Break your limiter

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What is the problem with resistance, with friction?

Most of the resistance that can be encountered is self-imposed. Sometimes you say to yourself "I don't deserve it", "I can't do it", "It's impossible". These are words that can literally undermine morale and make what you do lose all meaning. The fear of failure can be linked to the fear of being rejected if you fail. Since humans are social beings, their exclusion meant death on an evolutionary scale. This is also a reason why there are cognitive biases. These functionings and thought patterns were useful for survival but are now deleterious or even hindering in the current social context. There are many advertising strategies that still use these cognitive biases.

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It's only by continually trying that you'll eventually succeed. In other words: the more it fails, the more likely it will work - Shadock motto

As nonsensical as it may sound, statistically it is obvious that the more you try something, the more likely you are to succeed. This assumes of course that the conditions are not exactly the same, because

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Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results - Albert Einstein

This is why it is important to have feedback on what you are doing with the possibility of correcting it. This presupposes that you have an objective that is Specific, Measurable, Ambitious, Realistic and Time-bound. These aspects can be developed in more detail later.

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Resistance is your sign to dive in. What most people fear is what makes few people great - Dan Koe

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A sign of resistance is a sign that what you are committing to is important. Why would you hesitate if the choice has no impact? This is one of the reasons for anxiety, which is actually there to protect you from a bad decision, which could be fatal in the context of survival, and makes you weigh up the pros and cons of that decision and sometimes paralyse you. Being aware of this is a first step.

However, it is necessary to be able to overcome this resistance.

What is the impact of this problem?

This resistance can lead to several problems. Often there is a conflict between the will to move forward and the will to protect oneself, which blocks action. It prevents you from doing what is important to you and from satisfying your values, if you define values as what is important to you, such as freedom, security, family, etc., and from feeling aligned with yourselves, i.e. that your needs, apart from primary needs such as food, shelter or physical integrity, are satisfied.

In addition to preventing you from acting, this resistance can even block the perception of opportunities that are offered to you when they are sometimes offered on a plate. It is often said that "you can see no more than you bargain for", and the same is true for what is negative. It is then possible to have the impression of perceiving mainly opportunities to fail rather than those to share and learn.

This can leave behind a feeling of dissatisfaction, of having missed out and of frustration. One then only lives in fear.

What's in it for me to solve this problem?

Solving this problem allows you to do what you want when you want, within reason of course. Doing what you want allows you to test, discover and access what is important to you in order to feel aligned, in tune with yourself. How many people decide at the age of forty to retrain to finally do what they really want?

Pursuing what is dear to us is also a way to strengthen your conviction, to gain inertia and to stay in a positive momentum of pursuing your goals. It allows you to become somehow stronger and stronger in exploring and discovering a path to what is really important to you.

Feeling good then seems almost inevitable and mostly dependent on your actions rather than on the outside. It is possible to find meaning in what you do.

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It's too complicated, if it were possible more people would do it.

How many times have you said this to yourself? How many times have you asked yourself these questions?

How do I know if it can work?, You have to be realistic! Who am I to deserve it? The environment plays a huge role

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These are all things that can prevent us from really pursuing what is important to you by blocking you completely whether it be your observation, in your actions or even your desire to continue.To this you can look at people who have already done something similar to what you want. What are the examples of people who have succeeded where I want to go? Isn't that proof that it is possible?

What are the times when I thought I couldn't do it and yet I succeeded? Is this not proof that I myself can succeed in what I am doing? That I am capable of learning, of evolving?

How do you know it will work? How many tries will it take?

You never know exactly in advance what will work or not and how long it will take. That's why it's important to test and adjust according to the feedback you get.Sometimes it takes unrealistic goals to really move yourself and make things happen. These ambitious objectives should be broken down into the smallest possible steps in order to move forward and, above all, to feel the progress.

It is true that the environment plays an important role, the means and social norms condition us. This is also why striving to change your environment, which is conducive to your goals, is essential for your evolution and progress.

