Are you Arkansas or Alabama? (On Beating Resistance)
Confession time.
I like following losers on Twitter.
Specifically, the Arkansas football team. Each year the Arkansas Razorbacks are college football cellar dwellers. I find joy watching their official Twitter page spin lukewarm positives from abysmal losing seasons.
Each offseason, Arkansas Twitter buzzes with hope. Recruits are welcomed with splashy graphics. Slick videos show grueling spring workouts and rowdy pep talks on the warrior’s mindset. Coaches give rousing speeches paired with dramatic music that peaks at just the right moment. Inspirational stuff. By August I’m convinced it's Arkansas’s year. Here’s their past three seasons:
Not very good!
Alabama is the opposite of Arkansas. The University of Alabama is the powerhouse of the past decade. Their coach, Nicholas Saban, coaches football how Magnus Carlsen plays chess or Meryl Streep conquers a new role. He’s simply the best. They've won five national championships since 2009 (meaning they finished #1 out of 130 teams). Check out Alabama’s past three seasons:
The funny thing is, the states of Alabama and Arkansas are in the same part of the country. They have access to the same potential recruits. Both schools have fancy facilities and wealthy donors. So, what gives? Why is Arkansas impressively bad, while Alabama carves their place in history?
It comes down to choices. And hands.
Look at your hands, right now. Saban’s orders. On your left hand is something you really want to do, but you know you shouldn’t. Can you keep yourself from doing it? On your right hand is something you really don’t want to do, but you know you need to. Can you make yourself do it?
That’s it. Five titles. 157 wins. Hundreds of games, thousands of practices. All simplified down to Saban’s rule: remember the two hands, and choose your right hand every time. Even when it’s inconvenient. Even when you don’t want to. Hour after day after week after year. Alabama players don’t dream of winning titles. Instead, they aim to win each drill, lift, and play. Win enough little moments and find yourself with a trophy.
Slacking through practice or skipping leg day makes you Arkansas. Thousands of painful, correct choices make you a champion.
Beating Resistance
We can apply the hands test widely: exercising when you feel tired, turning off Netflix when it’s getting late, reading a book while your phone begs for swipes. But one area proves most difficult for me: overcoming Resistance and producing creative output.
What’s this Resistance, with a capital R? It’s an idea from Steven Pressfield’s book The War of Art. Pressfield uses Resistance to label that internal force that discourages creative output:
“It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.”
Every time I start to write, every time I’m about to press send, Resistance arrives. Doubt. Insecurity. Procrastination. “This isn’t good enough, Will. It’s not ready. Just a few more edits”. “Nobody’s going to read this. It’s lame. What if no one likes your Tweet? What if people unsubscribe?”
These worries always appear. Sometimes I win, sometimes Resistance wins. It’s a constant struggle. It’s so much easier not to publish. Just concede to Resistance and stay as you were.
I’ve wanted to create for years. I’ve had ideas for blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels. I would dream about my coming achievements and share grand plans with friends and family. When it came time to produce, I looked at my hands. On the right hand, hard work. On the left hand, comfortable delay. Each time I failed the Saban test and chose to postpone. For years I created nothing.
As I planned my year this past January, I declared my intention for 2020: “Dismantle my ego through action.” I launched Future Glance shortly after. With each new issue I punch Resistance square in the jaw. Each tweet, blog post, and newsletter steps me away from Arkansas, toward Alabama.
Creating something in spite of Resistance is a radical act of self-worth. It’s believing you have something to say, and keeping that belief as your ego hurls excuses and fears. It’s trusting you have a unique flavor others should hear. It’s putting words on the damn page as visions of ridicule boogie through your skull.
I’m not walking this path only for myself. I hope to encourage others to smash their ego and produce creative work. We consume content voraciously, but those who create remain a relative few. Bright minds brim with unshared brilliance. Whether consciously or not, Resistance keeps them quiet.
Our digital world provides endless opportunity to publish. Past bottlenecks of distribution and audience growth melted with Wifi and 4G. Broadcast has been democratized. Hitting send flings your ideas around the planet, 186,000 miles per second. If it’s good, people will find it and read it.
The last bottleneck lies between your ears. In the age of abundance, your ego is your only barrier. Resistance is your final hurdle. I will continue to chronicle my weekly bouts with Resistance. If you feel called to make something, I encourage you to join the fight. Overcoming mental obstacles is simple, but not easy. Look at your hands. You know what to do.
This article is adapted from my weekly newsletter, Future Glance, where I share writing and ideas about how technology is transforming media, education, and governance. Plus, cool stuff I find on Twitter. Click here to subscribe.