The Internal Resistance Files

How to Overcome Avoidance

Learn to close the gap between intention and action

I always hated these cartoons. Now I understand why.

I recently listened to a podcast about procrastination by a big-name business coach. I was curious to see what kind of advice people in her position were giving their listeners.

This was one of her main suggestions:

Put a couple of hours on your calendar for things you’ve been avoiding, and then treat that time as an absolute commitment you’ve made to yourself.

As you’re following me on Medium, I feel confident that you will understand me when I say: Are you fricking kidding me, lady?

If it was clear how to keep absolute commitments to ourselves, no one would be be listening to podcasts like this in the first place. The entire problem is that we keep issuing ourselves strict marching orders — and then find ourselves still just sitting there, not marching.

Advice like this totally misses the target because it tells us what to do, but not how to get ourselves to do it it. Something is happening to us in that gap between having a sensible plan and actually executing that plan, and that’s the thing we need to a way to address.

I call this thing internal resistance.

Internal resistance arises because there is some part of our brain that receives those marching orders, rolls its eyes and says, Yeah, good luck with that.

Internal resistance is what turns the gap between intention and action into what feels like a giant chasm, into which we can’t stop crashing. When avoidance is the symptom, internal resistance is the cause.

Our brains usually don’t bother to tell us about any of this, though. And that means we often wind up thinking our will is just somehow broken — that we lack power over our own choices or only choose bad things.

But that’s not the case. Internal resistance happens for specific, comprehensible reasons that can be addressed. It arises from desires and commitments that make rational sense to some part of us. And once we understand those desires and commitments, it’s possible to close this gap rather than plummeting into the abyss.

In this special free training, I’m going to explain exactly what is happening in that gap between intention and action and how to address it. And I’ll coach volunteers live on the call. You’ll learn:

• What is making you avoid things you know you want to do
• Why I don’t recommend defining this issue as ‘procrastination’
• Why the most common fixes don’t usually work on internal resistance
• How to identify and address the underlying causes in your specific case

The main part of the event will last one hour, but there will be an added 15 minutes at the end for a bit of extra coaching and further questions.

You have two opportunities to attend:

• Wednesday, 10 January 2024, 12 pm NYC/5 pm London
• Saturday, 13 January 2024, 11 am NYC/4 pm London

Sign up here

You’re welcome to attend both times, but you’ll need to sign up separately for each date.

Questions? Comment here or contact me at info@janeelliottphd.com.

I’m a coach, a writer and a professor. Read more here.