RTWay Wk 11: Actions:Resistance

CLASS NOTES AND RECORDING

How resistance (contrast) shows up in actions

“I cannot know that this is not the next step in my liberation” Barbara Swetina, www.sacredsongs.net

What is resistance or contrast? When you are pushing against the flow. Like the difference between going upstream (resistance) and going downstream (in the flow). Resistance or contrast shows up when we have stepped into the flow, and it becomes an obstacle. It’s when you are interfering with things that are really not your job. See my article re Working up to the Line

Typical ‘bad’ habits and likely forms of resistance from which they come (check these out for yourself, your particular habit may come from a different form of resistance, or more than one)

Habit Form of Resistance

Procrastination Lack of time mgt

Feeling overwhelmed

Not doing what you said you would do

within the agreed time limit

Arriving late for meetings and appointments

Thinking you have to do it all, and therefore

rarely if ever delegating

Regularly working late, to the detriment of

home life

Never or rarely having holidays or breaks

Answering the phone during mealtimes/breaks

Not knowing inc/expenditure Lack of financial systems

Lack of regular book-keeping

Answering emails more than 3 times/day Lack of admin system

Focusing on activity, not looking at the results

as a measure of success

Untidy office Lack of focus

Multi-tasking

Never completing anything

Not asking for help/feedback Lack of focus on big picture

Forgetting someone’s name within or lack of self-worth

minutes of being introduced

Making assumptions about your market Lack of strategic thinking

Ineffectual management of staff

Plugging ahead with action before stopping Lack of trust

to engage with your inner self first

Whatever you are currently doing more of will define your current level of results. So the more regular inspired action you take regarding marketing, the more results you’ll see.

Jack Canfield in The Success Principles says ‘Good or bad, habits always deliver results’.

So the choice is to develop good habits out of a context of acceptance and co-operation, or bad habits out of a context of resistance and struggle, or pushing against the flow. It’s a no-brainer isn’t it!

3 examples of resistance and how to change it

1. Working IN your business not ON it. NOW – you might not be someone who wants to grow your business particularly. And that’s fine. What’s important here is that this is a matter of conscious choice, and not by default because you don’t really know what’s going on.

Running your own business means, according to Michael Gerber, that you are actually 3 people in one (Technician, Manager and Entrepreneur). Identify who you are being in different aspects of your business, and aim to have a balance.

Entrepreneur = the visionary, the creative, the dreamer, where often other people are just problems that get in the way of his dream.

Manager – pragmatic. Creates systems, order, runs after Entrepreneur cleaning up the mess, but without the E. there would be no mess to clean up!

Technician – the doer. ‘if you want it done right, do it yourself’. Likes to be in control of the work flow. (thinking is unproductive unless its thinking about work that needs to be done). Nothing is more important than the TO DO list. Very often s/e people are great technicians. Typical small bus owner is 10% E, 20% M, and 70% T.

“While the E dreams, the M frets, and T ruminates!” Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited.

“Without balance, without all 3 personalities being given the opp, the freedom and the nourishment they need to grow, your business can’t help but mirror its’ own lopsidedness.”

Most businesspeople are so busy working for their business or in their business that they never find time to work ON their business. Thus they fail to anticipate what might happen or what they might be able to make happen. Really important to schedule one day a quarter or better still, one day a month to look at where you are going. You can know where you are going, and be going in the right direction, but it’s important to keep one eye on the ground as well as one eye ahead of you so that you see what you are stepping in!

Enlarging the Heart of your Business visualization.

Different from your jewel, remember your jewel infiltrates everything you do in your life. This is just about your business and expanding it from the inside out. (see visualization and handout in Handbook)

2. Thinking you haven’t enough time

Why is this resistance? Because if you set up a time mgt system, or a structure for your day, but then still have the sense you are not getting everything done, then the system will not be working for you. People resist completing timesheets because they think it will mean they can’t do what they want to do.

Tip: difference between projects and tasks. A project is selling a new product or service. ‘Let’s offer a two day seminar on Time Management’ – get all excited about it, and then comes the tasks. If you only focus at the level of Project, you will easily get overwhelmed with all that has to be done. But if you take the ‘time’ to list the ‘tasks’ that have to be done, then you’ll easily have a sense of progressive achievement as you complete each task bit by bit.

Tip: Deadlines: Help you to focus, and combined with an attitude that you have enough time, then it becomes easier to complete your tasks. Experiment with these, play around with them and watch your thoughts and feelings.

The best way to experience that you don’t have enough time is to tell yourself you don’t have enough time! YOU WILL NEVER GET IT ALL DONE. It just doesn’t happen. Even if you get to the end of your TO DO list, there will be another one tomorrow. So trying to get it all done simply doesn’t work. What does work?

a) knowing how much your time is worth (work out exactly how to calculate it here)

b) committing yourself to prioritising (Read an inspiring article here about how to do it)

Put the figure of what you are worth up somewhere you can see it often, because if you find yourself doing work that someone else could do that means you are paying a lot of money for that work. You’re probably doing a lot of technical work that you could pay somebody else to do—just as well—for less money. If you discover that your hourly rate is less than you would like, then one of those figures in that calculation has to change.

3. Choosing motivated action over inspired action

Quote: Michael Gerber E-Myth Mastery:

“ Action is more than the physical doing of something. It’s first and foremost the mental doing of something…..if I start moving before I start dreaming, which is what I call thinking without a clear, identifiable purpose, I lose (my idea or inspiration) more often than not”

What is an inspired action? Joe Vitale of www.mrfire.com says ‘any action you take that is based on an inside nudge’.

Inspired action moves you towards what you want, not away from what you don’t want. Hence it often feels easy and effortless. Action taken out of yearning, fear, or worry will always feel more of a struggle.

Motivated action is the kind of action that comes with a sense of ‘pushing’. If you feel that is happening, better to stop pushing. Just like Joe Vitale, let it go, and trust that what you said you wanted will indeed come to you – just not perhaps in the way you thought it would.

But how do you tell the difference between just ‘doing nothing’ and ‘being inspired’? Many people think that the LOA means saying what you want, focusing on it in various ways, repeating mantras or affirmations over and over, and then sitting back with your arms folded while you watch everything you want coming to you. The problem with this is that the nudges you are being given from within are not being noticed, and therefore not being acted upon. And it is these inspirations that are crucial in success. So STOP. BE STILL. LISTEN. AND ONLY THEN ACT. This doesn’t mean that you don’t answer emails when you don’t feel like it. It means that you free yourself from the negative feelings associated with answering emails by stopping. You let yourself be still for a moment. You listen. Then you may find that inner nudge. And so then you act.

How to find yourself feeling inspired to act. Here’s a good article:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/12/how-to-take-action-consistently/

Inspired Actions this week

1. Calculate your hourly rate, pin it up and see how it works for you

2. Stop. Be still. Listen. Act when you feel inspired to act. Commit to doing inspired action tomorrow and see what happens.

3. Take the baby step that you saw from your enlarged heart to bring you nearer your goal