Shifting Your Resistance

by Lynn Grodzki, LCSW, MCC

Published in the Private Practice Success Newsletter, May 2011 Edition

* * What you resist, persists.* *  (Carl Jung)

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Mea Culpa. This email newsletter is late. It was supposed to be done 2 weeks ago and it was supposed to explore a completely different topic. Except that newsletter, the one I thought I was supposed to write, just wouldn’t get itself written.

I tried to write it. I made an outline, and then left it under a pile of papers. I sat down to the computer numerous times, but ended up on the web, downloading music and answering email. I put it as a to-do list on my calendar for a week, but went outside to take a walk at that time.

Finally, yesterday, I accepted the truth. That newsletter was not going to get written right now.

Instead, I needed to write about what is true for me today. And that truth involves how to deal with Resistance — mine and yours.

The Things We Resist

Each week, I talk by phone and in person to lots of small business owners (therapists, coaches, consultants and other professionals) who struggle mightily with their own to-do list.

I hear about administrative tasks that don’t get finished, bills that aren’t paid, marketing calls deferred, financial data not recorded, client notes unwritten, clutter not cleaned.

We avoid doing many things that we know are good for us – eating well, exercising, meditation – and many things that would be very good for our business: setting boundaries, collecting unpaid receipts, marketing, organizing, or planning.

We know what we need to do. We have good intentions. What’s stopping us? We don’t know how to shift our resistance.

The Struggle Inside

Resistance means a struggle is ongoing. You might find the struggle inside yourself, as I have described, or sense resistance externally, say in the marketplace, when your good idea goes nowhere because people don’t want your services.

Resistance, at its core, is a hindrance to the flow of electricity, ideas, change, or progress.

Internal resistance is the number one struggle of the business owners I coach. It stops progress and puts us into a state of permanent limbo.

As a business coach, I help clients understand and shift their resistance to take action that would be good for them and good for their business.

What To Do

1) Get Aligned

The first step to end a war is that all sides must stop fighting.

Now I don’t mean you get to sit on the couch doing nothing. What I mean is you have to reconcile the parts of you in opposition and get them aligned. Your job is not to get agreement from all these various inner voices. You just have to get them moving in the same direction.

In my case, I had one part of me that knew what I should be writing. Another part of me wanted to do anything else. I know that I usually love to write, so I decided to align all parts of myself around the simple act of writing.

I re-ordered my priorities and decided the topic, which was a good one and had been my priority, was now secondary to the act of writing.

I gave myself permission to find a different topic, one that felt more interesting. I asked myself: What would I be eager to write about? The answer came immediately, and this newsletter has, as they say, almost written itself.

What can you align with to get your task completed? It might be a higher goal, a mission, a sense of what is needed right now, etc.

Find your true North and see if that helps to move you forward.

2) Use the Environment

When I am stuck and can’t find internal resources to hold me in a task until it is complete, I look at my immediate external environment. My external environment needs to support me in my work. That environment might include people I can reach out to (I called my coach friend, Chrissy, and got a few minutes of her wisdom about my stuckness – very helpful.)

Or it can be the physical environment (I put flowers on my desk so I could smell spring and enjoy my writing without squirming in my seat.) I put on music to calm me, and gave myself a block of time to write. Instead of feeling a lack of energy, I couldn’t wait to get started.

What is the physical environment that can help you get going? What support can you take from your relationships?

3) Find the Love

In my workshops, I always ask participants to shift from a fear-based practice to a love-based one.

If you feel flooded by fear or anxiety, you will find it hard to take an action for the improvement of your practice. For example, you may need to make several marketing “cold” calls to potential referral sources. You do it, unhappily, with a sense of dread. thinking: “If I don’t make this call, my practice won’t survive. And it’s not just making the call, I have to get results, and soon. If this doesn’t go well, I will be out of work for good.” Imagine the pressure that kind of thinking places on you as you try to develop professional relationships.

If you take action from a basis of love, you make the exact same call, but do it from a different perspective.

You think, “Yes, the situation is dire, but in this moment I will call this person to let him know how much I love the work I am doing. I will see if there is something I can offer, to not just get but also give. I will suggest a win/win suggestion of how we can support each other since times are hard all over. Even if no results come from this call, I can feel good about making this call. Then I will call the next person and the next.” Same action, different basis, different experience of marketing, different feeling about the actions needed to keep a business operating.

According to author Neal Donald Walsch, “Fear is the energy which contracts, closes down, draws in, runs, hides hoards, harms. Love is the energy which expands, opens up, sends out, stays, reveals, shares, heals.”

Feeling resistance based on fear or anxiety? See if you can do it from a basis of love—love of self, love of others, love for your business, or love of the profession. This feeling of love makes you feel expansive and open-hearted, a good way to get  moving in business.