Hi lovebug,

Well I have been stubborn as hell lately.

My therapist calls my stubbornness a strength and a weakness. (Our character traits can often be both apparently.)

I can be determined as hell one minute and then have the maniacal resistance of a two year old who doesn’t want to do AN-y-thing the next minute. 

It’s OH so fun to be me sometimes.

As a business owner, you kinda can’t stay in resistance for long, not if you want your business to keep working. 

Someone has to make the plans and write the newsletters and follow-up with the clients and create the instagram posts. 

And that someone is me. 

I have help (THANK GOD) in the form of my assistant, Lauren, and she handles all of the stuff that I’m not great at.

But the other stuff? That’s up to me.

So here are the things I do to get myself out of resistance and into action:

1. I distract my inner child. One reason I get into resistance is when my life has too much work and not enough play. It’s like my inner child and inner teenager lock arms and decide that I will NOT be doing more work that day until I do something fun. So I will sit on my couch (instead of at my desk) and I will put on a movie that I’ve watched a few times before (often something that my inner child would want to watch) and then I start working. With the TV on. Now I don’t have the skill of tuning out background noise, so once I FEEL like I’m playing hookey watching a movie, suddenly I can get started working on the thing I need to do. Eventually I get annoyed because I can’t focus on what I’m doing with the TV chattering away in the background, so I’ll pause it—and voilà! I’m working. Sometimes I go back to watching the movie when I’m done, but usually I’ve moved out of resistance at that point and I don’t even need the movie. Don’t ask me why this works, but it does. 
2. I body double. I got evaluated for ADHD years ago, and the verdict was that my brain was neurotypical, but this adhd productivity hack to stay focused really works for me. Body doubling is basically the modern way to co-work, but with a twist. Both people don’t have to be working on the same thing for it to work. In fact, you could be sitting in the same room with someone, they’re making dinner and you’re working on your novel. Or you’re in a coffee shop and someone who you don't know is working on a corporate presentation and you’re creating a budget. The idea is that having another person there creates an external anchor for you to keep working, it makes your mirror neurons fire, it helps you to focus, and it creates gentle pressure to stick with your task. When I’m really feeling cranky, coffee shops with my favorite drink help me move right past my resistance.
3. I listen to brown noise. Brown noise supercharges my brain. If I have something where I need to concentrate for an extended period of time, brown noise is where it’s at for me. Some people like white noise. Some people listen to the same song over and over again. (I definitely have listened to Passionfruit by Drake at least 834 times because my brain knows that it’s time to work when that song comes on.) Whatever you need to send a cue to your busy mind that it’s time to get down to it, do that. It’s brown noise for me. Sometimes I’ll put brown noise on while I’m body doubling with someone. Hey, you gotta do whatever works.
4. I change locations. I know that when some of my friends started working from home during Covid, they suddenly turned into SUPER workers. They would have a client and then they would unload the dishwasher and then they would transfer the laundry to the dryer and then they go back to their desk and work on a spreadsheet. The lines between work responsibilities and home responsibilities were SO blurred suddenly and they didn’t even realize it. I work from home 90% of the time, so when I’m feeling super resistant I notice that I will start to do house chores to avoid what I really need to do. Making the bed is so much easier and more satisfying than doing tax prep. Putting the clean dishes away takes far less emotional energy than filming an Instagram reel. When I notice myself finding super crafty ways to avoid my work, I change locations. The library. A coffee shop. My sister’s house. I go where my house isn’t so that I can’t conveniently tend to the endless house tasks I need to do every day. And lo and behold, I settle down and focus when I do that.

Those are my top strategies for getting out of resistance. 

To make things super meta, I am body doubling right now as I write this with a friend of mine who lives outside of L.A. (Thanks Alanna!) 

There are tons of energy work tools I use as well. In fact, if you’re super stuck, energy work is an excellent place to start. 

Book an Emotion Code® single session to help you jumpstart your focus. It’s wild how much it helps. 

Until next time love,

Rebecca*