On my flight home from Minnesota after Thanksgiving, I finally had a chance to watch the Wonder Woman movie.
One part really struck me.
Wonder Woman, while Princess Diana on her home island, ensnared Captain Steve Trevor with her Lasso of Truth, and her mother Queen Hippolyta said, “It is pointless and painful to resist.”
Most of us are resisting something on some level all the time.
Why? Because we’re actually hardwired to resist.
When we resist leaning in or digging deeper, it’s our way of staying in a comfort zone and playing a small game, creating the illusion of safety.
We create an experience of safety since we’re made to survive, not thrive.
When I’m coaching or being coached, there’s resistance when we’re scared.
We resist structure.
We resist raising our rates.
We resist letting people or things go.
I ask my clients, “What are you resisting?” because it’s a big energy leak, and if you want to create your best business and life, there’s no time for that.
In Wonder Woman, Steve was wasting his energy by resisting. Instead, he should have saved up his energy for the battle ahead.
When we have energy, we automatically create time.
When that happens, you may go, “Where did that time come from?”
You didn’t actually get more time. You just have more energy.
And you’re actually safe already.
We have to be our own Wonder Woman or superhero, DC or Marvel or otherwise, if we want to run and be successful in our businesses (and lives).
When we’re being our own superhero, we’re leading a soul-filled, love-inspired business. That’s going to make a difference in the world.
Here’s how you can start kicking your resistance instinct:
1) Know what’s happening. Start noticing where and what you’re resisting. It could be anything, like someone saying you’re rates are too low, and you don’t want to change them because you’re scared of potentially losing clients.
2) Find the unworkability of resistance. While the pattern will never fully go away, we can learn how to choose outside of it more often. We can uncover the unworkability of the resistance, which is a fancy way to say: resistance doesn’t actually work. For example, if you haven’t raised your rates, you’ll have to work with twice as many clients to get the rate you deserve. Ask what’s the impact of all this resistance. Keep that in mind over and over again to poke holes in the pattern and take your power back.
3) Avoid going from zero to grandiose. If we go from resisting to revamping all we do in a day, we probably won’t follow through. It’s not the big grandiose gesture that’s going to make you a superhero. It’s the tiny little things that seem insignificant that you do every day over and over again. Whatever you’re resisting, maybe that looks like practicing leaning in or taking one step further every day. Play a game you can win at.
Take Wonder Woman again: She trained harder than anyone. That’s what she needed to win at the game that was coming for her.
Doing the zero to 100 thing can also be a self-sabotage. That kind of behavior is in service of staying safe, where we fail at doing the new thing and feel we can say, “See, I can’t do it. I don’t have what it takes. I’m going to stay here.”
But you can. You just didn’t get the training you needed!
Oh, and above is a pic of me as a superhero mermaid, buff with gold tattoos and all.
