Resistance Isn’t Laziness

I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the past couple of months. I’ve been getting on my own nerves with it. I’m putting stuff off around setting the date, booking the venue and putting my Funky Diva workshop out there again.

It sounds simple when I write it down like that. It always does. And yet there’s something in me that’s holding back, just enough to keep at the bottom of my ‘to-do’ list.

And this has got me wondering - Why do we resist the very things we know could move us forward?

I think we can be very quick to make it mean something about us and get judgy on ourselves, saying stuff like we’re being lazy or we’ve lost our drive and thinking that we just need to get a grip and crack on.

But if I’m honest that doesn’t feel exactly true. Because when I look at the bigger picture, at everything I’ve done, everything I’ve navigated, everything I’ve kept going with over the years… laziness isn’t really the issue.

And I suspect it’s not for you either. What feels more true is conditioning the good old sausage machine quietly doing its thing in the background. Years of messages about how we should behave, what success looks like, how we’re “supposed” to show up.

·Don’t be too much

·Don’t take risks

·Don’t waste money

·Don’t get it wrong.

And over time, without really noticing, we start to mould ourselves around that. So when something comes along that asks us to step outside of it, even slightly, there’s a wobble.

It doesn’t always feel like fear. Sometimes it just feels like hesitation or a bit of procrastination.
A vague sense of feeling in your gut that now isn’t quite the right time.

We can be very good at dressing it up as logic.

“I’ll do it when…”
“I just need to sort this first…”
“Let me get X in place and then I’ll go for it.”

And to be fair, some of those reasons are valid. But sometimes they’re not reasons or excuses, they’re protection. One of the most common ones I hear, especially when it comes to personal style, is: “I’ll invest in my wardrobe when I’ve lost weight.”

On the surface, it makes perfect sense. I used to think it myself many years ago. But when you sit with it for a moment it can open up something deeper.

Because it’s not really about the clothes, it can be about being seen. As you are, right now. It’s about taking up space without the safety net of “I’ll feel better when…”

And if you’ve ever been on that rollercoaster before, losing weight, gaining it back, trying again, feeling like you’ve somehow let yourself down, there can also be a lack of trust there. So our brain does what it does best and delays.

And this is where it gets interesting and brings me back to my question of “why” because we then end up cutting ourselves off from one of the very things that could help us feel better.

As an example - what we wear has a real impact. Not in a superficial “ooh that’s a nice top” way, but in how we actually feel in ourselves. There’s a whole body of research around this, called enclothed cognition and it’s the idea that what we wear influences how we think, how we behave, how we show up.

And when you experience it, you know. For example, think back to a time where you put something on and it made you want to do the happy dance in the mirror. When you wear an outfit that gives you that feeling you stand differently. You hold yourself differently and you even make slightly different decisions. People treat you differently because you have an air of confidence about you…

So when we say “I’ll wait”… we keep ourselves in that loop. Not feeling great, so not investing.
Not investing, so not feeling great. Round and round we go.

I can see a version of this playing out for me in a completely different way at the moment too.

Movement.

I know I need to move more. Not in a “ bootcamp starts Monday” way, but just more than I have been doing in the past year or so in a way that supports where I am now. I’m moving better than I have in a long time. There’s more ease and possibility to do more but I know I’m holding back.

And when I’ve really sat with that, it wasn’t about not wanting to do it. It’s about what my body remembers. There was a time a couple of years ago when I was doing weekly yoga and Pilates lessons. Which, on paper, sounds like exactly the kind of thing I should be doing. Except my experience of it was very different. I needed three days to recover between classes.
I’d go to yoga Monday morning, recover by Thursday and go to Pilates that evening and everything would flare up again. I was in more pain, not less, it made me miserable.

So now, even though logically I know movement is good for me, there’s a part of me that’s quietly saying, “Let’s not rush into that again.”

And that, I think, is what resistance often is. Not a lack of discipline or a character flaw. Just a nervous system that’s trying to keep you safe based on what’s happened before. The problem is, if we’re not aware of it, we let those past experiences start making our future decisions for us.

So we stay where we are keeping things manageable and predictable, not rocking the boat too much. Which, funnily enough, is exactly how the Sausage Machine of Conformity likes it.

Coming back to the Funky Diva workshop, because this is the bit I’ve had to be honest with myself about. It’s not the workshop I’m doubting. I know what happens in that room. I’ve seen it, felt it and heard people talk about the impact even months later - That moment where something shifts. Where you can almost see someone realise they don’t have to keep squeezing themselves into a version of life that doesn’t quite fit. That’s the Funky Diva energy, the 3 steps of ’unsausaging’1. Spot it 2. Split from it. And then 3. sizzle a bit.

What I’ve been resisting isn’t that. It’s everything else around it. The marketing, the selling, the noise of the online business world that, if I’m honest, I’m done with. That sense of everyone shouting into the same space, all at once, hoping to be heard.

When I strip it back, it’s not a confidence issue, it’s more an alignment one. So instead of forcing myself through it in the way I think I should…I’m getting a bit more curious.

What if it doesn’t have to look like that? What if I’m not resisting the workshop… just the way I’m trying to bring it to life? And maybe that’s the question for you to ponder as well.

If there’s something you’re resisting right now, instead of jumping straight to “I just need to get on with it” Just pause for a moment. Is this actually a reason or a very well-dressed excuse?
Is this about now or is it something from before? Am I keeping myself small because it feels safer there? You might just be trying to force yourself into a version of doing things that doesn’t quite fit anymore.