I practice cardtricks as a hobby. About two years ago, I stood in a park playing with my cards waiting for someone to ask me to do a card trick. There weren't many people asking me to do one and I wasn't very confident yet, so much so that I didn't really take the initiative to ask people and share what I could do. In other words, a very passive way of sharing, to avoid getting flunked.

Some time later I see two people with playing cards "chatting" with two others on a bench. After a while I am sure they are magicians, by the way they talk, move and control the cards.I waited for them to finish their tricks before going to talk to them. We discussed magic and seeing my level they even gave me tips to reinforce the effects of my tricks! We kept in touch. It's been almost eight months. In addition to exchanging about magic, we train in kickboxing as it is an interest that we also share, which we discovered much later.

A few weeks later, in the same park, still sitting on a bench, I can see people in a circle with someone in the middle. I can see them stretching out their arms and some have their hands "glued" together. This reminds me of something but I'm not quite sure yet.Then I see one of the seated people collapse and is supported by the stranger, who is standing and gently laying him down. No doubt it is a hypnotist who is performing right before my eyes.

Curious, I wait for him to finish. Then I step forward, a little stammering, introducing myself and asking if he is indeed a hypnotist. I share with him my interest in the discipline and we exchange briefly about magic. On the strength of this exchange, we decided to go on a "hypnosis" outing together so that each of us could practice. Which we did several times! It even reinforced my desire to go further into the subject, so much so that I trained to become a hypnotherapist and am now developing my activity.

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***What's next? It's all very well knowing all this...

what am I supposed to do?

There are many different approaches. Here is a non-exhaustive list that I share :

- Acting "as if" reduces apprehension

In this approach, it's all about doing "as if". In a way, it is an acting exercise. When was the last time you acted as if, i.e. played a role, either at work or even in a game, a challenge you set yourself among friends?

Most of the time, play allows us to lower the stakes while exploring the possibilities. Isn't it easier to climb, run, jump, etc., when your goal is to not get hit in a game of tag? Taken separately, each action can seem either uninteresting or complicated because the stakes are in the action itself and not beyond. On top of that, it is still a game so the consequences of not succeeding (getting hit) are not too important.

In a similar way to video games with an open world, it is possible to explore and progress. In itself killing a monster can be interesting but quickly becomes boring if there are no other issues. However, when this action is combined with others and serves a greater purpose, it becomes captivating. The very fact that it is a video game also allows you to explore from the comfort of your couch. Can you imagine how stressful it would be if you were in a real life situation, exactly like the ones in the game?

Would you rather be playing at the console or equipped with a 30kg suit of armour, your sword and a shield fighting to survive in unknown territory with lethal creatures?

Playing therefore allows you to learn while limiting the level of negative stress, i.e. that which paralyses.

Playing is effective. This is often one of the reasons why it is used as a learning method in the wild. You may have seen felines or wolves playing fight when they are young, only to see similar behaviours later on, but this time without the play aspect, with more at stake and intensity.

Not that what is natural is necessarily good but rather that it is generally the most efficient, indeed any waste of energy is punished as resources are not necessarily in abundance. What is too expensive in energy is therefore eliminated by this lack of resource in the same way that a car that consumes too much breaks down due to lack of fuel and a petrol station nearby.

When you want to implement a new behaviour that does not fit your identity at the time, it is possible that these two aspects, behaviour and identity, come into conflict. If you consider yourself shy, how could you give a presentation in front of a thousand people for the first time?

Acting 'as if' takes us out of your identity for the moment of the game, the moment. So it's not us acting but the character you've been chosen to embody. Somehow this removes the pressure of the result since if you fail, it is not us who fail but the character, in addition to that it is the character who does the action that you might be unable to do yourselves.

