The Relentlessness of Resistance and How to Beat It for Good

Epiphany Space is focusing this month to going after that most insidious, relentless enemy of creativity, the inner critic. The inner voice that’s not you, it’s an echo of your past, of all the words spoken over you that you’re work isn’t good enough, original enough, whatever enough. And the assault is not against your work. It’s against you, against me, the walking, talking, breathing imago Dei who was born to create.

I’m writing this article to myself, so I’m inviting you into a slice of my creative story, one that in some seasons feels like a victory lap and others like being moored in creative quicksand. Times when brilliance flows from my mind to my fingers to the screen, and times when, well, the incredibly horrible first draft shows up on the page, work so bad that it screams at you to walk away from the keyboard and never come back. Or worse—thankfully, this one’s rare—I sit for hours, and nothing gets on the page at all.

The Sneakiest Manifestation of the Inner Critic

I have a compelling vision for my art, which is writing novels. It’s not the be-all-end-all of my life, but it is a mission from God, and it’s permanently pinned to the top of my vocational works list. Everything else needs to fit around it. 

Every morning I wake up, grab a cup of coffee, and spend 30-60 minutes reviewing my carefully curated news feed for updates on events I consider important. When I decide my mind is alert enough to begin my day, I spend time in prayer with my wife and get going. 

And then, the sneaky manifestation comes...the tension between wanting to get in the chair and write like a champion and the rapid arrival of “reasons” why not to do the things I tell myself I want to do. The phenomenon so universal among creatives, given names like block, silent muse, dry spell. 

Get real, Ricci. It’s PROCRASTINATION. Putting off to later what I know in my heart I want to do now. 

Some days, I justify putting off writing because of my untended pile of “lesser” duties and urgent matters, like bookkeeping, quarterly estimated tax payments, email content for our ministry, and the need to give daily attention to my precious tomato garden. Other times it’s the realization that I’ve neglected to make a real plan for my day. The worst one? It’s straight-up “I don’t want to” or “I don’t feel like doing it.” I’m tired, beat down by all the must-dos of life, and just want to veg out.

Am I the only one? 

My struggle is not with perfectionism. One of my core values is excellence, which I define as doing my personal best at whatever I do. Writing was the first skill upon which my value for excellence was built, going back to my early years in advertising. When I had the privilege of a two-year stint at Chiat/Day, where founder Jay Chiat’s motto was “good enough is not enough,” it became an unshakeable foundation and permeated everything else that I do.

If I have a high value for excellence and don’t battle perfectionism, then why do I procrastinate? 

The Fear that Fuels Procrastination

People who’ve devoted their lives to understanding human behavior like to start with the brain, and there is physiology involved. Adversity triggers a conflict between two competing brain systems: the limbic—emotionally-driven, threat-detecting, comfort-seeking, and the prefrontal cortex, center of long-term planning and commitment to goals. Limbic moves much faster, and it’s the doorway to the thoughts that lead to procrastination.

But our brain isn’t fully autonomous. Our soul—mind, will, emotions—is its governor. Our will is in charge. What opens the door to giving in to our limbic impulses—allowing them to influence our choices—is another fear, related to perfectionism, that fuels creative procrastination: what your creative work represents. And who.

If you’re making art to put into the world, that work will be judged. Criticized. You sign up for it.

What we create is intensely personal. It represents us. Just like God’s creation declares who He is. And the world is brutal about lumping together its criticism of creative work with the person who created it. If the art is quality, so is the person, and vice versa. Procrastination thus becomes an exchange of shame—enduring the lesser shame of delay in order to avoid the more dreadful shame of producing something others say is no good.

If a person derives their core identity from what they do, the brutality of external criticism becomes deeply traumatic. It turns into self-talk that sounds something like, “Everyone who matters says my work sucks...why do I bother? I have no value.”

What to do? 

What Needs to Happen

What helps me is to change the way I respond to the limbic impulses to procrastinate by reframing what I’m responding to. I titled this article The Relentlessness of Resistance and How to Beat it for Good. Procrastination is a response to opposition, resistance—something that I need to overcome in order to do the thing I want to do, which is write and write prolifically.

Opposition and resistance describe something that is necessary for people to grow and mature into the person who God imagines them to be. Adversity.

I believe God designed adversity into our lives as the primary engine of growth. Overcoming adversity activates the best parts of us. It benefits us. Look around creation. Look at yourself. Grapevines that struggle for water produce the best wines. Muscles grow through resistance training. Competition brings out the best in athletes and businesses. 

Adversity is good, but its value has been grossly distorted. People will avoid any form of adversity as long as possible, until it costs more than facing up to it. Advertising has conditioned the world to think this way. What’s your pain? Have we got the solution for you! Until the next pain shows up...

What I’ve come to realize is that unless I choose to view opposition, resistance, and adversity as something good, procrastination will win.

Psychologists and creatives have identified two types of procrastination—passive and active. Passive procrastination is the crippling kind, filled with indecision, anxiety, and loss of self-control that compounds and makes things worse. Active procrastination is strategic—you delay completion because you know you work better under pressure, yet they consistently meet deadlines. There’s also a version that looks like procrastination but is actually a valuable part of the creative process—incubation, allowing ideas or partially completed work to rest, giving you opportunity to reimagine and refine before resuming the work.

How I’m Learning to Beat Resistance for Good

I use active procrastination from time to time, giving my work a rest and coming back to it a few days later. One of two things happens—I find it’s better than I thought, or I see more clearly how to make it better than I could while in the middle of writing.

But passive procrastination is still a challenge, and that’s where I’m working on seeing the opposition within or outside as a necessary part of my creative journey. Ironically, one of the characters in my current work in progress is an entrepreneur who became successful by practicing what he calls continuous formative adversity—building adversity into his own life and in his company in order to become the best they can be.

Interesting how a character born from your own imagination ends up teaching you something you need.

So, the way to beat resistance—procrastination—for good? First, accept and embrace that resistance is good. Second, practice metanoia—changing your thinking about resistance each day. Third, start practicing saying no to putting your work off and doing it. Give yourself grace at first. Experience small wins. Build momentum. Eventually, it will become a value. 

Beating resistance for good happens by embracing it as an ally instead of fighting it as an opponent. Forging it into a partner, like a blacksmith forges hot iron into useful tools. Beating it for good—my good.



I welcome your feedback, and I invite you to ask me how I’m doing in my own journey to embrace adversity.