Blog | Personal development

How To Beat Resistance

Don’t let your little voice beat you. Take action with confidence

I want you to think about something for a minute. When is the last time you put something off that you dream about doing? Maybe you want to write a book, hike a mountain, or start a side business and every time you think about doing it you get excited.

But then… nothing.

Well, today we’re going to begin a short series on how you assess value. Not how much you value things but how much you value yourself.

And part of that value has to do with how much you value your time and priorities.

Confidence Reigns Supreme

I have worked with people around the world in every walk of life and there’s one difference I’ve noticed about people who are succeeding at life and those who aren’t.

It has nothing to do with their socioeconomic background or how much money they’re making. Instead, it has everything to do with one word: confidence.

It doesn’t matter if they are executives at a major company or they sell their products out on the street, people who are successful have confidence.

I believe that the only way to grow confidence is by stepping outside your comfort zone.

Take on challenges that are difficult for you to do. Though some people might find it easy to shoot free throws on a basketball court, others could try for hours and hit everything except the bottom of the net.

And that’s ok. The same people that find certain athletic pursuits difficult might find they have an incredible knack for understanding people. They can schmooze with strangers they just met and convince them to buy a tchotchke that, minutes before, they didn’t even know existed.

Who You Want To Be

The problem arises when you finally decide to step outside your comfort zone and try something new. It’s not the thought about writing a book or starting a business that stops you. It’s when you try to take action and everything falls apart.

When I was a kid, running around the corn fields of Ohio dreaming about whatever, I didn’t have a care in the world. The realities of life didn’t concern me. I had no bills to pay, no family of my own to look after, no harsh realities of business to contend with.

But then I grew up. Then I met the fiercest foe of confidence: resistance.

What Resistance Looks Like

Though resistance takes many forms, it most often comes to us through our little voice. It resembles statements like this, “What makes you think you could write a book anyway? What do you have to say that’s so important? Even if you did write it, who would read it?”

That’s resistance. And though it’s normal, you need to be careful to keep it in check.

When you lose focus on what you are trying to do, you’ll let those thoughts control your behaviors.

You can choose to believe the message resistance is trying to tell you or you can let them float by. If you choose to believe the resistance you’ll slowly start to devalue yourself and your dreams. You’ll never get started. And it’s all because of your little voice.

It’s not easy. Those thoughts are very powerful. But there’s one thing that will help build confidence and breakdown resistance: action.

We talk a lot about taking action at Rich Dad. Nothing happens without it.

So if your plan is to write a book, hike a mountain, or start a business… start!

It doesn’t matter if you feel like it, you won’t. It doesn’t matter if it’s as good as you envision it to be, it’s not.

But over time, it will get better and easier.

What have you been procrastinating on? Make a promise that today, you’ll start.