Working through Resistance

I sat down to write yesterday and it didn’t work, at least I didn’t think it did.

What happened:

I sat down with clear parameters outlined at the top of my document for what I wanted from my piece: character count, voice, tone, reminder and topic all spelled out.

I started typing words 6000 times and erased it all each time.

Each time I erased it my anxiety and my frustration grew. I felt like I was failing.

I was supposed to be “writing” and this act of typing words and erasing them certainly wasn’t “writing”. Or at least that was my story.

I decided to check in with my writing coach and let her know that I wasn’t going to have anything to share that the words just weren’t coming and that I didn’t write today.

She reminded me that even the act of showing up, facing resistance, and exploring what is happening is writing!

What?!?!

Yep. She’s right. I tell my clients the SAME thing all of the time.

She then went on to share that maybe I needed to lower the bar on my expectations for the piece.

😲

I thought they were low already.

She read them back to me. 

• I wanted to write something short.
• I wanted to write about a topic that has a BROAD scope.
• I wanted it to be bold.
• I wanted it to be inspiring.

I wanted all the things and I wanted them NOW.

So . . . yeah, maybe shift the bar a little lower.

Also, I didn’t think I was resisting writing. I showed up, ass in the seat, fingers on the keyboard.

It wasn’t my fault that the muses were failing me!

And then she listed all of the different types of resistance she heard in my 3-minute voice message to her.

Sitting with what she noticed, taking time to meditate, to journal, and to watch the birds allowed me to start to see what wasn’t working for me and to come back to the table again.

Why am I sharing this?

Because showing up in our business day after day is hard.

It’s messy and doesn’t look like we think it will.

I think it is important that we share the messy with the beautiful.

Resistance, old stories, and patterns rear their heads. Kinks and shifts get thrown at us daily (even without a pandemic).

How we respond and handle them varies

.

Sometimes we will move through them with ease and other times we need to call in the calvary, as I did yesterday.

Does that mean you are failing at business?

No, not necessarily.

Any time you sit down with your business and you work through resistance, old stories, old patterns, etc. that counts.

It’s work that may not look the way you think it “should” and it is, in fact, the most important type of work!

You get a gold star 🌟, even two 🌟🌟, for doing the work of clearing the way forward.

Business isn’t easy.

Be gentle with yourself.

Give yourself grace.

Recognize that what you are doing is valuable.

Keep coming back to the table and moving forward.

You are making a difference in the world!