so whenever this starts happening, whenever we're, we're starting to feel this stress, this anxiety again, all of this brain space is taken up just over this, over this idea of resistance, of, of resisting this particular thing or resisting feeling uncomfortable or resisting feeling, um, fearful or shameful, or.
[00:09:06] Potentially embarrassed or something like that. What's, what this can lead to is self-sabotage, right? We can, we can have all the best plans in place, we can have all the knowledge that we want, but there is something about, again, this project or this conversation or whatever it is that you're working on, that you otherwise should have all of the pieces to the puzzle except for maybe this thing that you're, that you are resisting and it ends up sabotaging your success.
[00:09:35] So, The next time that you find yourself in a situation like this, ask yourself, what am I resisting? Because it's probably not the task itself. Again, is it fear again? Are you fearful that you're gonna look silly to somebody or you're going to not look as smart as you, as you hope that you can look? Or you, or especially if you are a leader, you're an executive, you're the maybe the owner of your business and you are fearful that like, I don't like to admit.
[00:10:04] To my team or like to admit externally that I don't know everything or I don't have all of the answers, right? I'm in charge. I'm the boss. Shouldn't I have all the answers? Right? And of course, that's just not true. So is, is there something here that's rooted in fear? Is it change? Are you fearful that if, if, um, you.
[00:10:24] Take on this project, or maybe you shift, um, how you're doing something or shift topics or shift departments or something like that. Change is scary, right? The cha the, the fear of the unknown or just fear feeling like you have to start over on something like that doesn't always feel great, right?
[00:10:44] Sometimes, um, change can be really exciting. Change can feel really energizing. Um, You know, not knowing what's coming next can feel really freeing for some people. But for a lot of people that change, that feeling of change, that feeling of uncertainty does not feel great. So we try to avoid it for as long as possible.
[00:11:05] Again, is it, is the resistance just it's an uncomfortable situation and you just don't know how it's gonna go? Right. You know? Do you have to have a really challenging conversation with your boss or with someone on your team, or even a customer maybe, and you're just, I'm not sure which one this is gonna go.
[00:11:22] This could go sideways really easily, and I'm just not sure what's, what's gonna happen here, so I'm gonna resist sitting down and having the conversation. Right. Or I. Who knows, maybe you do need to make, admit that you made a mistake or again, that you don't know something. And sometimes we just, we don't wanna do that.
[00:11:39] I don't know if any of you have ever resisted working on a task or a project that your boss assigned to you and I. You know, you didn't do anything with it for several weeks or a couple of months, or you just, again, you've just been resisting it for so long because you didn't want to, um, ask a follow-up question because you didn't wanna appear like you weren't listening, or again, that you don't know something you wanna, uh, again, appear as the expert or appear as, you know.
[00:12:06] Um, Someone who's really adding great value to the team. Therefore, you don't wanna ask, ask questions to make it look like you don't know something, or admit that you made a mistake. So you're resisting having this conversation. But what's happening is that you, again, your self sa sabotaging, self sabotaging.
[00:12:25] Yourself, or again, you're just, you're keeping the project or the thing for moving forward and you know that it needs to, right, in order to have the success that you're looking for, in order for the team to be successful, a decision needs to get made or again, something we, we need to make progress and.
[00:12:43] Until you get to the bottom of that resistance, you are still gonna, again, continue to sit with these feelings that take up a lot of energy, and you just know that you're not making the progress that you want. So once you ask yourself these questions, either with your coach or in a journal, you can finally get to the bottom of that resistance.
[00:13:03] once you get to the bottom of the resistance, once you figure out what it is, is it the fear? Is it the change? Is it the uncomfortable situation? Whatever it is. Then you need to ask yourself, what is it that you need to overcome it? Right? What do I need in order to overcome this fear? What is it that I need to overcome this uncertainty, right?
[00:13:22] Um, is it I need more information and I need to go ask some questions? Or do I, am I just really overwhelmed and because it's something I've never done before and I just really need to sit down and just kind of plan out some steps, figure out where my gaps are, and you know, just put a plan in action in place, right?
[00:13:37] It could just be that most likely though. It's probably just doing the thing, right? You probably don't need more information. Probably part of the resistance, part of the, um, pro how the resistance is showing up as procrastination is probably you're going out and look getting more information or again, how the procrastination is showing up is that you're just.
[00:13:57] Planning and planning. And planning. So you don't actually have to do the thing, right? So make sure you check yourself on that because it's probably, most likely is that you just need to go do the thing, whatever that is. Whatever the thing is you're resisting, you probably just need to go do it, right?
[00:14:14] Whatever it is that you're resisting is probably the thing that you need to do in order to get the success that you're looking for in order to make the progress in your life, in your career, in your business that you're looking for. I'll admit, I often feel resistance about this podcast, right? Even though I'm, what, like 27 episodes in, I still feel resistance to it, right?
[00:14:36] Like I, I procrastinate around it. Um, I wait and sometimes until the last minute to get, um, a batch of episodes ready for my team. And before I start planning, I sit, I have these moments of doubt, right? Like before I sit down and start sketching out. You know what this is gonna look like. You know what I'm gonna say?
[00:14:58] I still have these moments of doubt that, you know, I don't have anything valuable to say. Nobody's gonna listen, or nobody's gonna care. You know, I sound, I sound stupid. Or you know who you know. Who am I to be talking about this topic? Right? And so, When I find myself procrastinating in this way, like I know that it's just resistance.
[00:15:18] I know that this podcast is fun for me to do and that it's, it's using and leaning into my strengths on how I like to communicate and how I like to share things with people. So, If it's not that I don't have the skill or, or I don't have the knowledge on how to do it, there's something else here. So again, I'm recognizing that a lot of times it's just I have this resistance around thinking that I don't have, I don't have something, something valuable to add to all the noise out there.
[00:15:49] But then once I sit down, I plan the episode, I hit record. All of that resistance starts to just melt away and fade away. And then I know that all of that procrastination and all of that resistance and all of that, like that tense anxiety feeling that I was feeling for several weeks was for nothing.
[00:16:09] Right, so I get it. We all experience resistance. This episode was not for you to completely stop feeling resistance and not feeling that pressure or not procrastinating ever again. It's not about that. It's just when you start to feel, feel these feelings of resistance starting to crop up. You just get.
[00:16:32] You get quiet for a moment and you just tune in and you're like, okay, what's really going on here? Because when, when we kind of bypass that work, we bypass that kind of internal conversation that we need to have, or that conversation that maybe you can have with your coach, like my client did. Then we can again get really to the root of what's going on, cuz it's probably not the thing on the surface that we think it is.
[00:16:59] So all of this is, is just information. It's just signaling, signaling to us that there is something here that we care about, likely something that is really important to us and we just wanna make sure whatever it is, it goes well and that there's a positive outcome on the other side of it. So again, if you're starting to feel this way, just get quiet and maybe you journal out for a little bit.
[00:17:21] What am I resisting? And then once you figure out what it is that you're actually resisting, then you can figure out how do I still move forward? How do I overcome whatever that is, whatever the root of that resistance is, and how do I still make the progress and find the success that I know that I'm capable of.
[00:17:42] So thank you so much for tuning in today. If you like this episode and want more stuff like this, then you are going to love my weekly newsletter. So go out to nicole k speaks.com/newsletter and you'll be able to get signed up there and you'll be the first to know when these podcast episodes drop any special projects or offers that I have out there in order for us to work together.
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