How to Overcome Your Own Resistance

You decide to make a change. You write down a new plan, a new routine. Maybe you want to wake up earlier, write every day, or learn a new skill. The first day feels good. The second day is okay. By the third day, a powerful force seems to be holding you back. We call this resistance.

Our first instinct is to label this resistance as laziness. A failure of discipline. We get frustrated with ourselves. We think if we just had more willpower, we could push through. But this rarely works for long. The resistance feels like an external enemy, but it comes from within.

The Wrong Diagnosis

Treating resistance as a simple lack of willpower is like treating a complex illness with a single painkiller. It might dull the symptom for a moment, but it does nothing to address the underlying cause. The frustration you feel is real, but it’s aimed at the wrong target. You are not the problem. The resistance is a message.

When you consistently fail to follow a plan you consciously made, it's because some part of you does not agree with it. Forcing yourself to do it is like trying to drive a car with the emergency brake on. You might move a little, but you’ll burn a lot of fuel and probably damage the engine. The smarter move is to figure out how to release the brake.

Your Plan vs Your Identity

Often, the plan you create conflicts with your current identity. Your new routine belongs to a future version of yourself, but your current self is still in charge. If you’ve always seen yourself as a chaotic, spontaneous person, a rigid, time blocked schedule will feel like a prison. Your identity will rebel against it.

We build our identities out of stories we tell ourselves. 'I am not a morning person.' 'I am bad with numbers.' 'I am a procrastinator.' These stories are comfortable. They protect us from having to try and fail. Your new plan challenges these stories. The resistance you feel is your old identity trying to protect itself from being destroyed.

You cannot simply bolt on new habits. You have to allow your identity to evolve with them. The change has to happen on the inside first, or at least at the same time. The new actions need to feel like they belong to you.

Resistance as a Form of Fear

At its core, resistance is often a manifestation of fear. It might be a fear of failure. What if you try this new thing and you’re not good at it? The resistance keeps you safe by ensuring you never really try. That way, you can always tell yourself you could have succeeded if you had just been more disciplined.

It could also be a fear of success. Success brings new expectations, new responsibilities. It raises the stakes. If you succeed, you have to keep succeeding. This can be intimidating. Staying where you are, in the familiar struggle, can feel safer than stepping into a new, more demanding role.

Your new routine is a doorway to the unknown. Your mind is wired to prefer the predictable, even if the predictable is unsatisfying. Resistance is your mind’s attempt to keep you in the safe, known world.

The Way Out is Through Conversation

So if you can't force your way through resistance, what do you do? You listen to it. You treat it not as an enemy to be defeated, but as a messenger to be understood. You have a conversation with it.

This is where speaking your thoughts aloud becomes a powerful tool. When the resistance appears, ask it questions. Start talking. Don't judge the answers, just let them come out.

Why don't I want to do this?

What am I actually afraid of right now?

What is the story I'm telling myself about this task?

What is the worst thing that could happen if I did it?

Saying these things out loud does something magical. It takes the formless, powerful feeling of resistance and gives it structure. It turns a monster in the dark into something you can see and examine. Often, once you articulate the fear or the conflict, it shrinks. You realize the story you were telling yourself was not true, or that the fear was overblown.

This is not a battle. It is an investigation. You are not trying to silence the part of you that resists. You are trying to understand it and integrate it. Maybe your plan needs to be adjusted. Maybe your identity needs a new story. The answers are there, but you can only find them by talking them out.

Try asking yourself about a specific point of resistance you're feeling right now.