Energy Unleashed: Beating Resistance for Ultimate Productivity

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Welcome back

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:01]:
to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 172. And today, I'm gonna talk about how to overcome resistance. It's such a force that we have to reckon with in life. And I just sat down and put together some ideas about easily facing your resistance, the reasons for your resistance, and coming up with ideas to smoothly sidestep your resistance. There is a set of 5 questions inside this episode that will help you to get out of the mindset of fear and avoidance and help you to move on towards greater productivity and conserving your energy in the process. I hope you enjoy this episode. Please share it with a friend if it does help you and you do like it.

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:57]:
Take care.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:03]:
Hi. I'm doctor Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body, and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time For Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:46]:
Hello, my friends. I am so glad to be here today. I am going to be talking about the twin topics of how to overcome any feelings of resistance. And of course, we can have resistance over just about anything. And the other topic I'm gonna cover is how to conserve your energy. And I believe that anytime you talk about the topic of resistance, you're talking about energy. So anytime you learn how to beat or overcome your resistance, you get to save a bit of your energy. And I think that's always a very, very good thing.

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:26]:
So I thought I would start by telling you a little bit about me and my old self. My old self, as you probably know, maybe you don't know, was a tremendous procrastinator. And because of that, I feel like my life was colored by the experience of me resisting just about everything. I would resist homework. I would resist appointments. I would resist taking care of things. I would resist following through with just about anything. And several life events happened as they do, and they were important life events, including getting very sick in graduate school and also just becoming a full on adult.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:19]:
And those life events made me understand and made me want to change my habits because I realized that if I was going to continue resisting every little and big thing that I needed to do, that my life was going to continue to feel incredibly stressful, incredibly annoying and irritating and unpredictable. And I just had a natural intuition that things needed to change, as you can imagine. And one of the things that was the outcome of making that kind of life change and working on all these issues in therapy and with different coaches and in school and just by growing up and going through life's events. One of the benefits is that I now understand the principle of listening to your intuition. And there are lots of different ways we can think about what that is. But for today's conversation, I'm gonna call it the higher version of you. We all are comprised of so many different parts. Right? We have parts that are still acting like little kids, parts that are feeling more distracted, parts that are really organized and put together.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:45]:
And I've decided to really always keep in mind the part of me that represents my highest self, The part of me that is not saddled by fear, is not saddled by thoughts of inexperience or danger. It's the part of me that understands that my possibilities are really limitless and that the opportunities therefore are also limitless. And so it's kind of this peaceful, happy, elevated part of my sense of myself and how I see things. And I use that view of what I think my hired self would want and what my higher self could do in the best situations to get over any periodic thoughts of resistance or feelings of resistance that I might come across. And I'm gonna share that piece of advice with you. I'll repeat it, so that you can process it for yourself. Whenever you're feeling like you just don't wanna do it, you just don't have the energy, or you just don't have the wherewithal, or the interest, or the time, anything like that, you can then consult with your own version of your higher self and decide, okay, now I have a choice. I'm kind of at a crossroads.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:11]:
Do I side with the resistance and my procrastination and my avoidance and my wish for delay, or do I side with the part of me that knows there's more for me, that higher self part? Now I want you to know at this point, at that crossroads, there's no demand that you choose 1 or the other. It's up to you. That's the thing about life. Right? We could all want you to choose the higher self, but you get to choose for yourself. You can always choose to procrastinate another day. That's up to you. You have the ultimate authority over what happens. And that is both mind blowing and daunting at the same time.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:57]:
It's a big responsibility to be the person, the being who is regulating everything about your thoughts, behaviors, actions, and the outcomes that come out of those actions. But I thought it was really worth bringing up this scenario of the crossroads where you get to decide, you know what, instead of always picking procrastination or always siding with my fear and hiding out before things calm down and always pushing things off to another day. I now have the understanding because of listening to this podcast that I can also consider a vision of me actually acting alongside the picture of me acting as my higher self. That's always an option for you now. And from now on, you can also use your resistance as just a little bit of a friendly cue for this type of examination and choice making instead of a cue for you to run. And we've all been there. We've all been truly scared. We've all been truly reasonably resistant.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:14]:
