The Resistance List: An Overview of Everything You’re Avoiding

Author’s note: This article from an issue of Quiet Inspiration was discussed on last night’s episode of Inspired at Home. I decided to post it here so everyone could access it.

Resistance. What’s it all about? I wish I knew. Seems like we’re always resisting something and there are days when we seem to be resisting everything. What? Did you think you were the only one?

I just got back from vacation and you’d think I’d be well rested, recharged, and raring to go. But I found myself spending almost an entire day doing nothing. I couldn’t think and I couldn’t decide where to begin. And when I tried to determine what the hold up was, I couldn’t. It was everything and nothing. I’d been generating lots of ideas but I had no idea how to do it all or when to do it all and that, I decided, was part of the problem.

How Do You Tackle Everything at Once? You Don’t.

You can’t do it all, not all at once at least. I decided I needed a bird’s eye view of what was going on, so I began to list, as best I could, of all the things I was resisting. I called it my Resist List and the results were surprising and actually quite revealing. I suggest you try it.

The Resist List – An Overview of All That You’re Avoiding

Take out a piece of paper or crank up your computer and open your favorite word processor. It’s time to make a list.

This is not a to-do list. To-do lists usually include things you do without hesitation and things you do begrudgingly but find a way to do nevertheless. Your Resist List, however, contains all the things you keep leaving unchecked and the things you don’t even bother to write down because you just know. . .

A Different Point of Do (or Don’t)
A Resist List also requires a different mindset than a to-do list. When you make out a to-do list, you write down things you actually intend to do or at least hope to do over the course of a day or a week. But a Resist List can and probably should include things you know you have no intention of beginning anytime soon because, well, they’re just too big or too scary or too confusing or even too, in your mind, silly or irrelevant or unimportant.

That last bit, the collection of seemingly silly and unimportant activities, was the surprising part for me. I started out listing all the usual suspects: looming projects, unread books, unwritten emails, and phone calls I’ve been avoiding. But then I started listing things I really wanted to do but found myself resisting as well, things like reading fiction, phoning old friends, and simply relaxing.

Out of Your Head and Onto the Page

The idea here isn’t to write these things down with the expectation that you’re going to pound your way through them in a matter of minutes or days or even weeks. The purpose is to take all that stuff that’s been swirling and whirling inside your head and to get it down on paper so you can take a step back and, well, just look at it.

What Do You Expect?

And just look at it. It’s a mess. It’s ridiculous even. Perhaps the first thing you’ll become aware of is just how unrealistic your expectations of yourself can be. If your Resist List is anything like mine and I have reason to believe it will be, you’ll find yourself looking at a list of expectations that would make Super Man cringe.

Let’s see, you have plans to lose weight, take up yoga, build a software design company, start a charity for wayward nuns, compete in the upcoming West Texas Chili Cook Off, write a novel, learn to scuba dive, repair the economy, and become an all around better you. Whew. I’m tired already. Are you?

So what are we to do with all these things? Forget them? Regret them? Beget them? If you must know the truth, I don’t exactly know myself. I just know that it feels better to have them on paper than it does to have them fading in and out of my head and hurling insults at me. Having said that, here are some things I’m trying out.

Things You Can Do with the Things You Haven’t Done

Keep your list with you. Carry it in your pocket. Make copies and post the copies in places where you’ll be apt to look at them.
Look at it. Take it out once a day or once a week and mull it over. You don’t have to do anything with it. Just look at it.
Get reasonable. Now that you’ve got everything in front of you, maybe you can come up with a doable plan. Mine is to try to address at least one thing from the list every day. That’s all I’ve got right now, but for right now that’s all I need.

Get curious. Ask questions of your list. Work your way down and get curious about each item on the list. Why are you resisting it? What would happen if you simply began? What’s one thing you could do to get the ball rolling?

Rank things. Try ranking the items on your list according to a variety of criteria: most meaningful, most rewarding, most frightening, most exciting, easiest to conquer, best done with others, most in need of more information, easiest to do at home, most relaxing, most taxing, and so on and so on.

Make a Snowball. Dave Ramsey is a financial advisor who helps people get out of debt. One of his techniques is something he calls the debt snowball. You list your debts from lowest to highest and you tackle the smallest debt first, then the next smallest, and so on. It makes for quick success and builds momentum. So why not follow the path of least resistance? Begin with the item that’s easiest to overcome and then the next and then the next. You’ll enjoy some early success and build your resistance fighting muscles.

Get Creative. Play with your list. Turn it into a poem or a song. Create a mind map or a collage. Write a story about a person working their way through a list like yours. Come up with a ceremony you can have each time you finish an item on the list. Whatever works for you.

The Power of the Paper in Your Hands

The beauty of the Resist List is that it takes all those nagging feelings and self incriminations and turns them into a piece of paper you can hold in your hand and deal with. In some small way, it gives you back your power. It makes you less of a victim and more of a manager of of your own life and the dreams you have. I’m not saying it’s a cure all, but it’s a good start to getting back on your feet and putting one foot in front of the other. And that’s something we could all give into.

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Tagged as: keeping a journal, overcoming perfectionism, Productive, stop procrastinating