"Hello, Stranger."
Get curious about who you're becoming.
My old, familiar self would say: For F sake, Anna, please don’t hit that publish button.
But hey. Let’s see what else is out there!
That resistance you feel isn't about the work. It's about the quiet recognition that to do it, you'll have to become someone else. Someone who takes up space differently. Someone who ships work before it feels ready. Someone who, right now, feels like a stranger to you.
We like to tell ourselves convenient lies about change. That it's about finding the right morning routine, or downloading the right app, or finally figuring out how to stick to a schedule.
But there's a deeper truth we keep bumping up against: deep change asks us to become different people. And that's the part that makes Resistance raise its head.
The Real Resistance
Think about the last time you tried to make a significant change in your life.
Maybe you wanted to write more, or build something meaningful, or finally start that project you've been carrying around in your head. The surface-level obstacles seemed clear enough: not enough time, too many distractions, too much uncertainty. Reasons. So many gooood reasons.
But maybe there was also something deeper- and way more unsettling: the recognition that to do these things, you'd have to become someone else.
And that's where we hit the brakes.
But I’m a Deep Thinker
There's a particular pain in watching yourself stay stuck in endless research and preparation. You know you're capable of more, but each time you approach the edge of action, something pulls you back. It's not just fear of failure – it's fear of betraying your own standards, your own sense of what makes you valuable.
Deep thinking isn't the problem. The problem is the story we tell ourselves: that depth and action can't coexist.
That to move quickly is to move superficially.
That our thoughtfulness is somehow at odds with our ability to create impact in the real world.
But I’m an Artist
We romanticize the idea of pure creative freedom – the artist untethered from constraints, following inspiration wherever it leads. Yet the truth is messier. Every artist who has ever made a sustained impact had to grapple with structure. Had to find ways to show up consistently. Had to build bridges between their creative fire and the practical demands of sustained work.
Structure doesn't have to be a cage. It can be the banks of a river, giving direction and force to the flow of creativity. Without them, we don't have a river – we have a flood. Or a drought.
It Just Needs That Final Touch
We like to think our perfectionism is about high standards, but at its core it's about safety.
If nothing is ever finished, nothing can be judged.
If everything stays in draft form forever, we never have to face the gap between our taste and our current abilities.
But here's what we miss: that gap is where growth happens. The space between what we can envision and what we can currently execute is not a sign of failure – it's the territory we need to explore to become more of who we could be.
And, of course, living in that gap is mostly hell, but it can be tamed to some degree. We can even learn to enjoy it (ok, within reason).
"The gap between vision and current reality is also a source of energy. If there were no gap, there would be no need for any action to move towards the vision."
Peter Senge
Don’t Try Faking It
The whole identity shift is not about forcing yourself to become someone else, but more about expanding your sense of who you already are. Because we really do hold multitudes.
You can be thoughtful and still ship work that isn't perfect.
You can create structure without losing your creative soul.
You can maintain high standards while accepting that growth requires imperfect action.
The question isn't "What do I need to do?" but rather "Who do I need to become to do what I want to do?"
Casting a Vote for Your Future Self
Real change happens in small moments of choice. Sometimes these choices feel natural, like stepping stones across a river. That’s our essence.
But often they require us to act in contradiction to our current identity, or at least a part of it - to cast a vote for who we want to become rather than who we currently believe ourselves to be.
When you:
Send the draft that still feels uncertain
Block out time for deep work even when it feels selfish
Share an idea before you feel ready
Each of these moments is both a departure from who you've been and a step toward who you're becoming. An outgrowing of your current self.
We get very attached to our idea of SELF. We take a stick and draw a circle around us proclaiming: "That's Me! This is who I (believe) I am."
OK, fair enough. But. “Does it serve me well? What else is there? Maybe I'm this but also can be a bit of that?”
So really it's about becoming more fully yourself rather than someone else entirely.
The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.
Joseph Campbell
Beyond the Binary
We don't have to choose between being a thinker or a doer, an artist or a professional, a dreamer or a pragmatist. The most interesting work happens in the integration – in finding ways to be both, to hold the tension between different aspects of ourselves.
It’s almost always at least uncomfortable. It can be scary. So start small.
Look for places where your identity feels in conflict with what you want to do. Notice the stories you tell yourself about who you are and what that means you can or cannot do.
Then experiment with expanding those stories. Not breaking them, not forcing yourself into someone else's mold, but gently pressing at their edges.
That’s Edge Work: finding ways to be more of who you are, not less.
Because in the end, the most sustainable change doesn't come from forcing yourself to become someone else, but from giving yourself permission to be more fully who you already are – in all its complexity, with all its seeming contradictions.
And that's a journey that never really ends.