I'm just trying to speak to the part of you that might be a little bit resistant over things that really aren't that scary and really are very doable for you, things that you will benefit from getting off your plate, getting off the to do list. And I just thought talking about my old story, my old self, that procrastinating part of me and part of my history, and then the development of a sense of, you know what? I have a natural way of learning how to guide myself in more effective and adaptive ways. I was just hoping that that helped you today. Now, I wanna shift to a series of questions that I've jotted down here that you can also jot down if you are not driving heavy machinery or an automobile or otherwise occupied. If you have pen and paper, I think now would be a good time to bring that out and take these questions down. Because I do think they can be really helpful when you're feeling like you wanna procrastinate or if resistance is in the room. So the first question is to ask yourself, what do I really want? Most people, I think, deep, deep down in their soul, do not really want to deal with resistance and procrastination another day. They really actually enjoy lightness of being, clarity of action, and getting things done.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:45]:
That's my belief about most people, the large majority of us and perhaps you as well. So the first question again to consider when you're feeling a little bit resistance is, what do I actually really want? And I think that one makes sense. The second question that I have for you is to ask yourself, how do you want the whole situation, this whole scenario to look? How do you envision it happening successfully? How do you wanna be the actor in the situation? If you were the script writer, how would you script out the scene? In order to get over resistance, oftentimes we have to get out of the mindset that we're in danger. And so when you start to paint a picture, it doesn't have to be a beautiful picture. It just has to be a picture of what the future could look like, could turn out. That already separates you from that feeling of danger and fear and avoidance, and that's gonna bring you a couple steps closer to actually going towards what you really want, which is step number 1. So step number 1 again, decide what do you really want, and step number 2 or question number 2 is to decide, how do you want this scenario to turn out? How do you want it to look? The third question is to ask yourself, is there a simpler, easier, more elegant way to make this scenario happen? Instead of resisting and basically tying your hands behind your back by resisting, is there another way that I could be in this circumstance? Could I be funnier? Could I be less perfectionistic? Could I ask for more support? Could I ask for a longer timeline? Could I ask for some more information? All these are potential ways that you can create a simpler, easier, more elegant path through to your ideal outcome or the finish line. You can make your wishes happen by avoiding the procrastination and the resistance and deciding, you know what? There must be an easier way to do this.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:07]:
Otherwise, I wouldn't be resisting so hard. Oftentimes, we resist things because we sense that what is going to happen is gonna be too hard or too frustrating for us. So a natural answer to that blockage there is to decide, you know what? I'm gonna do it faster. I'm gonna do it with less concern. I'm just gonna not try to be perfect. I'm just gonna try to aim for getting it done. These strategies are helpful to anyone who has a habit of procrastinating. I promise, they really work.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:41]:
The 4th question that I have for you for your piece of paper is, you want to examine for yourself, What mind trap am I currently caught in? And I'll explain what a mind trap is. I just made up the term for this episode. A mind trap is when you have a thought or belief or both. You have some sort of idea in your mind that is keeping you close to your resistance. It's keeping you in a fear state. Basically, it's all about fear. Mind traps equal fear states. So here are some examples of fear states that you might be caught in.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:23]:
You might feel like the thing is just too annoying for you to handle. It's too taxing. It's too difficult. It's too time consuming. It's gonna involve asking people for help. It will be too frustrating even if you succeed. These are all reasons why you might just stay in a mind trap because your thoughts don't take you through. They just are fixated and having you fixated on the fear and the annoyance and the level of difficulty of the project.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:55]:
This again is why procrastination happens. It's because we sense that the level of difficulty outweighs our level of satisfaction or our chances of success. And all we need to do is change that balance so that our chances of success, all of a sudden, seem really good. They seem really healthy and we decide, we're in control of our thoughts, so there's never a need to be caught in a fear mind trap. You might need to replay this episode to get all these pieces of lessons integrated in your heart and mind, but I would be happy to have you relisten to this. Alright. So the 5th question I have for you is, how can you restore your sense of calm and safety? The reason why I bring up the topics of calm and safety is because, like I explained a couple minutes ago, whenever you're feeling resistance, it's because there's some sense of some fear and danger. Right? The danger of feeling frustrated, the danger of feeling like you're burdened.

