Photo by Michal Zacharzewski • stock.xchng
Resistance is not the same as procrastination. Procrastination is a result of resistance. Resistance is the belief that there’s an obstacle you must overcome in order to accomplish…whatever. Procrastination is what you do when you believe you can’t overcome the obstacle.
Sometimes obstacles are quite real. If I need $1,800 to buy a new iMac and I don’t have $1,800, that’s not resistance — that’s a genuine obstacle.
But if I need to write 30,000 words to finish my next book, and I only have 10 minutes today to write, I may feel like I’m “never” going to have enough time to finish. That’s resistance. So I use those 10 minutes to check Facebook instead. That’s procrastination.
I learned a simple formula for overcoming this kind of resistance:
I value [goal] more than [thing keeping me from goal].
This was taught in the context of home organization: “I value a tidy home more than stuff.” But I discovered it works for almost anything: “I value fitness more than junk food.” OK, that one is hard to say and mean some days, but it helps.
How about: “I value words added to my manuscript more than Facebook.”
