Living With Resistance

In his groundbreaking book The War of Art, Steven Pressfield defines Resistance as a universal force that acts counter to creativity. It can manifest in many ways, such as self-doubt, distractions, fear of failure, and false busyness; but its goal is always the same: to keep things as they are.

Resistance doesn’t want you to quit your office job to work on your passion project because that would be making a change, and change is scary. Resistance would much rather you watch one more video on YouTube, play another hour of video games, or stay out late drinking – anything to help you rationalize that you just don’t have time to do that thing, whatever it is. Whether you call it Resistance, writer's block, or something else, all writers have grappled with this feeling at some point, and we all deal with it differently. 

For years, I thought that I had an organization problem. I tried all the top productivity journals, re-ordered my computer files, and made sure that every writing folder and story outline were meticulously color coded and arranged with the utmost efficiency. I thought that if my writing was organized, it would be easier for me to start new projects and pick up where I left off with ongoing ones. While an organized work area can have a positive effect on our lives, I eventually realized that, for me, endless organization was just a different way of putting off the actual work. I would expend so much creative energy on “getting ready to write” that I would hardly write at all. Preparation had become its own form of Resistance.

I’ve been focused on writing professionally for many years now, so I’ve tried a lot of strategies to be more consistent and prolific. I’ve been a part of writing groups to keep myself accountable for doing the work, I developed a mild coffee addiction to stimulate productivity, I hyper scheduled my day into 30-minute blocks and filled each block with a task to make it impossible for me to waste my time, and I even hid my videogame controllers from myself until I finished a script. While all these approaches worked for a short while, none of them really “took.” All I succeeded in doing was putting so much pressure on myself to write that it often became the last thing I wanted to do.

Pressure isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Most people would probably prefer a diamond to a brick of coal, after all. But pressure can also be Resistance in disguise. It can lead to a debilitating fear of failure that causes us to do anything and everything except our work. Steven Pressfield’s answer for this is to just show up every day. Regardless of your mood, life circumstances, or the craziness of your schedule, show up and do the work. Treat your writing like you’re a professional and eventually you’ll be one.

For the most part, I agree with this. I think that committing to a daily writing practice, even if it’s just for twenty minutes, is an effective way to ensure that you’re continually making progress on whatever your writing goal is. But this is only half the battle.  Consistency doesn’t eliminate Resistance. There’s a reason why this post is titled “Living With Resistance” and not “Overcoming Resistance.” I don’t believe that Resistance is something that can ever be truly vanquished.  No matter where you are in your career, the specter of Resistance will be your shadow. Thankfully, much like Peter Pan, we can learn to peacefully coexist with this shadow. But to do that, we need to nurture and protect our creativity.

I like to think of my creativity as a part of my biological engine that needs to be maintained from time to time. Resistance is the gunk in the system that builds up and needs to be flushed out like an oil change. How you flush it depends on whatever is restorative for you. It could be spending time in nature, with family or friends, going to the movies by yourself, or getting in a lift at the gym. For me, I like to put on my noise-canceling headphones and play aggressive hip-hop at unsafe volumes while dancing around in my office. I need to feel loose and vibe super hard in order to feel condifent and open myself up to let the words flow through me. 

What I don’t think you should do is plough away at work day after day, minute after minute, without doing anything to take care of yourself or restore your creativity. I used to think it was laziness that was trying to pull me into putting off work to go to the movies, or read a book, or hang out with friends; but now I think of it as my body’s way of telling me that I need to flush my system and get some new, clean, creativity in the engines. Resistance is a never-ending war, and if we’re going to fight it for the long haul, we need to ensure that our best weapon against it is always in top form.