As easy as it seems to do something, it’s also easy not to do it. Especially when it comes to doing something new. When we start something new we often get this feeling in our gut, a pull back, our body is saying NO. This feeling is RESISTANCE. The resistance is a way for our mind to protect us. It’s warning us that there might be danger beyond because the mind only knows what we learned from what we’ve been taught and from our past experience.
Say for example, you’ve never tried cooking and you’ve survived up to this point on eating out and/or allowing your parents to pamper you with their home cooked meals. But now you want to take control of your own health, invest in yourself and you decide you want to take on a cooking class. Resistance kicks in and our mind may then send us a “OH NO, WAIT, WARNING WARNING! We don’t know what’s on the other side! We have no idea what’s going to happen!” All the mind knows is that when we say no, we are safe, because what will happen when we say no? NOTHING! That is when we might say “Nah maybe, next time.”
“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” ~Nelson Mandela
How to overcome resistance?
To overcome resistance, we must embrace it. We are pleasure-seeking beings, and fighting the resistance will only cause pain. Become aware of the circumstance. The circumstance is RESISTANCE = the mind protecting us. Then we ask ourselves, “am I really in danger?” Most of the time, we are not in danger!
What can we do next?
What we can do is to start with a small simple action, like booking the cooking class. The action of booking the class is VERY SIMPLE! You agree? We are not committing to anything more but to the action of booking the class. SIMPLE!
The key is to then to… CELEBRATE! Celebrate this small simple action, the action that you booked a time! YES! When we celebrate that small simple action, it becomes an ACCOMPLISHMENT. Again, we are pleasure-seeking beings. We want to feel gooooooood. Let our heart in and feel that feeling of accomplishment. If you’re feeling goofy from celebrating this small accomplishment, so what, FEEL IT. Our pleasure-seeking mind receives this as a positive signal, our heart feels it as a great feeling and together, they see it as a reward and the mind will remember that. The small accomplishments will eventually make a huge difference!
The next step is to... SHOW UP! For some of us, the ‘showing up’ part might take a few times. We may reschedule or be out of pocket a lot of money for no-show fees. But the key is to celebrate every time that you take the action of scheduling it. You did it for YOU! Feel it!
If we decide to feel bad about rescheduling, “Yup, I rescheduled again. I can’t commit”, you’re only putting yourself down and then our pleasure-seeking mind is going to remember this action as a painful one and it won’t want to even go there next time!
The more we celebrate the small simple accomplishments, the more positive momentum we can build in our mind and the mind will get used to it! Maybe… one day… one time… you will show up for the class and then, WHAT DO YOU DO? YOU CELEBRATE!
Every time we show up and celebrate. We are showing up and celebrating our life.
*** YOU show up every day making an impact in someone else's life in some shape or form, even if you are not aware of it. Please share the love & share the video/post with anyone you think might benefit from this. Thank you for bringing LIGHT to possible darkness. #bethelight
REFERENCES
Castillo, Brooke. “Ep #197: Urges – The Life Coach School.” The Life Coach School, 4 Jan. 2018, thelifecoachschool.com/197/.