Why you can’t just “do the thing” and what to do instead
Have you ever had one of those stretches where every single morning you wake up thinking, “Today I’ll actually do it” — and then somehow, mysteriously, you… don’t?
You know the feeling. The day slips by like water through your fingers. Before you know it, it’s 11 PM, you’re staring at the ceiling, and that sinking sensation settles in your stomach. The same horrible certainty that tomorrow will be exactly the same.
When I was writing my PhD, I didn’t just have bad days or bad weeks. I had bad months. Month after month of this soul-crushing cycle where I’d make promises to myself that I couldn’t keep, for reasons I couldn’t understand.
Here’s the thing: It doesn’t have to be a PhD. This “why-can’t-I-just-do-it” circle of hell can happen anytime you’re trying to tackle something big, something that matters to you, something that’s pushing you into new territory.
And once that cycle really gets its claws in? You’ll find yourself drowning in self-loathing so corrosive, so utterly debilitating, that I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
The Story We Tell Ourselves (And Why It’s Wrong)
Who hasn’t felt this way? You’re violating promises to yourself daily about something that’s genuinely important to you. You don’t know why you’re doing it, you can’t seem to stop, and there’s no one else to blame because you’re doing it all to yourself for some mysterious reason you can’t even grasp.
Our culture has a ready answer for this torture: You’re the problem.
You’re lazy. You’re undisciplined. You’re irresponsible. You’ve become addicted to your phone, you’re a chronic procrastinator, you’re not meditating enough — blah, blah, blah. In the coaching world, they’ll tell you it’s your “lizard brain” holding you back from evolving into your best self.
Basically, whatever’s keeping you from doing the thing is something fundamentally wrong with you that needs to be controlled, eliminated, or beaten into submission.
I’m here to tell you something different.
After 15 years of helping people break through these blocks — not to mention a lifetime of wrestling with them myself — I’ve become absolutely certain of two things:
- That way of thinking about the problem isn’t accurate
- It’s definitely not useful
The Truth About What’s Really Happening
You are not lazy. You are not undisciplined. You are not suffering from some mysterious case of “Just-Can’t-Do-It-itis.”
You are experiencing internal resistance.
And here’s what you need to understand: Internal resistance isn’t a character flaw. It’s not some all-powerful force conspiring against you. It’s actually a natural part of human creativity and growth — and it can be managed.
But first, we have to stop treating it like the enemy and start recognizing it for what it actually is.
What Internal Resistance Really Is
You’ve probably heard of Steven Pressfield’s book The War of Art, where he talks about “the Resistance” — this mysterious, hostile force that keeps us from using our talents. In his world, you spend each day locked in an eternal battle against this dark enemy.
Pressfield’s approach has helped a lot of people (including me), but I think he’s only half right. Yes, resistance is part of using your talents, and yes, you have to face it daily. But it’s not some grim, otherworldly force that exists to make your life miserable.
Internal resistance isn’t the Dark Side of the Force. It’s part of you, growing from the exact same soil as every talent, skill, and goal you have: your brain, your personal history, your family, your culture.
Because that soil is unique to each of us, everyone’s internal resistance has its own particular flavors and effects. But what every experience of internal resistance shares is this: a prediction and fear of pain.
Internal resistance is your brain’s attempt to protect you from the pain it associates with successfully doing the thing.
The specific pain you’re trying to avoid is as individual as you are, but in my experience, it’s usually tied to some predicted loss of love and connection — whether that’s love from others or love for yourself.
Which makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? What else would be universally terrifying enough that you’d block your own talents and dreams to avoid it?
Why “Just Push Through It” Doesn’t Work
Now do you see why approaching resistance through ideas of laziness or lack of discipline is so completely unhelpful?
Internal resistance isn’t lazy — it’s energetic as hell! It takes enormous effort to push back against your desire to move toward your goal, day after day after day.
And when you try to use discipline to bulldoze your way to the finish line, you wind up creating another version of the same problem. The more likely it looks like you’re going to succeed, the greater your brain’s fear becomes — and the stronger the resistance gets.
You’re already locked in a mental tug of war. Trying to apply more discipline just means both sides pull harder.
So what can you do instead?
A Different Approach: Working With Your Resistance
1. Recognize that internal resistance is actually on your side
Part of what makes the cycle-of-not-doing-the-thing so awful is that it feels completely self-destructive. But here’s the truth: Internal resistance doesn’t want to destroy you. It literally wants the opposite! It only exists to protect you from pain.
You’re not being self-destructive. You just have two deeply rooted and fundamentally contradictory beliefs about what’s best for you: doing the thing, and not doing the thing.
2.Explore the reasons behind the discomfort your brain is experiencing
When you understand exactly what pain you fear and why, you can start addressing those fears. This is why treating resistance as some mysterious external force is such a mistake.
Internal resistance isn’t immovable — it responds to reason, to alternative scenarios, to making space for the emotions that feel so threatening. But to shift it, you have to understand its particular content for you.
3. Learn to negotiate
You might not figure out what’s motivating your resistance immediately. Even when you do, it can take time to address your fears about what lies ahead.
In the meantime? Start haggling.
Will your internal resistance let you work for 10 minutes? What about five? If you can’t work formally on the project, could you talk ideas into your phone? How about brainstorming in the bathtub?
You’ll be surprised how much mental space opens up when you shift from “I need to apply willpower so I stop being bad and lazy” to “I’m experiencing internal resistance — let me get creative about working with it today.”
4. Remember you’re not alone in this
Even though resistance isn’t some superhuman force, I think Pressfield was right about one thing: it affects most of us. Yes, there are rare people who seem to just produce and produce without much internal struggle. But I’m willing to bet that you look like that kind of person to someone in your life too.
The Hidden Wisdom in Your Resistance
Here’s something else to consider: Your internal resistance actually holds valuable information about what you secretly believe you might be capable of achieving.
Think about it. Your brain wouldn’t be so terrified of the costs of you doing the thing if it thought you were going to create something forgettable and inconsequential.
The force of your internal resistance is also a measure of how much you actually want to do the work, no matter how many days you can’t quite get there. The only reason the tug of war isn’t over — the only reason every day feels so emotionally charged — is because you’re still pulling toward your goal. You’ve still got your heels dug in.
Moving Forward: From Tug of War to Partnership
Right now, it’s exhausting and heartbreaking because it feels like whichever side wins, part of you loses. But that’s exactly why we work to understand internal resistance instead of fighting it.
When you do the work to truly understand your resistance, you can stop the tug of war altogether. Instead of battling mysterious forces, you start dealing with the specific emotional landmines that part of you is convinced lie ahead.
Sometimes those fears turn out to be imaginary. Sometimes the pain is very real. But either way, they become just one part of the experience of doing the thing you want to do — rather than an impenetrable barrier that keeps you from doing it in the first place.
The key is this: You don’t have to choose between doing the thing and protecting yourself. You can do both. But first, you have to understand what your brain thinks it’s protecting you from.
What would change for you if you stopped seeing yourself as lazy or broken, and started seeing yourself as someone whose creative mind is simply trying to keep you safe? What would become possible then?