An exercise you can do is the following: take a given situation where you are having difficulties and imagine a fictional character who would be entirely capable of dealing with the situation. Imagine his or her walk, his or her facial expressions, his or her body language, his or her way of speaking. Imagine their temperament, beliefs, etc. Be as specific as possible. Make it so vivid that you can almost see it in front of you.

Once you have made it as vivid as possible, you can get into the character. The moment of the game, you embody it and act it out, with its behaviour and thoughts. How would this character act, feel in this situation? How do you feel at that moment? Play this game as often as you like and watch the progression in your actions. Outside of the game, observe how you yourself have changed.

You can even test as many different characters as you like. However, it will be interesting to "play" one of them regularly in order to get a feel for it.

It is also possible to use self-hypnosis to facilitate visualisation and immersion in the experience, as a sort of catalyst. The use of different techniques can be developed in a dedicated section.

- Making the minimum steps accessible allows you to find your way around and not be overwhelmed by the mass of tasks to be done.

This approach involves breaking down the objective into sub-steps that are achievable.No human being is capable of walking five kilometres in a single step, yet it is quite common to do so by taking a series of "small steps", whether on a hike, a walk in the city or even during work.In the same way, you have hopefully never eaten an entire meal in one bite or even drunk a litre of water in one gulp, at the risk of choking.

This is because we prefer a quick reward after an action rather than a distant reward. So if the reward, the end of the project for example, is too far away, it can be demotivating. From an evolutionary point of view this would mean that one is over-investing energy in something that is not at all certain to be achieved. This would be a complete waste of energy and therefore a waste of resources.

By breaking it down into small steps, you give the message that what you want to achieve is attainable and you have proof of this for each step you reach.

In addition to this, there is the principle of inertia. When you move in one direction, for example you do different tasks in a project, it is easier to do the next tasks.

Like a snowball rolling down a hill, it takes an effort at first to get it moving and then as it rolls down the hill, it gets bigger and faster. It then becomes difficult to stop.

Knowing this now, it is possible to do the following exercise :

take something, a project, a behaviour that you want to change and break it down into sub-steps.

How do you do that? You might ask.

It is possible to make a retro planning in order to simplify the task as much as possible. Take the result you want to have. For example, to be financially independent, to have written a book, to be more self-confident, etc. Then determine the criteria that indicate that the goal has been achieved. In essence, this is determined by the answer to the question "How do I know I have achieved my goal?Once you have the set of criteria, put them in time. When do you want your final results? Quantify in weeks, months or even years if necessary. Let's take the following example of what you want to achieve in five years' time. One question you might ask yourself is "What do I need to do in one year to get to this point? Once you have done that, repeat it for one year, six months, one month, one

week.In essence this gives you :

Goals in five years => Sub-goal in one year => in six months => in one month => in one week.

This organisation makes it possible to have regular objectives and to correct your aim at each stage you have. For example, you can do weekly and monthly reviews to see how things are going and what changes need to be made. In addition to being able to make the necessary changes, you will be able to see the results and observe your progress, giving you that feeling of progression that you get in open world games.

- Get Support from someone, creat an emulation and find a mentor.

The environment has a lot to do with our behaviour. An environment can make a behaviour more difficult or easier. Everything that makes a behaviour more difficult and everything that makes it easier can be called friction.

The people around you are part of this environment and are capable of creating friction, whether it is through their negative discourse about your plans, often under the guise of doing it for your own good, or through their actions or lack of actions to support you or even sabotage your efforts. This can range from saying "You won't be able to quit smoking" to actually offering a cigarette to someone who wants to quit.

Having at least one person who supports you in your project can have a huge positive impact.It is said that you are the average of the three to five people you come into contact with the most. That's why it's interesting to find people who have a similar project or mindset.

Whenever possible, make sure you are around as many people as possible who have what you want. If you want to take up sport, surround yourself with sporty people, if you want to develop your business, surround yourself with people who have already done so or are in the process of doing so, etc.

