“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
John Lennon

I recently had the pleasure of listening to an interview with Leeza Gibbons by fellow coach Cheryl Richardson on her Hay House Radio show, Coach on Call. Leeza, who had her book, “Take 2” hit bookshelves recently, was talking with Richardson about the process of reinvention. Being that my work is helping people reinvent themselves, I knew this talk would be right up my alley.

Leeza said something I wholeheartedly agree with: “Anytime we embark on creating change in our lives, Life will give us pushback.” What is pushback, you ask? Pushback is what happens once we set an intention for change in our lives, create both the vision and the plan for that change, and begin to take action to realizing the intention.

How Life Presents Pushback to Us

I learned what pushback is when I first began coaching my private clients. Some of these clients would begin their processes of working on achieving their goals. Some would stall in their processes, and some would not make any significant strides. When I would sit with them and discuss what was happening for them to keep them from moving forward, I would get responses like, “Things came up,” “Stuff just started happening,” “I got really busy,” and “I just have too much going on.”

I have come to realize these statements reveal pushback. Life was pushing back on these clients, and life was what they were saying was keeping them right where they were.

What I Have Learned from Pushback

Long before I coined it as being pushback, I have seen it show up in my own life. In a benign example, I set the intention on becoming more patient in life (I was born three months premature, so I always joke that I came into the word impatient!). When I set the intention, Life pushed back by presenting me with all the things that would normally make me impatient, most, if not all, involving other people.

After some time asking Life, “What gives?” I had an epiphany: In order for me to become more patient, I had to choose that response when faced with people and situations that would normally make me impatient. Notice how I used the words “make me” with regard to impatience, and “choose” with patience. I also realized that people and situations did not “make me” impatient; it was a response I was choosing in those instances. And with choices, we can always choose again. And that was what I was being encouraged to do when Life was pushing back: choose again, and choose differently. These people and situations would be showing up again and again to the point where my response would be different and I achieved the patience I was seeking.

I have come to realize this pushback happens to test our resolve, to see if we will honor the commitment we have made to both the intention and to ourselves.

In a recent webinar I attended, as part of a course I was enrolled in, the instructor mentioned that we were enrolled in the course, in its online format, so we can make the commitment to doing the work involved while we were living our everyday lives. All too often, she pointed out, that a lot of people attend workshops, seminars, and conventions to learn new tips, tricks, tools, and techniques that they are encouraged to practically apply to their lives when they return. And most return and then “life happens.” And all those tips, tricks, tools, and techniques fall by the wayside because Life pushed back. I can see how that would happen.

Is Life Pushing You Back?

For those of you who have been following the blog regularly, you may have noticed a pattern to the posts being presented. I am writing posts in alignment with the post at the top of the year regarding setting intentions. Each successive post has been offering some points of consideration for you regarding the intentions you may have set for yourself to improve your lives.

Regarding those intentions, I ask this: Is Life giving you pushback? If so, here are a couple of points to consider:

• Let’s just state the obvious: Life is going to happen, for all of us. Stuff will come up. The Unexpected, dressed up as those things we don’t anticipate, that we don’t see coming, will show up on our doorstep and ring the bell, dropping by for a visit. Life doesn’t stop because we are actively changing the parts that we think and feel are not working in our best interests.
• Pushback happens to test our resolve, to test how committed we are to our intention and to our process of change. When Life gives us pushback, we are faced with a choice: Do we continue to let Life control us, or do we make choices that allow us to regain control of Life?

Which will you choose? Will you let Life give you pushback? Or will you give Life the pushback?

Your partner in pushing back,

James