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:04]:
Most times, we like to avoid those kinds of experiences. But, you know, the way out of feeling burdened and frustrated and heavy is to make things lighter. That can help you to feel more calm and more safe and more like taking the action that is being required of you in the moment. So my answer to the 5th question, how can you restore your sense of calm and safety, is always quickly. I think the faster you can move yourself out of a state of fear, the better. It's just such a time saver. It's a heart saver. It's an energy saver.

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:46]:
It is just a perspective saver. You don't have to overthink anything anymore. You could just say to yourself, you know what? I'm not gonna die from this. I'm actually really safe and happy. Why am I freaking out about this? And just challenge that part of you that is just screaming for safety and screaming for you to say, stay in that comfort zone longer. You know what? Not much is learned in the comfort zone. So decide to quickly remove yourself out of a sense of danger. Restore that sense of calm and safety to your heart and chest.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:20]:
Remind yourself on a moment to moment basis that you are safe and that you enjoy this feeling of safety. You don't want the feeling of panic in your chest. It's not a great feeling. Alright. Those are the 5 questions. I will review them very quickly for you. So 1, what do you really want? 2, how do you want the scenario to look? How do you wanna be in that scenario? 3, is there an easier, simpler, more elegant way to make the scenario happen? And remember to always be open to all the options that are possible, and that's a tremendous number of options. 4, what kind of mind trap might you be stuck in currently? And 5, how can you restore your sense of calm and safety right away? Now I'm going to veer a little bit and share an example of how all of this might look in your life.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:20]:
When this episode airs, it will be just prior to the tax deadline for the year 2024. And so I thought I'd use taxes as an example of something that I've come through successfully in my own life. I used to really, really, really dread tax season. I would feel dramatically disorganized every tax season. It would bring up so many different issues. I would feel like I need to review all of my finances. I have to find all the w twos. I have to be super accurate.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:56]:
I have to find the time to do this extra detailed work that involve numbers. And I also had this general sense of negativity about finances and taxes in general. And over time, and with the help of a very funny and capable accountant, Shout out to Jonathan here. I was able to transform that whole experience to one where it's much more simplified. It's much more a feeling of, oh, you know what? Every year, I'm gonna need the same kinds of documents and numbers, so let's make this into a routine. So I've made a simplified, more routine, more elegant way of approaching the whole tax affair. And then I've also learned while being a business owner too, that doing my finances and my taxes in a relatively organized systematic way is going to help my financial situation. So why wouldn't I do this with a positive attitude? And by the way, anytime you do things with a positive attitude, that's gonna feed into a positive result somehow for you.

Dr. Christine Li [00:19:14]:
And I've also learned the lesson that I can be more organized with paperwork and also my finances, and those are great lessons. And by the way, I've asked for more significant help from that accountant, which has also helped me all around. I used to suffer for a couple days straight just trying to assemble everything, and I decided to hire more help from his office so that I could reclaim my time and decrease a lot of this stress. And that's an option. That's a simple, elegant, efficient way for me to use my time and for me to conserve my energy and really reduce my resistance to tax time every year. I wish you the best if you are currently negotiating and navigating your taxes and you're almost there. Alright. So I think the large lesson here is that your attitude can make a huge difference.

Dr. Christine Li [00:20:12]:
Your ability to reduce your feeling of resistance and that attitude that you have to fight everything can really make a dramatic change in your life. It can make you have a lighter sense of being. It could create a lot of spaciousness in your mind. It can allow for more good energy to come into your life and your work and your home. And I'm gonna argue why wouldn't you try this, because it will save you a lot of energy in the end as well. This is where you're gonna find that energy that you might feel has been missing. And I hope everyone who is listening, I hope that you have benefited in some way from these tips, questions, messages, and stories from my life. I appreciate your investing your time and energy to listen to my stories and my tips and my tricks and what I wanna share with you.

Dr. Christine Li [00:21:08]:
I do it from my heart, and I really hope that it takes root. It helps you to heal whatever wounds that need to be healed and listened to. And I wish you all the best for this coming week. I will see you next Thursday when the next amazing episode drops. Thanks so much for listening to the Make Time for Success podcast. Goodbye.

Dr. Christine Li [00:21:33]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website, maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com, for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a d.m. and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success.

Dr. Christine Li [00:22:13]:
Talk to you soon.