“I have a dream.”
We’re all familiar with that famous quote from Martin Luther King, one of the greatest dreamers in living memory.
But we’re also familiar with the feeling.
Having a dream, wanting something bigger than we have now, being something more or better than we are now. Becoming a better version of ourselves through experience, learning, or acquisition of our desires and goals.
We all have dreams, and sometimes we even achieve them.
But sometimes we don’t. And why is that?
It starts with a vague feeling. “Oh, I’ll get to it tomorrow.”
Or ... “Maybe I’ve bitten off more than I can chew.”
Or ... “It was a stupid idea in the first place.”
That, my friends, is what author Stephen Pressfield calls “resistance.”
It’s that niggling little inner voice telling us that we aren’t equal to the task, and it has a name.
It’s called “imposter syndrome.”
Imposter syndrome is the lifelong accumulation of all the times we’ve tried to do something and failed. It’s all the voices in our heads, the echoes of well-meaning teachers, parents and friends who told us, supposedly for our own good, that maybe we should lower our sights and try something a little less challenging.
They tell us, “Go for the job that will pay better instead of the one that will fill your soul with joy and fulfilment. Be a secretary instead of a CEO. Settle for the bird in the hand, instead of taking an outrageous chance on taming the eagle winging its way across an azure sky.” But if we ignore them … if we do ignore our inner Imposter … if we do try for the big prize — the one that’s way out of reach and way, WAY out of our comfort zone … that voice only gets louder and more insistent.
And, according to Pressfield, this is a good thing.
Because it’s a promise.
It’s life, the infinite source, the universe, God, or the law of attraction, whispering something important.
And that whisper is saying, “This is right. It’s right for you.”
It’s easy to miss that whisper. Easy to ignore it. Because the other voices are so loud and raucous. And the more loud and raucous they become, the more wrong they are, because our resistance comes from fear.
Resistance is the fear of change. If we are successful in our endeavour, it means things will be different and we can’t be the same old, same old, that we were before. And change is scary by definition. It’s the unknown. Better the devil you know, right?
So the closer we get to our goal, the more resistance we feel.
And the most resistance of all happens right before the big breakthrough that changes everything. It’s always darkest before the dawn.
When we’re really close to the end game and our Resistance is becoming unbearable, that’s when we know we have to stay the course — that we have a winning concept. The more Resistance we feel, the more we can be sure that the idea has legs — that it’s worth pushing through to reach the goal. How many amazing inventions, projects, concepts and ideas have been lost to mankind because their creators quit right before the final hurdle?
Let’s not be one of those quitters. Let us recognize our reluctance, our resistance for what it is — a whisper from the universe telling us we’re nearly there. We’re sooooo close … the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter every second, and if we can just hang on a little longer, just a few more exhausted, ragged, broken steps will get us into the light.
Where we can start all over again on the next endeavour.
Resistance.
It’s the clue that we’re on the right track. It’s the hint that maybe we’re onto something exceptional. We must learn to notice when it’s trying to derail our aspirations, through distraction, procrastination, avoidance, fear, and settling.
In every good story, there’s conflict and opposition that the hero must overcome. If we’re the protagonist of our own life’s story, then we must learn to use Resistance as a signpost, not a roadblock.
Because resistance will always be there and imposter syndrome will always try to lower our expectations.
So let’s recognize its value, overcome its insidious demands and be heroes.
Bev Hanna is a writer and published author. A recovering portrait artist, she now teaches senior writers how to craft compelling stories and memoirs through workshops and online courses. Learn more at ScribblersGuild.com.