Why is it most individuals fail to reach their full potential? What stops them and keeps them stuck in a vicious cycle of mediocrity? It is because these individuals couldn’t effectively manage resistance and progressing beyond resistance is a very difficult challenge for them. Something that’s going to be an obstacle or a challenge or something that’s pushing you back from doing the things that you want to do, accomplishing the goals that you want to accomplish, and being the person that you really want to be in life is what we call resistance. Discover how perceptions of obstacles and distractions is the key to sustainable success, what it takes to experience progress beyond resistance present in your life, how igniting small accomplishments leads to greater results, and leveraging your mind as your greatest asset.
—
Listen to the podcast here:
Progressing Beyond Resistance
In this episode, we’re going to talk about progressing beyond resistance. Why is it most people fail to reach their full potential? What stops them and keeps them stuck in a vicious cycle of mediocrity? I frankly believe that it’s because these individuals could not effectively manage resistance. I’ve dealt with a great deal of resistance in my life. I’m sure that you have dealt with resistance in your life. Perhaps you’re dealing with resistance right now, and if you have not dealt with resistance and you’re not dealing with resistance right now, I can guarantee that somewhere along the way in your life, you are going to deal with resistance. Something that’s going to be like an obstacle or a challenge or something that’s pushing you back from doing the things that you want to do, accomplishing the goals that you want to accomplish, being the person that you really want to be in life. That is what I call resistance.
We’re going to talk about what are the keys to sustaining success in the face of resistance? What can we do as individuals in order to press beyond resistance, to get through the resistance? We’re going to talk about what does it take to press beyond resistance? What are some things that we can do? How do we ignite the small accomplishments that lead to greater results when it comes to resistance? How does leveraging our mind as our greatest asset help us progress beyond resistance?
This is what we’re going to get into now. I’m glad that you guys are here. I’m excited about it. I’m excited about the topic. I’m excited about some of the things that I’m going to share with you. I think that they are very empowering. They can help you overcome resistance, get through resistance and keep going. A lot of times whenever there’s resistance that shows up in your life, just as I stated earlier, it causes us to give up. We give into the resistance. The resistance seems insurmountable. It seems like we cannot get through. I truly believed that one of the things that we need to do when it comes to resistance, if you find yourself in a place where you’re dealing with resistance, it’s really just taking a look at your mindset.
Progressing Beyond Resistance: The key to progressing beyond is adjusting your thoughts.
Take A Look At Your Mindset Towards Resistance
What is your mindset towards resistance? What is your thought process towards the experience of resistance that you’re currently dealing with? I believe that if we can change that, if we can adjust our mindset, if we can adjust our thoughts or maybe perhaps it’s not even adjusting, it’s just that we have to manage our thoughts. I’ll use a real simple example with working out. Some of us face resistance when it comes to working out. You know you’re supposed to work out and perhaps you’ve even put a schedule together that you’re going to follow that’s going to allow you to work out.
You have a routine that you’re going to follow, but it seems like every time it’s time for you to go work out, there’s something that comes up. There’s something in the way or perhaps you just don’t feel like it. A lot of times our thought process around not working out, not doing what it is that we have scheduled ourselves to do is because perhaps we don’t feel like it or we don’t want to go through the pain. It’s going to hurt. It’s going to cause us to be sore. It’s going to take X amount of time.
We think about those things and those thoughts become stronger, then the benefits of actually working out, they dominate our mindset. They dominate our mind and because they dominate our mind, it causes us to move into action towards those thoughts. We don’t move into action in terms of going to the gym. We move into action towards doing things that are conducive to the thoughts that we have in our mind. That could mean not going to the gym, sitting on the couch, going somewhere else with your buddies or your friends, doing something that’s not aligned with what it is that you said you were going to do.
If we can manage our thoughts during that time, if we can think about instead not of all the pain or the discomfort that is going to cause by working out, what if we could think about the benefits of working out? What if we could think about all the rewards and the gains that we’re going to receive from working out or going to the gym or studying or working on that project or putting time in the relationship? Doing certain things that you know are going to allow you to get through the resistance, to get through the process.
Adjust Your Thoughts
A lot of times, we don’t do that. Imagine if we did. Imagine if we were able to adjust our thoughts and our mindset. Even right in that moment, when you have to make that decision, because that’s how quick this thing happens. It happens so quick. That thought comes up that you’re going to go to the gym, that you have to go to the gym and it may be time for you to go to the gym is right now. Then, all of those negative thoughts, those disempowering thoughts come up and it causes you to make a decision that’s not conducive to your goals.
