INsight/ Three Resistance Hurdles

Photo adapted from Interactive Sports on Unsplash.

Manila, 3 June 2020 — Which hurdle stops you from running your bigger race?

When we’re feeling low in energy and motivation, it can be hard to see ourselves completing our goal for the day or week, let alone that bigger change we want to influence in our workplace and life. It just seems… out of reach for now. 

A Story of Resistance

In our time of coping with Covid-19 and feeling our way to a new normal, many of us are experiencing low moments more frequently than before. They bring feelings of resistance, and that can hold us back from taking on the bigger challenges we care about. 

Let’s reframe that and see ourselves as an athlete sitting in the locker room. We have qualified to join an exceptional race yet our running clothes and shoes are still in the bag. Enter our coach.

She explains that the extraordinary race that’s about to start is a hurdles event, and we will have to jump over three hurdles in order to complete the race and reach the finishing line. 

The jumps are tough yet doable with the right mindset, says our coach. Athletes with a weakened mindset may be overcome by their feelings of resistance and won’t make it to the start, let alone the finish line.

The first hurdle, she explains, is called Fear. The second is called Friends, and the third Failure. She then briefly explains each of these hurdles of resistance.

The Fear Hurdle

This is the one that stops many athletes, says the coach, explaining that the voice you hear in your head might sound like: I’m not really good enough. I haven’t trained as much as I should have. And besides, the weather is too hot today. So why not leave the gear in the bag and just come back when the conditions are right?

The Friends Hurdle

The coach moves on to talk about the second hurdle. The voices you hear in your head are different this time, she says. They can be the voices of people you care about: friends, and sometimes family too, who haven’t kept up with you as your dreams got bigger. If you’re worried about what they might think of you now, that can set you up for another show stopper. 

The Failure Hurdle

On to the third now, says the coach. This time, the voices in your head might be about winning or losing and what that means for your running career going forward. Can I keep advancing and make a difference? With injury and failure always a possibility, is it worth taking the risk? Won’t playing it safe with a smaller challenge be a better option for me? 

After finishing her run-through, the coach explains that successful athletes choose to embrace a mindset to see themselves stretching and jumping over the hurdles without thinking too much about them.

It’s time to unpack the bag, she says, and change into your running gear to start the warm-ups. 

So far the story.

Overcoming Resistance

In my coaching experience, leaders (influencers) face the challenge of overcoming hurdles almost every week, and sometimes daily.

Facing and overcoming resistance is something we expect to be part of the deal. If we don’t feel some resistance with the challenge, it could be that the race we have entered that day is not ‘the bigger race’ we are supposed to run.

As we accept to deal with resistance in its different forms, taking perspectives helps.

The Fear Hurdle points to our Personal World where leadership is an inside job and where fears can build a graveyard of unrealized dreams.

The Friends Hurdle is about our Social World where leadership is a contact sport and where a lack of collaborators and supporters spells doom. 

The Failure Hurdle is in our Observed World where leadership is a bigger game to play and where risk avoidance stops learning and leads to mediocrity. 

Resistance hurdles are to be expected. What matters is how we deal with them.

Taking on the Challenge

In Grow3Leaders, our international community of leaders, we explore this month how effective leadership behaviors allow us to grow and multiply positive changes in our workplace.

Each time we step up to that leadership challenge, the Three Resistance Hurdles can stop the show. We need to make sure we know and respect the hurdles for what they are, and then overcome them like the single-minded athlete who decided to put on the gear and step on to the track to run the race.

We are a private community of leaders from countries around the world, and from different generations, who are committed to learning and practicing effective leadership behaviors ‘out loud’ and together to create positive change in our workplaces, especially during these difficult times of dealing with Covid-19.

Joining us is free of charge—not free of commitment. Send us a request if you feel that you are up to our Grow3Leaders challenge and are ready to join together with three of your colleagues in your workplace.