Every now and then I talk about Resistance.
The concept comes from The War of Art by Steven Pressfield—a book I read once a year.
Resistance is the invisible force that keeps us from doing the things we want to do and living the lives we want to live.
It takes many shapes: fear, procrastination, justification, anger, shame…
It says: “You don’t have to do this right now. Do it later. It’ll be easier and more enjoyable if you do this in the future.”
Most of the time, Resistance sounds reasonable. We can’t start until we do this thing, until we have more knowledge, until we have more confidence.
I’m writing a book. Each and every time I sit down to start typing, without fail, I find reasons to wait. I set out to begin writing at 9am, but won’t start until about 9:45.
Readers of this blog know I’m not a big grind-hustle-discipline guy. I don’t think we have to torture ourselves to live a life worth living.
But the simple truth is we don’t get something from nothing.
There are plenty of things worth doing that we won’t feel like doing. Whether it’s something small like reading or working out, or something with higher stakes like starting a company.
We can just start. It’s time.