- I don't know if you've ever noticed this
but it seems like sometimes in life,
the more you want something,
the harder it is to get.
This seems to be the case with starting a business
or writing a book or any of these big life plans
we always dream about.
Seems like the more we fantasize
about these types of things,
the more we procrastinate doing anything about them.
But there's a very specific reason for this
and it is brilliantly explained
in probably one of the best books I have ever read
in my life called, "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield.
So in this book, Steven Pressfield explains that
there is a psychological force that is working
against you every single day of your life
and is intimately involved in every decision that you make
whether you're aware of it or not.
And the sole purpose of this force is to keep you
from reaching your potential, it's called resistance.
Now whether we've called it resistance or not,
we've all definitely felt it usually in the form of
it's sort of internal tension that you feel
whenever you think about doing something constructive
whether it's picking up a paintbrush to start painting
or opening the Word doc to start writing the essay
you've been procrastinating forever,
resistance will be there to rear its ugly head
because resistance prevents progression.
If there were no such thing as resistance,
we would all be living according to our highest ideals.
If we knew it was our mission to write a book,
we would just start writing.
If we knew that it was in our best interest
to do cardio, sail faster on ice when you played hockey,
we would just do cardio, whenever we thought of it,
we would just do cardio, there would be nothing stopping us.
But unfortunately, every single time we think
about doing something constructive,
resistance starts to inject itself into our being
without us even realizing it.
It's an automatic process and it happens every single time.
So for example, pretend you're wasting time playing X-Box
or something and you've been playing for a couple of hours
and the thought dawns on you to go to the gym
because it's Monday and Monday's international Chest Day
or religious holiday and you really should hit chest,
it's the right thing to do.
But since it's the right thing to do
and it is integral for your growth as a human being,
at least in that area of life,
you will encounter resistance.
First, it usually takes the form of physical discomfort.
When you think about going to the gym
while you're wasting time on X-Box,
the thought of going to the gym becomes
very physically uncomfortable.
You start to tense up, you start to win set
the thought of doing something more uncomfortable
than the thing you're currently doing,
which is interesting because once you're actually
at the gym, it's not that bad.
In fact, it's pretty fun and you feel really fulfilled
and you feel like you're accomplishing something
but in that moment, when you're wasting time
going to the gym seems like a monster.
It seems like something you definitely don't want to do,
that is resistance.
And since human beings like
to stay intellectually consistent,
resistance will start to creep into your mind
in the form of rationalization.
You need any sort of good reason not to encounter
this physical pain of going to the gym.
Maybe you think about the fact that
since it's Monday and International Chest Day,
everybody is going to be doing chest on Monday.
So there's gonna be a huge lineup for the bench press.
Besides, you went to the gym last week
and it takes a lot longer than one week
for you to lose all your gains
and for your muscles to deteriorate
so it's probably not a big deal if you just skip this week.
You've been pretty good up until this point
and you kind of deserve a break.
Maybe you're familiar with this type of pattern of thinking
and it's actually really common and it's resistance
but here's something I find a little bit more disturbing.
It seems like the more important something is
for your growth as a human being,
the more powerful resistance will be stopping you
from doing it.
A great example of this is me and this channel.
When I first started off making these videos,
it was just a hobby.
But as you guys started watching more and more
and I've started to develop an audience,
it is now become my most viable career path.
Sponsors are reaching out, things are happening,
the audience is growing and it's great
but because of that fact, resistance is stronger than ever.
And for me, resistance takes the form of perfectionism.
Whenever I sit down to write a video,
I always feel like I have to outdo the last one.
It has to be the perfect video with the perfect be roll.
And it really becomes a barrier to uploading
as frequently as I would like.
And as I've started to reread "The War Art"
by Steven Pressfield, I start to realize
that this type of thinking is just resistance.
Resistance never goes away.
You always hear about famous singers and performers
and comedians who still get really nervous
before they go on stage.
They encounter resistance even though they've been doing it
for decades even.
So what's their response.
So they just not go on stage.
Of course not, their careers will be over
but what the most successful people do instead
is they get really good at automatically breaking past
this resistance as it presents itself.
And the better you get at doing this,
the more efficient you'll be at doing the right thing
instead of the comfortable thing.
Because when you just sit down to write
or when you just put on the running shoes
or when you just hit record,
something magical happens, words start to flow,
endorphins start to run,
inspiration starts to magically descend upon you
and all the pieces sort of fall together.
The proper response to resistance
is to just start the thing anyways.
Once you start realizing that whatever rationalizations
you have for not doing the thing you know you have to do
is just resistance.
You can gain the mental clarity
to just do the thing anyways.
And as you become more familiar with resistance
and seeing it for what it is,
you can really start to use resistance as a guide.
Since resistance is most powerful,
the more important something is,
it's a great compass leading you to where you need to go.
And as you win these battles with resistance,
day by day, month by month and year by year,
the life you live will become bigger
than the unlived life within you.
And you'll eventually start living the kind of life
you actually want to be living.
Like I mentioned at the beginning of the video,
this entire video was based on "The War of Art"
by Steven Pressfield.
The book that I recommend the most to people is this book.
And the funny thing is I didn't actually read
the book physically,
I listened to it using today's video sponsor Audible.
I remember when I first listened to the War of Art,
I was looking on Reddit for book recommendations
and "The War of At" came up.
So I downloaded it on Audible.
I listened to the audio version
while I was starting to clean but something happened,
whenever I listened to it for like five minutes,
I had to take action on the most important things
in my life, it completely was a paradigm shifting book.
And the nice thing about Audible is you can listen
to books while you're being productive.
You can be cleaning the kitchen,
you can be driving somewhere,
you can be going to the gym and you can be
in taking valuable information
while you're already doing something constructive,
it's like a double whammy of productivity.
Audible has the largest selection of audio books
on the entire internet out of any platform,
they have this cool deal where every single month
you can download a book of your choice,
regardless of price absolutely free
as well as two Audible originals
so make sure when you sign up down below
for your free trial, you download "The War of Art"
because you absolutely won't regret it.
So to sign up for your 30-day free trial
either click the link below
or visit audible.com/betterideas
or texts "betterideas" to 500-500.
If you don't like the book,
you can easily exchange it for something else at any time
and if you cancel your Audible membership,
you still keep your library of books.
Once again, visit audible.com/betterideas
or text "betterideas" to 500-500
to sign up for your free 30 day trial.
If you liked this video, make sure to hit like
because when you like it,
the algorithm blesses me with shoving this video
in front of other people's faces, helping them out
and I feel like this is an important video
that people kind of need nowadays.
It'll knock them off their YouTube binge
and set them on the right path.
And if you're lurking here,
consider subscribing and hitting the bell icon.
So you don't miss videos like these in the future.
Lots of awesome content coming up,
I'm really excited for some of these future videos,
make sure to stay tuned for those.
Thank you for watching
and I'll catch you in the next video.
(mellow music)