Mount Vernon High School

Fight the Resistance There are many different ways to define the battle that becoming our best requires us to fight. One of my favorite definitions comes from the author Steven Pressfield, who wrote a real game changer of a book for me called The War of Art. In it he describes the negative force that so often stands between who we are and who it is we want to become - who it is we were created to become. He calls this negative force Resistance, with a capital R. “Most of us have two lives,” he writes. “The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” What a pointed and powerful way to describe that tension each of us feels in the important areas of life and performance, and the wrestling many of us experience inside between the big things we dream about doing and the sad reality of what we end up settling for. We recognize that our champion self is out there. We know the kind of person we want to be - the tough, disciplined, committed person our very best requires us to be - and we dream about the winning outcome we say we want. And yet, in our moments of testing, we so often find that we haven’t met the mark. We’ve failed the test we've been given, and in doing so further emboldened that voice inside imploring us to accept that maybe we just don’t have what it takes. Resistance has defeated us again. Pressfield devotes more than 50 pages of his book to simply defining what Resistance is and the many ways it manifests itself in our experience. It’s invisible, internal, and insidious, he says. It’s implacable, impersonal, and infallible. It never sleeps and it plays for keeps. It fuels our fear and strengthens our self-doubt. It's always lurking, waiting for its opportunity to attack. The bottom line: Resistance is really good at what it does, and it's constantly coming for each of us. The good news, Pressfield explains, is that Resistance can be beaten. It must be, in fact, in order for us to do the big, important things we say we want to do - the big, important things we were created to do. The war Pressfield describes is the battle each of us have to win in order to create anything significant in life, including a winning identity or a successful outcome in sports or at work, in important relationships or in positions of leadership. The fight against Resistance is the fight that becoming our best requires us to fight. I’m here today to share with you the harsh reality that Steven Pressfield is challenging people like me and you to accept. That’s simply that creating anything significant in life is really hard. What we want - what you want - comes at a cost, and each of us have to decide whether or not we’ll pay the necessary price. Your very best is out there, Pressfield confirms, and so is the success that comes with it…but it must be fought for. That's an unpopular opinion in the comfort and convenience-driven culture we live in today. It’s easier to convince ourselves that success should come easy, and that we should get everything we want or think we are entitled to. It’s easier to avoid the fight, to give into our fear, and to find someone or something else to blame for our failure. It’s easier to accept that the fight is too big or that we’re to small, and that even trying is pointless. It’s easier to give in to Resistance. I want to challenge and encourage you today, first to recognize the place Resistance has in your pursuit. If you have a desire to create anything significant in life, including a winning identity or a successful outcome, there’s no avoiding it. Accepting that reality is the first place to start. It’s also worth taking a minute to consider how Resistance shows up in your life, and where it’s managed to distract or demoralize you. Understanding the enemy’s game plan allows you to more effectively strategize for success. Then, at that point, there's only one thing left to do, and that's to decide whether you'll step in the arena and fight the battle that becoming your best requires you to fight. This is a war, after all, and a full commitment to the fight is the only way to win it. -Travis