Are You Really Doing The Right Thing?

Trusting Our Decisions

Resistance is a very tricky feeling.

On the one hand, listening to it could lead to a life less suitable for you.

But on the other hand, ignoring it, and pushing through it, might just be the very thing you need.

Resistance towards doing work could be a sign that the work is not meant for you.

But it could also mean that the work is so important and meaningful that it causes resistance.

Resistance in relationships could be a sign that this person is not right for you.

But it could also mean you just need to properly communicate and move through your issues.

Resistance towards an activity could be a sign that it’s not the challenging “fun” you’re looking for.

But it could also mean there’s an immense opportunity for growth if you push past that initial resistance.

Ultimately, knowing whether the resistance you feel will be beneficial, or detrimental, comes from honing your intuition over time.

The 3 Stages Of Intuition

What I’ve observed is that intuition goes through a 3 stage process:

Stage 1: Innate Intuition - When you are in your adolescent years, your intuition is fairly strong, because it hasn’t yet been influenced by the beliefs of others. That, along with the fact that you haven’t consumed a lot of outside information yet, means you are consistently doing the “right” thing for you, without having to put too much thought into it.

Stage 2: Reactive Intuition - As you get into your teens/early adult years, the world tells you how you should think, and what you should do. Your painful experiences start to shape you, and warp your reality to avoid that pain as much as possible in the future (even if it’s beneficial for you). Because of this, your “gut instinct” becomes highly biased towards whatever past experiences and current beliefs you currently hold. Sometimes, it’s right, but sometimes, it’s wrong.

Stage 3: Reflexive Intuition - This is the stage that very few get to. You can only reach this stage if you can tap into why you get those immediate reactions to certain activities or people. And you can only do that if you spend a long time reflecting on how these intuitions relate to your past. This stage is quite similar to stage 1 in that it usually creates beneficial outcomes, but the difference is that it’s deliberately created.

If you continue to let your stage 2 intuition guide you through your decisions—especially if you’re someone who has suffered from potentially traumatic experiences or negative beliefs—then it will continue to guide you to a suboptimal life.

Like most self-mastery lessons, the key to getting to stage 3 is to stop and ask, “Why?”

Going back to the work example, let’s say you’re trying to make content creation a lucrative hobby for the first time.

You feel a ton of intuitive resistance to this task. It requires you to take photos/videos, edit, and write captions for all of your posts. And it’s tedious, too.

As you continue doing this for a week or two, you find you aren’t really creating the following/progress you were hoping for.

And so your brain starts to tell you, “This isn’t right. This isn’t for you.”

People stuck in stage 2 would immediately agree. They would say to themselves, “Something within me told me this isn’t right. And I trust it, so it’s time to stop.”

But what if you want to stop because your brain just isn’t wired to endure and enjoy challenges?

What if it’s just trying to protect you from failing, and potentially getting ridiculed/criticized by people on the internet?

After all, if you never try in the first place, or invest a lot of time into something, it can’t hurt you, because you don’t care enough about it yet.

You’d really have to ask yourself “why?” in this moment to determine whether you are avoiding the resistance purely out of fear, or if it really is something you couldn’t find yourself enjoying over the long term.

And then, you’d have to go a bit beyond that intuitive point of resistance to see if it was a temporary problem that required just a little bit of working through, or if it was a permanent issue that needed to be removed from your life.

The former is what I call positive resistance, while the latter is what I call negative resistance.

If you do things that have resistance surrounding them for long enough—and you expand the amount of experiences you have with resistance—you’ll start to notice the subtle differences between positive and negative resistance.

And your intuitive decision to stop the resistance, or work through it, will be the right decision more often.

Eventually, you won’t have to do this as much, especially towards experiences that are similar to ones you’ve already honed your intuition in.

It will come naturally at that point.

But the only way you get to that point, is by first diving into the storm of resistance, and seeing what awaits.

Gaining The Tools To Access Your Inner World

It’s not easy to develop the ability to stop yourself when your intuition is running rampant, and see a more objective view of the situation.

That deliberate deciding to think for one’s self, and hone that intuition to be more correct over time requires the right mindset, in the right environment, with the right people.

These are all things I really wish I would’ve had early on in my self-mastery journey.

And that is why I created my Ultimate Self Mastery Course.

If you want to truly master yourself for good, build a strong intuition, and you want to join a community of like minded individuals all looking to improve, then the Ultimate Self Mastery Course is for you.

The course features 14 videos with 15+ worksheets, a guided meditation, and an exclusive community where we all hold each other accountable and give further advice.

This course is a culmination of years of research on behavioral science, psychology, and of course, trial and error from my own life.

And it’s specifically designed for those who want to go deeper than the superficial YouTube videos/articles, and gain a better understanding of one’s self.

Being able to actually apply the advice you receive, and get consistent feedback from like-minded people are probably the two most important factors in seeing permanent change.

And I’m guessing you currently feel like you can’t talk to anyone in real life about your struggles with self-development, right?

That’s why our community meets in a group coaching call every other week to make sure we are all staying on the path towards self mastery.

It’s also been an incredible way for everyone to open up about things that they have been going through, have accountability surrounding the habits we are trying to build/remove, and get feedback and advice without judgement.

And because of that, the friendships in there feel genuine.

It’s easily the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever created.

Here's some recent wins from our community:

Watch the intro video on that page to see if the course is right for you.

Hope to see you in the community.

Quote of The Week

Thanks for reading, everyone. Hope you enjoy your weekend.

-Cole