That’s not conducive to where you want to be in life. That’s the part of resistance. The key to progressing beyond that, is adjusting your thoughts. Realizing that this is only part of the resistance. If I can win this in my mind, if I can get my thought process right around going to the gym or around whatever it is that you’re going through, that you need to do. Then it will allow you to make a better decision, a more conscious decision, about taking those actions, going to the gym, studying, working on the project, managing your money, working on the relationship, whatever it may be.
Get Real With Yourself
It’s really getting that mindset right first. That’s an example of how resistance can cause you to drift further away from where it is that you really want to go in life. It really causes you to drift. It’s adjusting that mind, adjusting those thought patterns that show up. If we can adjust those, and sometimes we have to do it quickly, and sometimes you have to set yourself up to do it. If we can accomplish that, then we are on our way to pressing beyond resistance, to progressing beyond resistance, to getting through resistance. It takes us getting real with ourselves whenever we are going through resistance all the time.
If you find yourself in a place of resistance, you have to get real with yourself and see, “Where are you?” Realizing that you’re in this place and it may be uncomfortable, you may not like it, as a matter of fact, you may hate it. Maybe you’ve been in this place a very long time. I feel if you have been in resistance, if you’ve been dealing with a certain type of resistance for a very long time, perhaps the next thing to do is to get real with yourself because a lot of times, because we have not gotten real with ourselves, we can’t get out of the resistance.
[Tweet “You’ve got to get real with yourself. You’ve got to get real with where you are. A lot of times that may not feel too good.”]
I’ve seen people who have been dealing with resistance for years, and they blame others. They don’t take any responsibility for where they are. They don’t focus. They keep focusing on everything that’s wrong so much sometimes, that they can’t see what’s right, and they won’t get real with themselves. They won’t get real about their shortcomings, the things that they are doing that’s causing them to be in that place. It could be, and most often it is, the decisions that they’re making in their lives.
The decisions that they make over and over again. The thought process that they have towards the situation. The thought process that they have towards getting out of the situation. The thought process that they have of why they are in the situation in the freaking first place. A lot of times you have to get real about that. You’ve got to get real with yourself. You’ve got to get real with where you are. A lot of times that may not feel too good.
You may not like it when you get real with yourself. You may not like what comes up. You may not like what you see because you may find that you are the cause of the situation. Maybe you are the cause of the resistance. Even if you are not the cause of the resistance, a lot of times it’s left up to you to get out of it. It’s left up to you to make a difference. It’s left up to you to change the situation, you still have to look at yourself. Even though you didn’t cause it, even though you are not the reason for it, it may be you and only you who can make a difference in this particular situation.
You have to get real with that. Maybe there’s some growth that you have to excel, maybe there’s some forgiveness, maybe you have to forgive yourself, maybe you’ve got to stop blaming everyone else, and maybe there’s action that you need to take. Maybe there are some things that you need to do in terms of getting yourself together, making certain decisions, putting yourself in a better situation, demanding more from yourself, expecting more from yourself, expecting less from others.
Maybe that’s why you can’t move out of the resistance because you keep expecting someone else to save you, expecting someone else to pull you out, when there’s not going to be anyone like that. This is up to you, only you and you have to do it. You have to be the change. A lot of times we find ourselves in resistance and out of all of the resistance that I’ve been through, there’s so much that I’ve been able to pull out of it.
One of the things that I want to share with you is there are four things that you can’t control whenever you find yourself in resistance. Those four things are, you can’t control what others think, you can’t control what others feel, you can’t control what others say, and you cannot control what others do. You just can’t do it, but because you realized that you can’t control those four things, it allows you to understand what you can control. What you can control is what you think, what you feel, and what you say, and what you do.
A lot of times that is what makes all the difference in the world. When you can take that into your being and when you can really place the responsibility on you. I’m not saying that you can’t have help, you can’t have other people to facilitate your progress. That’s the thing, they’re going to facilitate the progress. They’re not going to be the one to initiate it. They’re not going to be the ones who’s going to lead it. They’re just there to support it.
A lot of times, we can’t even get to the place where other people can help us and support us because we haven’t made the decision yet that this is what we’re going to do, that we’re going to press through it, that we’re going to press beyond it. We are blaming someone or either we’re expecting someone to pull us out of it when that’s not the way it’s going to work. That’s not the process. We’re going to have to accept our shortcomings. Even though you’re in this situation, resistance is present, it is what it is. Let’s move on.
