In the book Mastery by Robert Greene he shares that by nature, we humans shrink from anything that seems possibly painful or overly difficult.

Once we grow adept at some aspect of a particular skill, generally one that comes more easily to us, we prefer to practice this element, over and over. Our skill becomes lopsided as we avoid our weaknesses. This is the path of amateurs. ROBERT GREENE

We tend to imagine mastery as repetition. Do the thing enough times and eventually you become the person who can do the thing effortlessly. But that tidy story edits out the real curriculum. Mastery is not built from repetition alone. It is built from the moments you instinctively want to turn away, postpone, soften, delegate, rationalize, or redesign so you never have to feel exposed.

That impulse right there is the practice.

Resistance is not a character flaw….it is a
protective reflex.

The nervous system prefers the known even when the known is inefficient, frustrating, or quietly misaligned. Familiar discomfort still feels safer than unfamiliar possibility. So when you move toward a new role, a new standard, or a new market the brain does not ask “is this good?” It asks “is this predictable?” And if the answer is no, it pulls the handbrake.

Resistance shows up exactly where growth begins.

In personal development, resistance feels intimate. You procrastinate on the one email that matters. You reorganize your desk instead of making the call. You research for three hours so you never have to publish the first imperfect version. The behavior looks like laziness but functions like protection. The mind is not trying to sabotage you. It is trying to preserve your current way of being.

So the useful move is curiosity, not force. Instead of trying to overpower resistance, you interrogate it gently. What am I protecting? Competence? Reputation? Belonging? Once named, the resistance shrinks from a fog into a boundary line. Then progress becomes possible through small exposures rather than heroic leaps. Not courage as a personality trait but courage as dosage:

• A paragraph published.
• A conversation started.
• A prototype shared before it feels ready.

Business resistance works the same way.

Leaders often interpret pushback as attitude when it is usually interpretation. People are not resisting change. They are resisting the meaning they have attached to the change. Loss of status. Loss of certainty. Loss of competence. Or simply a lack of trust in the messenger because last time the story changed halfway through.

So the work is not persuasion first. It is diagnosis.

• Sometimes the resistance says, “I don’t understand.” That is a clarity gap.
• Sometimes it says, “I don’t like what this means for me.” That is a safety gap.
• Sometimes it says, “I don’t trust you.” That is a relationship gap.

Until you know which one you are facing, every communication sounds like noise.

Organizations that master change treat
resistance as data.

Where questions cluster, communication failed. Where emotion spikes, identity is threatened. Where silence spreads, trust is thin. The moment you stop trying to defeat resistance and start mapping it, implementation accelerates because the real conversation finally begins.

This is why mastery, whether personal or organizational, always includes a resistance practice. You repeatedly move toward the place that tightens your chest slightly. Not recklessly or dramatically but deliberately enough that the nervous system updates its map of what is survivable. Over time the boundary moves. What once required preparation becomes routine. What once required courage becomes normal work.

And eventually you realize the skill you built was not just writing, leading, speaking, selling, or designing. You built tolerance for the unfamiliar self.

Mastery is less about perfect execution and more about increasing the amount of reality you can face without retreating.

Strategic Reflection Prompt

Where in your work right now are you spending energy reducing discomfort instead of increasing capacity, and what small step would move you one inch closer to the version of you that already knows what to do?

About Giselle

I’m Giselle Hudson — Organization & People Development Sensemaker™, MCODE® Legacy Coach, writer and musician. I help leaders and independent professionals close the gap between strategy and execution by making invisible friction visible, so direction can finally translate into results.

If execution isn’t matching intent and you can’t quite see why, message me on WhatsApp. We’ll start with a brief Clarity Conversation to understand what you’re facing and decide together whether a focused Sensemaking Session is the right next step.