Acknowledge That You’re Negotiating With The Resistance: I’m meaning when you’re talking in your mind about why you shouldn’t do the task you want to do. You know, that voice that tells you “oh man, this is hard”, “maybe I shouldn’t do it”, “I’m going to just make fun of myself”, and all the other variants of it. This also comes into distracting yourself by thinking of other things, or wondering about other activities.
Remember Why You Want To Do It: Change the narrative of The Resistance to The Assistance. Yes. We all can do that. Simply stop listening to those resisting words, and say to yourself why you should do it. It’s great to think beforehand why you are doing that in the first place, and remind yourself of it often.
Thank and Reject: In the end, The Resistance is a great mechanism to keep you alive. Because this is what gets triggered every time you’re stepping out of your comfort zone. And if that means not jumping into a lake filled with crocodiles, it’ll be great for you to listen to that voice. But when you’re trying to do something that you know is safe, and that after all, it’ll walk you closer to your goals, simply thank your voice for trying to protect you, and simply decide not to listen to it (reject it).
Just Do It (I’m serious, for just 5 minutes): Yes, it’s easier said than done. But I’m telling you, you just need to get started. Our brain literally needs to surpass that initial resistance in order for you to actually like it. And I’m pretty sure you’ve experienced it before. When you were watching Netflix and your exercise alarm went off. I’m sure The Resistance went off by saying “let me just finish this episode”. And when the episode finished, it said “oh, one more and that’s it”. And so on.
But remember that time when you decided to leave Netflix and went to the gym. I’m pretty sure you hated yourself when you were picking up the dumbbells. But how did you feel after finishing the second set? You probably started to say, “well, this ain’t that bad”, right? And what about when you finished your second exercise session? I’m pretty sure you were pumped and wanted to keep going, right? Just as you were with your Netflix episode.
That, my friend, it’s what neurologists call “cognitive switching costs”. Our brain literally needs to change the neural paths that were activated by the first task to different neural paths that need to be activated in order to be cognitively attracted to the second task. We just need to walk through that 5-10 min threshold. So just remember, you just need to push forward for a moment. Then, it’ll be downhill.
Repeat: It’s all about repetition. Mastery comes by failing and stepping up again and again. And like a muscle, our capacity to stick with what we want to actually do becomes stronger over time and repetition. But it also weakens if you neglect it.