The Discomfort of Doing What You’re Meant to Do

01 Nov The Discomfort of Doing What You’re Meant to Do

It’s 11pm on Wednesday night and I’m editing the write up of a talk about finding one’s callings for what feels like the 100th time this week.

It’s been a long seven days to get to this point. I’ve barely slept. And when I am awake I’m agitated and anxious and riddled with self-doubt. Why can’t I think of the right way to say what I want to say? And even if I could, what do I have to offer that others would want to hear?

Why is this so harrrd? I mean, it shouldn’t be, right? If this is what I’m really meant to do with my life, then I shouldn’t be facing so much resistance while trying to do it. …Right?

Does this sound familiar? Perhaps you’ve experienced the same mental banter while pursuing your own creative endeavours. Good news, it’s normal. Bad news, we’re both wrong about the resistance thing. But I promise you, understanding why resistance happens will change your relationship with it.

In The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (only my favourite book on resistance), he explains that, “[t]he more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.”

But because of how it feels (i.e. the agitation, anxiety and self-doubt I mentioned earlier) though, we often confuse it for an indicator that we’re going the wrong way. This is what resistance wants. It wants us to run in the other direction, back toward our comfort zone. Resistance likes safety.

But comfort and safety won’t yield the life you desire to have. For that, you have to accept resistance as part of the process. Allow it to be sort of like a sidekick to your journey. Or a compass, as Pressfield suggests. He says, “We can navigate by Resistance, letting it guide us to that calling or action that we must follow before all others.”

Perhaps you’re confused, though, why Resistance occurs when you’re doing something creative, something you love and are passionate about, and yet you don’t recall facing it when you began your old career in admin. It’s not a blip in your memory. There was no resistance then, because Pressfield says that it only opposes in one direction. That is, it “obstructs movement only from a lower sphere to a higher.”

So…are you catching my drift yet? Resistance is a good thing! If you’re experiencing discomfort while pursuing a creative endeavour, while it may be frustrating, it means you’re on the right track. So instead of fighting against resistance or conceding to it, welcome it. Thank it for providing you with the reassurance that you need to continue.