How to Deal With Marketing Resistance2 min read
What’s something you want in your business right now?
It could be a number of things: You want to make more money, you want to attract more clients, you want to improve your website, you want to get your LinkedIn marketing on track, you want to give more talks, or you want less spam in your inbox.
Of course, all of these are fine things to want in your business.
But did you ever notice than whenever you want something, that some force, either outside or inside seems to oppose you getting it?
To get more money takes a certain amount of work. To get more clients takes a certain amount of communication. To get less spam takes an act of congress.
And what I’ve noticed in my clients is that when they want something, certain kinds of internal resistance arise to oppose getting what they want.
It could be overwhelm, fear, doubt, or confusion.
And what seemed like a simple want suddenly becomes very complex and difficult. They can’t get started, they make up excuses for not taking action, they blame the government.
So, many of them conclude that if they could just get rid of that overwhelm, fear, doubt, confusion, etc, then it would be clear sailing to getting what they want.
But they have no idea how to get past those powerful feelings.
When I have conversations with clients about this, I always ask them what’s behind those feeling that seem to be opposing getting what they want.
And almost nobody can see it. It’s as if it’s shielded in a cloak of invisibility.
So let’s look at the dynamic and make it very simple.
You want something and yet you are resisting it. But what we fail to notice is that at the same time we are not wanting the situation we currently have.
We want more clients, but we are hating not having enough clients. We want less spam but we are not accepting the spam we currently have.
We want to be more productive, but we are judging our current level of productivity as not good enough.
In other words, we think things should be a certain way and shouldn’t be the way they currently are.
And as soon as that happens (and it happens in an instant without us noticing it), we automatically manufacture some kind of resistance.
So I’m saying something paradoxical.
In order to get what we want, we first need to accept things exactly the way they are.
Try it out the next time you’re resisting getting what you want and see what happens.
Cheers, Robert