Progressing Beyond Resistance: Sometimes we focus so much on what’s wrong that we can’t see what’s right.
Stop Focusing On What’s Wrong
We can’t do it in a place of resistance. We are here, what are we going to do about it? We can’t be in a place where we’re just making excuses because resistance is showing up. We’re making excuses because we’ve got to deal with resistance. We’re making excuses because it’s hard, because it’s difficult, because they’re placing demands on us. You’ve got to stop focusing on what’s wrong. Sometimes we focus so much on what’s wrong that we can’t see what’s right.
We can’t see the right things to do because we’re so focused on what’s wrong. We don’t want to focus on what’s wrong. We want to move towards what’s right. We want to get to a place where we’re beyond the resistance. Everyone can feel that something’s wrong. Everyone can feel that resistance is present. We’ve got that. We know that. What are we going to do to make it right? What are we going to do to get on the other side of the resistance?
This is where you have to leverage your mind as your greatest asset because I liked to play little games when it comes to the resistance that shows up in my life. Sometimes resistance can seem like a war, win many battles. What I do is I focus on winning the battles. You have to ask yourself, “Are you winning the battles in your mind?” That’s where it starts first. A lot of times people want to win on the outside, in their outer environment, but you can’t win on the outside if you’re not winning on the inside.
If your mind isn’t right, if you’re not winning the battle on the inside, just forget it, because that’s where it starts. You have to start thinking about what am I thinking about myself in relation to the resistance that I’m facing. Am I thinking positive things? Am I thinking empowering things? When you have that battle on to your mind, you can see yourself on the other side of resistance. You could see what it feels like, you could see what it looks like and you know how to get there. You start developing a plan and you start working that plan. A lot of times, all we want is the other side of the resistance.
Understand That It Is A Process
Getting to the other side of resistance is a process, and we have to understand that. That was one of the keys to progressing beyond resistance, is understanding that it is the process. You don’t just jump in and jump out. Resistance doesn’t show up and then it goes away. You have to progressively get yourself to the other side of resistance. It is a process, and it requires certain things, that demands certain things. It demands growth, it demands understanding, it demands listening, it demands learning, it demands you developing as a people, as a person. It may demand you develop certain relationships, having certain conversations.
That’s why you want to ignite the small accomplishments, ignite those small things, those little things. Sometimes it’s the intangible things that we have to do in order to progress beyond resistance. You have to get excited about those things because it’s like taking a journey, traveling on a journey, your journey, your destination is destination B and you’re starting at point A, but in order to get to point B, you’ve got to travel all the distance to get to B.
You have to take those steps in between. If you don’t take the steps in between, you can never get to point B. It’s the same thing for resistance, it’s those small accomplishments between point A and point B that’s going to allow you to accomplish the journey, to win the journey, to progress beyond resistance. I believe in getting excited about those small accomplishments, those steps in between.
If you can get excited about that, you just progressed through the journey and you progressed through with a smile. You progressed through with excitement. You progressed through knowing that if I can win these battles, each battle that I win is getting to be closer to winning the war. That’s what it’s really all about. When you’re talking about managing resistance, conquering resistance, progressing beyond resistance, it is winning the battles in your mind.
[Tweet “If you get excited and if you get good and excellent at winning those battles, resistance will not play a large part in your life.”]
Those small things that come up, that pop up, that get in the way, you’ve got to figure out, “How can I get over these things?” If you get excited and if you get good and excellent at winning those battles, resistance will not play a large part in your life. You will be able to conquer resistance. You will be able to get over resistance. You will be able to be an expert at pressing beyond resistance. You have to win that battle in your mind.
What are you thinking about yourself in relation to resistance? What are you thinking about others in relation to resistance that’s showing up in your life? That’s what’s going to tell you where your mind is at. Are you thinking empowering thoughts? Are you thinking thoughts that are positive, that builds you up? Are you thinking thoughts that just further drag you down, that beat you up, that make you feel down, that make you feel low?
Leverage Your Mind As Your Greatest Asset
Those are the things that’s going to keep you in the same place, keep you dealing with the same level of resistance over and over again. When you leverage your mind as your greatest asset, you can see yourself overcoming resistance. You can begin to visualize that. You can begin to meditate on it daily, every single day, regardless of the resistance that’s showing up, whatever is there, it doesn’t matter. Meditate on yourself, being on the other side of resistance, conquering resistance, beating the challenge.
