If you’ve ever, or are

-“sabotaging yourself” &

- resisting what you “know you oughtta be doing” to get what you want, this post is for YOU.

What causes resistance?

Fear.

Fear is one of the reasons – fear of failure, fear of success, fear of blab la bla.

That’s what most people think is going on when they find themselves stuck or unable to take action. For the most part, it’s pretty correct.

However, I’m here to tell you that there’s another, insidious, unseen reason that you haven’t considered yet! One that might make the leap much easier.

Values.

Yes, I know you know what your values are. Or you think you do.

And… when was the last time you checked in with them?

Did you know that values aren’t always constant? That in a given day you act according to different values, not always the same?

Could they have changed completely?

For example: You have a set of values like freedom, comfort, family, love, success, financial freedom etc. You know you have to do X to get Y. And yet, something stops you.

You can’t figure out why! You KNOW you want to be healthy and fit, so what stops you from making choices that will get you there?

Unacknowledged Values.

You see, when you’re resisting something, your  focus is on a certain value. When you say you’d like to work out and pig out on cupcakes instead, you’re actually honouring a value you might know know you have, or haven’t thought about.

Laziness / Comfort (or something like that).

And yes, I did just call them values. I’m sick of hearing values like ambition, honesty, growth etc (don’t get me wrong, they are all values of mine too) – how about some values that we “think” are bad but are actually quite important to us?

If you don’t acknowledge and accept them, you’re in for a rough ride, k?

Back to the example on hand:

You aren’t resisting working out, you’re resisting ease / comfort.

And what you resist (haha you don’t want to hear THAt one again do you .. but yes, what you resist persists.

Speaking from experience,  I’ve been trying to go to the gym for a year since April 2009 and get “fit”. I go through phases of alternately going and sponsoring them for months (ie, not going).

Two weeks ago, something clicked. I decided that was it, I was going to get fit within 2 months and there’s no two ways about it.

(Now, baby steps have been helping – a friend and I go grocery shopping together every Monday and cook for each other on alternate Tuesdays, and as a result I find myself buying healthy and wanting to cook more often)

I looked at my kitchen today and realised that in the past year I’ve moved from cereal to steel cut oats, from fatty biscuits to multi grain crackers, from bread to multi grain bagels ..

ONE small move at a time without being acutely aware of it.

And now – the gym!! I am LOVING it!! It makes me SO happy to go work out now that I know I wasn’t resisting being healthy (what a dumb idea that was) but that I was resisting comfort and THAT’s why I wasn’t inspired to go.

Do this:

Stop resisting the comfort (or whatever the payoff is for you) – and tell yourself you can be as comfortable as you want.

Stay in the lazy zone as long as you like. Do NOT do anything about it.

Guess what will happen? Yep, I guarantee you’ll naturally, easefully want to do something about it. Sheer will power is no match for true inner motivation.

Start EASING! Or as Abe would say, LEAN into the resistance.

The minute you decide to honour your current top value and commit to it, resistance has ceased.

It’s not what you think you’re resisting, but what you’re really resisting! Ie, often you’re not resisting taking action, you’re resisting the absence of action.

HA!!

The commitment that’s here now, is way beyond what I could have “forced” myself into.

So I’m making a strong case for listening to your values, understanding them and changing them if they’re not serving you.

Here’s what my process looked like btw, in case you’re curious.

• Decide to do something (Commitment!)
• It starts feeling like work (Resistance)
• I stop doing it and think that I should do it (Guilting)
• I force myself to try again (Icky)
• I give up and decide to not do it (Resignation)
• I realise one day that I’m honouring a value (comfort) by not doing it (Awareness)
• I decide that I want a different value to be more important (Aliveness over comfort)
• I rewrite my values as I want them, not as they are (thanks Tony Robbins)
• I still keep honouring whatever value shows up (Patience)
• One day, the Aliveness value seems more important (Change!)
• So I take action and go to the gym (Inspired Action)
• Going to the gym feels GOOD!! (Validation)
• I do it again and again (New habit creation)
• I make a commitment to my new value cos it’s feeling great (Adoption)
• This “thing” is now my life and here to stay! (Success!)

Make sense?! Have you got a similar experience to share? I’d LOVE to hear what you think of values as being a cause of resistance and to see what YOUR process looks like! Thanks for sharing!