Is Resistance Sexy?

When I think 'resistance' what comes to mind is the French Resistance: a bunch of intrepid and dedicated underground rebels fighting for the freedom of their country - all with a certain 'je ne sais quoi' and irresistible French accents... But that's only good in the movies. Dealing with oppression and tyranny is no picnic, and certainly not sexy. We're not talking just about subversion though. We are talking about the resistance you have to your goals. The kind that turns up as self-sabotage, struggle, hurdles, obstacles, and looks like a big mountain to climb. Is that sexy? Is that kind of struggle sexy? It was once for me. I worked for twenty years in outdoor experiential organisations whose main premise was growth through challenge and adversity. The harder it was, the stronger you grew. That sense of overcoming the odds, or conquering a mountain - or yourself - was sweet and rewarded with peanut butter and jam sandwiches. It felt good. Really good. For a little while. Constant struggle is, well, a struggle! It's tiring. It's exhausting. It's time consuming. I propose a new model for achieving your goals: Decide what you want, get excited about it, be happy, delight in its delicious unfolding and reap the benefit of your joyful creative effort. Compare this to: Set a goal - a big old hairy one. Design action steps and milestones. Work like a dog through the steps, conquering each obstacle as they arise. Get to the top and collapse. Maybe win an award. The difference is in attitude and focus: achieving happily versus achieving to be happy. The scenario I propose requires 'blissipline' - a constant effort in feeling joyful in the present while eagerly anticipating the future. The old model requires 'discipline' - a constant focus on tasks towards some distant end point where you'll eventually get to reap the rewards, if you survive the journey. Let's test the model to see if it stands up.Scenario: Take an Olympic athlete. This kind of performance requires focus, effort, persistence. Old model: Schedule huge training load. Design very focused nutrition model. Implement plan. Review, rinse, repeat. Head down, bum up. Get to Olympics and try with every ounce of everything. Win - hooray! Lose - all that training with no reward. Bummer. New model: See the vision: win Olympic Gold. Get excited. Schedule the training and plan the nutrition. Each day rejoice in the accomplishment of maximum effort and living in to the best version of self. Feel deep appreciation for current state of health and for being alive -loving the feelings of effort and rest. Review, rinse, repeat. Head down, heart out. Get to Olympics and try with every ounce of everything. Win - hooray! Lose - it's been a fantastic journey, its own splendid reward. Winning is sweet, but it's not the whole cake. It's just the icing bit. And if you make a really good, really rich, really lush, really spectacular cake, the icing is optional. Delicious and fabulous, but not required. Coach's Challenge: Review your goals and how you approach them. Focus on implementing a new regime of 'head down, heart out' instead of 'head down, bum up'. Let us know how it goes!