Whenever you can do that, you can just feel it. You can have it already in your mind. When you have it in your mind, you can begin to feel it. The more you feel it, the more you know that you can achieve it, the more you can build your faith on it, the more you can build your confidence on it, and the more you will develop that stick-to-itiveness. You have to be patient. It doesn’t happen overnight.
Progressing through resistance has an incubation period. It’s a process and we have to trust the process as we go through. Even though resistance is there and we’re doing the things that we need to do, and it may not be happening as fast as we would like it to have, we still have to trust the process. The last thing I want to share with you is just having the freaking guts. When it comes to resistance, you’ve got to have the guts to press through it. You’ve got to have the courage, the grit, the determination to push through and you have to have a made-up mind that you are never ever going to give up regardless of the resistance, regardless of how long it takes, regardless of what it is that you have to deal with, regardless of how much it may hurt, regardless of it all, you cannot give up. You have to believe in your breakthrough, believe that it’s coming.
Take That Opportunity
One of the things that I do want to share is let go of the breakthrough looking exactly like you imagined it, looking exactly like you visualized it. There may be some things that are a little bit different. Because it’s not the exact thing that we want or it’s not as specific as we asked or as specific as we visualized, we won’t accept it. We’ll let the opportunity pass us by. We’ll let that go and we’ll remain in our resistance because we’ll feel like this is not it. That’s not what I was asking for.
This is not the breakthrough that I was looking for. I don’t believe in that. You take that opportunity. That opportunity could be the stepping stone. It can be the next step towards the goal, towards the dream, towards your breakthrough. Sometimes our breakthroughs are mini breakthroughs. It’s not just one big colossal breakthrough, but when you add them all up, it’s a big colossal breakthrough. That’s what really success is.
Reflect On What You’ve Already Accomplished
It is a progression, a daily progression. Sometimes it could be an hourly progression because you’re making progress by the hour. You want to definitely make sure you’re making progress by the day, that every day is a win, every day is a progress. In every battle, you are winning the battle towards success, towards your greatness. You have to hang in there and never ever give up. That’s what happens, resistance will cause you to give up. It will cause you to give in. Sometimes you just have to have that grit, that determination, that strength to hang in there.
One of the things that I do is, I reflect on what I’ve already accomplished, things that I’ve already done. What have you already done before in your life where you’ve had to overcome resistance and it doesn’t have to be this big colossal achievement? It doesn’t have to be anything that’s over the top. It doesn’t have to be. Find something that you had to deal with before that was difficult, that was challenging, and you know that there was the resistance and you were able to get beyond the resistance and accomplish whatever it is that you accomplished.
Progressing Beyond Resistance: Pressing beyond resistance is going to require some grit. It’s going to require guts. It’s going to require courage.
Get Rid Of All Negativity
That’s what you want to remember. You want to reflect on that because that’s what’s going to give you the confidence. That’s what’s going to give you the strength and the endurance to keep on going. Realizing that you’ve done this before. Maybe not this particular thing, maybe it is a little bit bigger, and a little bit more challenging, but that was big and challenging to you at that time and you were able to overcome it. Pressing beyond resistance is going to require some grit. It’s going to require guts. It’s going to require courage.
Find yourself some courage. Do something that’s going to build you up. Listen to something that’s going to build you up, and if you have to do it every single day, so what? Get rid of all the negativity. Get rid of people that bring you down. Get rid of people that are not going to help you progress beyond the challenge and the obstacles that are before you, because you don’t need that. Get rid of any excess weight. We don’t need the excess weight. Let it go. Only carry with you towards your dream and goal those things that you have to. As you go through that resistance, you don’t need any extra baggage. You don’t need any extra weight. Let it all go.
Focus On The Benefits
Focus your thoughts, focus your mind, adjusts your thoughts, manage your thought process towards the resistance that’s showing up in your life. What are you thinking? Focus on the benefits of what it is that you’re doing, focus on the benefits of what it is that you know you’re supposed to do. Don’t focus on the pain. Don’t focus on the things that make you uncomfortable. Focus on where you’re going, not where you are. That’s what’s going to help you into. That’s what’s going to help you reach your dreams. That’s what’s going to help you get through the resistance. That’s what’s going to help you reach your vision.
