Episode Description

When faced with an intimidating task, a pleasure-seeking protagonist must overcome their fear and resistance to achieve their goal and embrace the uncomfortable. Here’s what I cover: 1. What does it take to overcome resistance and get things done? 2. How can you identify whether you are a pleasure seeker or pain avoider? 3. How can you use your vision and face your fears to accomplish anything?

Show Notes

When faced with an intimidating task, a pleasure-seeking protagonist must overcome their fear and resistance to achieve their goal and embrace the uncomfortable.

I learned how to overcome resistance and do what needs to be done even when I don’t want to through Stephen Pressfield’s book The War of Art.

WHAT IS RESISTANCE?

Resistance is a refusal to accept or comply with something and it can paralyze us, leading to procrastination, exhaustion and negative thoughts.

To overcome resistance, we must understand if we are pleasure seekers or pain avoiders, find pleasure in the task or the end goal, and be aware of our fear and vision. With these tools, we can do anything we set our minds to.

“Sometimes we have to be able to snap ourselves out of that and get on and just do it. Dare I say, I said to myself today, Samantha, suck it up, princess.”

In this episode, you will learn the following:

1. What does it take to overcome resistance and get things done?
2. How can you identify whether you are a pleasure seeker or pain avoider?
3. How can you use your vision and face your fears to accomplish anything?

Chapter Summaries: 

[00:00:53]

Today’s podcast is titled when you have to be Able to do Something that You Don’t Want to do. Sometimes we have to snap ourselves out of that and get on and just do it. And for me, today, it was the podcast.

[00:02:37]

Resistance is that refusal to accept or comply or do something. Ultimately, a lot of the time it’s about not keeping a promise that we’ve made to ourselves. What’s keeping us from sitting down to write is resistance, in a nutshell.

[00:05:59]

We resist something and we can dress it up in all sorts of ways. It’s resistance dressed up as exhaustion. And then there’s the negative thoughts and the feelings that come around. Those thoughts and feelings stop us doing what’s often the most important thing for us to do.

[00:14:30]

You don’t have to just set goals and do news resolutions at the beginning of the year. Knowing whether you’re a pleasure seeker or a plain avoider is actually really important. Resistance is always lying. It’s giving us all this stuff in our heads and stopping us actually doing the work.

[00:21:36]

Next thing I want you to ask yourself is what is it costing you not to do this thing? The pain is what it’s costing you to not do it. What’s the gain from actually doing it? Sometimes we need to dig under that.

[00:30:31]

You got to know your why for everything. You got to have boundaries around what’s important to you. You’ve got to recognize the signs of resistance for yourself and have ways to get out of it. Mindfulness techniques will help you deal with resistance.

[00:34:27]

Set and achieve really small goals around what you’re resisting. The minute you actually take action in it, you’ll almost find that resistance slips away. These steps are applicable to you if it’s something that’s really, really important to you.

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Samantha Leith Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and wanna dive deeper into the world of personal development and what’s possible for you, then I’d love to invite you to join the club. It’s my monthly membership designed to guide and support you with the tools and the coaching you need to be extraordinary. Head on over to samanthaleith.com/theclub for more information. I’d love to see you on the inside.