At some level, everyone knows how to tell they're in resistance. Some of the signs are obvious, right?
Like Netflix binging instead of working on your blog. Or realizing you've been on Instagram or Facebook for nearly 40 minutes instead of working on your offer. Or wearing a path from your office to the kitchen, going for coffee, tea, snacks, every 30 minutes instead of focusing on your webinar.
Those things are pretty obvious and not so hard to spot.
When you find yourself there, you can bring that awareness to the forefront and engage some of your healing, coaching or creative tools to help you move through it.
But what about if you're in resistance with your marketing, and you don't know it? This happens a lot with coaches, healers or other creatives I know. They look like they're working on their marketing. They're at their desk. They're logging the hours. They're working on copy.
They're doing their marketing, right?
Perhaps, but they might also be in resistance.
Signs of Resistance + What To Do
If you've been working on your marketing and think you might be experiencing a more subtle form of resistance, I invite you to read on. I’m going to share four things to look out for and what you can do if you notice this happening to you.
Always battling other priorities
Are other priorities always derailing your marketing plans?
For example, let’s say you’ve committed to sharing content on a weekly basis. But then, when it comes time to sit down and write your blog, something comes up. Your sister-in-law needs help, your kids struggling with online learning, you missed getting groceries over the weekend so you need to go now. You push the content writing off to the next week.
But then, the next week other things happen, and you need to push it off again, or you haven’t gotten as much written as you’d hoped.
I'm not saying you should ignore other priorities as they come up. And Lord knows this year has been a challenging one, with greater demands on our capacity than ever before. Life happens and sometimes you need to attend to it.
What can you do?
If this keeps happening, it might be a signal you need to take a step back and look at how you allocate your time in order to not stay stuck resisting your marketing.
You might need to decide where to focus in your marketing vs. trying to do everything. Or you might need to realistically look at your schedule and change commitments or your own expectations in order to give yourself the space you need to work on your marketing in a healthy way.
Ignoring or being unaware of negative body sensations.
Take a minute to check in with your body when you're doing a marketing activity. What's going on? Do you have a tightness in your neck? A heaviness in your stomach? A sense of weight around your ankles? All these are signs that something is not as it should be. Your body is sending you signals.
If you’re experiencing unpleasant body sensations while doing your marketing, take a look at what you're doing and the following considerations:
Are you working on one thing when you should be working on another?
For example, maybe you’re spending time revising an offer landing page for the fourth or fifth time instead of writing the promotional email to tell people about it.
Perhaps you’re convinced you need to do Facebook lives and can’t, for the life of you, figure out the technology when you could be looking at how you naturally like to connect with people as a starting point for choosing your channels,
Or maybe you are spending time making social media memes to share when you haven't nailed down concisely who you help and what you help them with.
All of these are situations where coaches, healers and creatives frequently get caught up marketing how they think they should be versus understanding the principles of authentic marketing.
Are you operating under a belief that might not be true?
For example, maybe you’re trying to put your newsletter together but underneath, you feel you really shouldn’t be bothering people. Or perhaps you’re working on a podcast or other piece of content and you think you don’t have anything new to say. Or maybe, you think marketing is so overwhelming you just don’t know where to start or that it’s icky, and you just don’t want to be pushy.
All of these are beliefs that commonly trip up coaches, healers and other creatives trying to create businesses aligned with their soul. They often find themselves in resistance without being aware of it.
What can you do?
If you find your body sensations signaling you in your marketing, it’s time to take a look at what might be going on with your approach or your underlying beliefs. You can always talk to a trusted friend, hire a mentor, speak to a colleague or do some writing to help you get some perspective.
Not stopping to assess
If you find yourself doing the same marketing activities you’ve been doing but you aren’t seeing forward movement, it might be time to stop and reassess. If however, you find yourself resisting stepping back and getting perspective, it might be a sign that you are in resistance. The resistance shows up in powering ahead and being determined to do the same things, only more of them and faster and harder.
Once a colleague told me she wasn’t seeing enough social media engagement. No one was hiring her! she said. Instead of looking at her messaging or different ways to network or improve her selling skills, she was convinced she needed MORE social media channels! She was already on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter….but thought she needed Tumblr, Pinterest and even Snapchat too.
What can you do?
Instead of automatically pushing for more, faster, better, take time to periodically assess your marketing. What’s working, and what’s not? How are you feeling about your content? Your channels? It’s an important part of staying in a healthy relationship with your marketing. I recommend doing this quarterly, regardless if you’re experiencing resistance or not.
Running from project to project
This is similar to the previous one. Let me be clear, trying things out is essential when you’re building your business. And, it’s equally if not more important to assess why a project may not have worked as well as it could have before moving onto another.
If you’re always rushing headlong into new projects, moving quickly, failing fast and immediately moving onto the next big thing, this could signal resistance.
The truth is it takes time for coaches, healers or other creatives to build an audience and gain their trust. Sometimes when new projects don’t work, it doesn’t mean it was a bad idea. It’s just that it’s new. Or it could have been executed differently. Or if you needed to give people more time.
What can you do?
If you notice yourself sprinting from project to project in your marketing without getting the results you want, I invite you to slow down. No matter what the outcome, take time to review projects after they complete. and assessing what could have worked better and what needs tweaking and then, depending on the energy, trying them again is one way to stay out of resistance and engaged with your marketing.
It’s often easy to notice when you’re in active resistance (My office is never more tidy than when I have writing to do!), but sometimes it’s more difficult to notice when you’re subtly resisting your marketing.
Noting if other priorities are always getting in the way, taking time to notice your body sensations, being aware of not assessing your marketing or running from project to project could all be signs you are subconsciously in resistance. Heeding these signs and readjusting where necessary will help you move past it. Before you know it you’ll be back in marketing flow, using your unique voice to connect with those you’re here to help in the world.