Focus on those things. That’s how you progress beyond resistance. If you don’t know me and my story, and this is your first time here, I was in a wheelchair for eighteen years before I was able to walk again. I had to face a lot of opposition and a lot of resistance just getting out of the wheelchair. Every single day, resistance was in my face. From the time that I went to sleep, to the time that I woke up, resistance was in my face. Every day, all day, resistance was in my face. There were so many things that I had to deal with, so many things that were just debilitating in my mind. That you have to deal with as a result of having a spinal cord injury.
Say To Yourself It’s Only Temporary
One of the things that I will always say to myself is that it’s only temporary. This is not going to be this way, but if this is what I’ve got to go through now in order to get where I want to go, to be what I want to be, to have what I want to have, then this is just what I have to do. I’m going to be okay with it and I’m not going to complain. I’m just going to deal with it. I’m just going to accept what it is right now, but I’m going to work on what I want it to be.
I would develop in my mind the comfort in knowing that I’m going to defeat this and I’m going to do everything right every single day. If I have to set myself up a schedule, if there are certain things that I just can’t do right now because I need to go do this, then that’s what it is because It’s worth it to me. It’s worth it that one day, I’ll be able to experience this vision of walking again, of doing the things that I want to do, of living the life that I truly want to live. When it gets worth it to you, when your why is that big, when it’s worth the pain that you may have to go through, when it’s worth the discomfort.
Decide What Really Matters
It really doesn’t matter anymore what that is, what that looks like, what that feels like. It doesn’t really matter. All that matters is reaching this destination, getting to the other side of the resistance. A lot of times, we make certain things matter that shouldn’t matter. We make the pain and the discomfort matter. We make it matter that I may be a little sore if I work out. We make that matter. We make it matter that if I eat healthy food, it might not taste as good as food that’s going to harm my body. We make it matter. We make certain things matter that does not really have to matter.
The thing about it is, we are the ones that make it matter. We don’t have to make it matter. We can decide what really matters because what really matters, that’s what we act on. What matters to you was what you act on. I can look at your behavior and tell what matters to you. You may not agree with that, but what matters to you determines your actions. If it matters that you get beyond your resistance, if it matters, what matters, we make a priority.
[Tweet “Progressing beyond resistance is all about your priorities. It’s all about what you must do. It’s all about what matters to you.”]
What matters is we decide that we must do. If it doesn’t matter enough, we won’t do it. It won’t become a priority. We won’t make it a must. It may be a should, but it won’t be a must. When it becomes a must, when you do what you must do, that determines your outcome, that determines what your life looks like, that determines your results, that determines your level of success. That determines who you are. Progressing beyond resistance is all about your priorities. It’s all about what you must do. It’s all about what matters to you.
Getting on the other side of resistance is not something that isn’t possible. It’s possible, but what matters to you? Does it matter that you develop yourself? Does it matter to you that you work on that relationship? Does it matter to you that you may have to take a look at yourself and see the things that you’ve been doing wrong? Does that matter to you that you may want to fix those things, that you may want to work on those things? That if those things are worked on, if those things are fixed to resistance, that’s showing up in your life may just happen to go away.
Does it matter to you that if you can see where you’ve been making the wrong decisions about things or maybe you’re feeling a little insecure about a certain thing and you know that you can strengthen yourself up, if you can increase your maturity, if you can learn something new, or if you can really decide that I need to get up off this couch and I need to go learn a new skill. I need to go back to school. I need to go apologize. I need to get to the gym.
Whatever it is that you need to do in order to get past this resistance. It could be something as simple as taking care of yourself, practicing self-care. It could be something simple as getting up 30 minutes earlier in order to read a book or write a book, to have more time in prayer or meditation, to finish that project. What does that matter to you? Sometimes it’s just making space to do what it is that you need to do in order to get beyond the resistance making space, creating space, holding space for success in your life.
Have The Guts To Do It
To move beyond resistance in your life and you have to have the strength to do that. You have to have the guts to do that. You have to have the will to do that. It may be getting up early, going to bed a little bit later for a certain period of time in your life to press beyond resistance. Sometimes resistance requires you to do something out of the ordinary, something that you haven’t done before.
We want to remain the same, we want our lives to be the same but we want extraordinary results. Sometimes extraordinary results require extraordinary activity. It may be quite extraordinary thinking. It’s going to require that but you have to continue the process. You have to continue to push through it. You have to have the guts and the courage to push through it and to never ever give up. I support you all in your quest to do wonderful things in life. Thank you all.