Issue #52: Growth, Resistance, and the Power of Self-Acknowledgment

Like you’re banging your head against a wall, not getting anywhere.

Going backwards, even.

Meeting resistance after resistance, test after test - the exact tests you don’t want to face.

Maybe you’ve experienced this:

How often have you done some work on yourself, stopped into challenging growth, expanded your awareness and capability in something difficult, made a tough decision you might normally avoid, had an uncomfortable conversation, set a new boundary where there previously wasn’t one, and all of a sudden the exact thing you have been working to grow past presents itself?

It’s like, “Ugh, fuck, I thought I was past this!”

Of course, for those uninitiated, that’s exactly how it has to happen; we are always presented with the exact tests and challenges we don’t want. Exactly when we don’t want them.

These tests invite us to engage with them differently. They test the work.

Said differently: they invite us to use our growth to navigate them in a new way - an expanded way, one that can only happen because of the growth we’ve been in and through.

“The problem is the same, but I’m not.”

The question you’re being asked in these moments is essentially, ‘Can you embody the change when it is needed and tested?

All change requires confrontation. First, we must confront ourselves. We meet ourselves at our edges, where resistance lies, where discomfort, fear and insecurity get LOUD.

Are we willing to take a step, a new courageous action, despite feeling uncertain and possibly fearful about it?

Then, we must have another confrontation. This one comes when the same old tests, patterns, challenges, fucking annoyingly disrespectful people interact with us in those same old ways.

In that moment, we meet ourselves again; Will you fold to hold patterns or step into new actions?

Without that confrontation and test, the work is just intellectual. It needs to land.

One thing this type of cycle does for many guys, especially those newer to facing and outgrowing their shit, is create moments of “Oh fuck, this work isn't working!”

It’s a classic case of being too zoomed in, too narrow-focused.

This work needs you to dial the fuck in when needed and zoom the fuck out often.

If you don’t zoom out, every bump becomes a big deal. Every molehill a mountain. And, tragically, for many, a reason to stop.

When we zoom out, we can get a clearer view of where we are, where we’ve been, and where we’re going.

We often mistake growth for this linear trajectory from point A in a straight and increasing line towards point B.

It’s cliche but true: Progress is not linear.

Sometimes it’s a mess!

But zooming out allows you to get a better view. It helps paint a kinder picture. It reminds you of the work you’ve done. It helps give vital context and perspective to dips, roadblocks, or wading-through-treacle moments.

How to zoom out

Firstly, stop moving.

When we’re in motion, we allocate resources to moving. To action and achieving results.

It’s harder to see where you are; it’s harder to aim.

When you stop, you can see more clearly.

This is a challenge for many guys who have attached their sense of self, their sense of worth and identity to what they do, how well they do it, and what they can achieve.

Part of the internal voice here says, “I have no value or worth if I am not producing results and being of value.”

The idea of slowing down, let alone stopping, can be deeply uncomfortable.

If you’re constantly in doing mode, taking action, achieving, yet you’re even a few degrees off from in aim, you’ll end up in the wrong place.

Slowing down allows you to gauge the direction, take aim, and then apply yourself with vigour.

Slow down to speed up.

Slowing down is sharpening the axe so you don’t keep trying to chop down the tree with a blunt blade.

The hidden gift in zooming out

The other thing zooming out does is bring into focus where you have been and what you’ve accomplished already.

This is such a gift that most Nice Guys never see.

The standard mode for Nice Guys is moving on to the next thing. Achieve, move. Next thing.

It can be uncomfortable to sit with one’s accomplishments if you still have a self-worth story that believes you‘re not being good enough.

A Nice Guy is hard on himself, expecting only the best, perfection possibly, and struggles to allow praise and accomplishments to stick despite going out into the world chasing them.

When we zoom out, when we stop, it invites us to look at, acknowledge, and honour the actions we have taken, the growth we have implemented, and the changes we have made.

This is the secret key to making the tougher parts of progress seem infinitely easier to handle. You see the evidence of your work and progress.

Taking a moment to acknowledge not only your achievements but also who you have chosen to be is the shortest way to move through blocks, challenges and those annoying tests you’d rather not have.

When you celebrate and champion yourself, you take on the IMPORTANT task of pumping your own tyres.

This can be deeply uncomfortable for many Nice Guys, especially those from Australia and New Zealand, where pumping your own tyres is almost like the greatest sin you could commit.

‘Don’t get too big for your boots’

This is simply taking responsibility for respecting yourself and honouring the work you do and the man you are choosing to be.

Instead of - as for your average Nice Guy - putting this task on to those around you; chasing validation, approval and acknowledgement externally.

That is your responsibility.

What this looks like

Earlier this week, I led a call with some of my peers. Friends who work in personal development and coach others. Friends I admire and respect and who inspire me.

Calls like this always invite me to elevate. A great indicator of being in the right room.

I asked them one question:

“What is one thing you haven’t truly honoured or acknowledged in yourself?”

During this call, each guy shared something that he hadn’t fully acknowledged in himself. Something that he was yet to fully honour, or perhaps even hadn’t been honoured in him.

It was beautiful to hear these shares as we each took responsibility for things that are meaningful to us, that help us be better, to be competent and useful men in our lives, yet we have ignored, brushed past, or just taken for granted.

Taking a moment to honour these things - to honour ourselves - even in the hardest of times, allows us to get a better view of who we are, where we are, and where we’re going.

There are two parts to this: 1. Acknowledging it in ourselves, and 2. Having that witnessed and honoured by our peers.

It anchors us.

It connects us to our strengths and our vision.

It brings into focus a greater breadth.

And it sure as shit makes the tough times easier to handle and move through.

When you do this consistently, it makes a huge dent in how you see yourself.

If you have a poor or harsh relationship with yourself, this practice helps you reach a place of self-respect, self-belief, and positive self-identity.

With that, you can handle any dip.

Your challenge this week:

1. Once a day - every day - for the next seven days, I want you to sit for a moment and find something to celebrate yourself for. Write it down.

Sit - as in, don’t be doing something else. Stop. Reflect. See.

Champion yourself or something you did, an action, a conversation, a boundary, a new response to a similar pattern in your relationship, an achievement, or simply for choosing to respect yourself more than yesterday.

No limit and no size. Some days, it might be tiny but relative to that day. Roll with it.

2. Share this with someone with the capacity and maturity to hold it and help you honour it.

3. Continue. Do this every day for at least one week.

If you’re game, if you really want to make a difference in how you see and treat yourself and interact with life - take this on as a daily task for a year.

Sit back and watch what happens to you and your life.

Trust me, I have been doing this myself and with my coaching clients for years now. It works incredibly well.

Will you give it a go? Let me know.

Mike