It is possible to ask yourself "Where am I going to find people like that?"It is at this stage that one might have some difficulties. It is best to have direct, face-to-face contact with the person in question, although it is possible to have "accountability partners" within forums, groups or social networks. For activities such as writing you can go to dedicated forums to share as it is less common to have places or clubs for this.

Getting in touch with people who are doing what you want to improve implies that you have already started the activity. For example, if you want to meet athletic people, joining a sports club (tennis, volleyball, football, etc.) or joining a gym is advisable as these are the places where you are most likely to meet such people.

Secondly, it is possible to do the activities in question and to form a bond during the meetings at the dedicated place with people with whom there is a good chemistry.Finally, the ideal is to extend this link outside the activity and to do new ones with the people with whom it hooks up the most.

More often than not, this allows you to find someone with a similar mindset and create a form of healthy competition. Not to show who is the best but to show that you are capable of pursuing your desires. Having the proof in front of you and experiencing the fact that someone can pursue their dream then reminds you that you can do it too, that it is possible and close.

If that person can do it, why can't I?

Finding a mentor is a must. This is because it provides a form of solid support from an authority figure in the field you want to do. This has a stronger positive impact. Sometimes family, friends, teachers, who are authority figures because they influence you strongly, can have a negative impact by telling you that you are not going to make it, that you have to be realistic, things that you can already tell yourself that undermine your motivation and make your vision of what is possible narrow.

Finding a mentor can counterbalance all this.

Moreover, a mentor, in addition to supporting you, can not only give you important advice on what has helped you the most, but also inspire you by example. If we stay in touch long enough, we can imbibe their personality and strengths by mimicry. This is one of the ways in which children learn.In the same way as above, to find a mentor, it is necessary to do some research and make contact. It is not always easy to do this and there is one main barrier.

Yourself and your doubts.

Why should he/she answer?

Often you put these people on a pedestal and forget that they are still human. You might be surprised that they respond. And yet…

One way to reach them is to get their contact details and ask directly, explaining why you are there, what you can bring, what you want and what your project is. This can range from a simple interview to perhaps something long-term if there is a good feeling.

- Step back and ask yourself: what am I feeling and why?

Another method is to step back when the emotion rises. Why do I feel this way? Asking yourself this question three, four or even five times, tracing the causes, can be a great help in detecting the reasons for this emotion and working on the origins.

For example, someone cuts me off, I feel angry or sad.

What is it that makes me feel this way? I don't feel listened to. What's the problem with not being listened to? I don't feel valued. What's wrong with that? I don't feel safe because the people who devalue me have behaved abusively. Etc.

Another point might be to ask yourself :

Where does the feeling lie? How would I like to feel in the same situation?

This helps to identify the feeling. It is possible to do visualisation and self-hypnosis exercises in order to modify this representation of the sensation and thus to experience the situation differently. Self-hypnosis techniques will be developed in another article, here.

Asking yourself these questions on a regular basis allows you to have some perspective on yourself, your operating mechanisms and to influence them.

- Limiting friction

In physics, friction runs counter to the movement of an object. For example, a skydiver experiences friction in the air during a jump. After a while, despite the fact that he is in free fall and should be accelerating continuously, the friction of the air prevents him from doing so.He wastes some of his energy.

In the same way, certain conditions cause energy to be lost, energy that could be used for the desired action but is lost unnecessarily. As humans are thrifty with energy, they generally choose the path that requires the least.

But how can we limit friction?

A friend of mine wanted to take up weight training. The gym was about a thirty-minute walk from his house. So he had to block a slot of about two hours. He didn't last three months. A few weeks later, he started buying equipment to do sessions at home. He then only had to go to his room to do his one-hour session.

This is just one example. The idea is to make the materials needed to do the activity easily accessible and to reduce distractions so that you can spend your energy on what you really want to do.

In the same way, it is possible to increase the friction for the habits you want to get rid of by making the object of the habit difficult to access.

- Inner child work, shadow work, work on the parts

It will be covered later as it's an extensive subject

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Thanks for reading