#185 Why Internal Resistance Stops You - Even When You Want Change

Why is it that you can want something deeply, know exactly what to do, have the motivation to do it—and still not take action?

In this powerful episode, we explore the concept of internal resistance with performance coach and bestselling author Kam Knight. This conversation goes beyond surface-level motivation and dives into the internal mechanisms that quietly block progress, even when desire and intention are present.

Internal resistance answers a question many people silently struggle with: “If I want this change so badly, why can’t I just do it?” Kam explains why wanting does not automatically translate into having—and why desire alone is often insufficient for real transformation.

You’ll learn why motivation can coexist with inaction, how our internal wants can actually work against us, and why forcing ourselves forward often increases resistance rather than resolving it. Kam challenges popular self-help narratives and offers a clearer, more compassionate understanding of human behaviour.

This episode is especially relevant for anyone who feels stuck, frustrated, or confused by their own patterns—people who are doing “all the right things” yet still feel unable to move forward. Instead of blame or shame, Kam offers insight, clarity, and relief.

Listeners will come away with a deeper understanding of how internal resistance operates, why it’s not a personal failure, and how recognising these patterns can unlock progress without force or burnout.

If you’ve ever questioned your discipline, doubted your commitment, or felt blocked despite your best intentions, this conversation will help you see yourself—and your resistance—with new clarity.

CONNECT WITH KAM

Website: https://kamknight.com

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Transcript

Rose 0:00

The Healing Through Love Podcast with Sharlene Lynch and Rose Davidson. Welcome to the Healing Through Love podcast, where we shine a light of hope, resilience, and transformation in the journey to end domestic violence. Each week we share powerful stories and practical tools for survivors, advocates, and experts. Together we create a safe space for healing, inspiration, and change. I'm your host, Rose Davidson, and welcome to the Talking With You, Talking with the Healing Through Love podcast. My guest today is Cam Knight, and we're going to be talking about internal resistance. And internal resistance answers the question: why is it if I want to do something, I know what I want to do, I know how to do it, and I have the motivation and desire to do it, but for some reason I can't or just don't do it. And I have those days quite often. So I'm really interested to hear what Cam has to say. Now, Cam is a coach, he's an international speaker, a best-selling author of a dozen books in the area of mental, emotional, and physical performance. He is known for bringing fresh solutions and insights that are a rare departure from traditional ideas. Because of his fresh perspective, his books have become the gold standard for their respective topics, which have helped over 500,000 people. When he is not coaching or writing, he is traveling, having traveled to over 100 countries around the world. Came, it is such a pleasure to meet you and thank you for joining me here on the Healing Through Love podcast.

Kam 1:36

Thank you very much, Rose. I am happy to be here and thanks for having me on. And of those 100 countries, it includes Australia. So I've been there as well.

Speaker 1 1:46

Whereabouts in Australia did you travel to?

Speaker 2 1:49

Uh I went to a lot of places. I started in um what's the most isolated city in Australia? I'm drawing a blank right now. On the West Coast.

Speaker 1 2:00

Oh, um, Perth?

Speaker 2 2:03

Yeah, I started in Perth and then I flew out to Cairns, and then from Cairns, I went all the way down the coast, um, through Gold Coast, um, Sydney, Melbourne, and all I didn't make it to Adelaide, but I went to the 12 Apostles.

Speaker 1 2:20

Oh, how exciting! I love the 12 Apostles. So, but there's only 10 left now.

Speaker 2 2:25

Oh no, I don't know that.

Speaker 1 2:26

The other two have fallen into the sea, unfortunately.

Speaker 2 2:29

So, yes, erosion got to Yeah, so I was there, so you it tells how long ago I was there. So I was there uh about a good 10 years ago.

Speaker 1 2:40

So it's such a such a stab state of affairs, but it's still beautiful to drive down the the um east coast, it's absolutely gorgeous. And tell me a little bit about why you choose or chose internal resistance as something that you know we are all doing. Uh you know, it is something that we all do.

Speaker 2 3:05

So, you know, as far back as I can remember, I was a fairly driven individual. And it's hard not to be living in these times where there's so much personal development content telling you to do more and be your best self, plus the opportunities that we have available. So I always wanted to do more and have more and be more in life. And although I've had my fair share of success, I always felt like the success was much more difficult than it needed to be, or that I kind of missed the mark in a lot of ways. And I wondered why that was. Why is it if I want to do something and I know what to do and I know how to do it, and I actually have the desire to do it, but for one reason or another, I can't or don't do it. At the time, there weren't really any clear answers. The best answers I was coming across related to having limiting beliefs or not having enough motivation and desire. And although I think those are, you know, pieces of the puzzle, I thought there was more to it. And over the past 15 years, that question always lingered in my mind. Every time I fell stuck, I wondered why. Why can't I get stuff done? Why do I keep spinning my wheels? Why don't I just do this dang thing so I can get the result that I want? And the more books I read and coaching I did and seminars I attended, the more I learned about the complexities of the human brain. And over time I began to realize: hey, wait a minute, there's a part of our mind built to hold us back. There's a part of our brain designed to keep us from growing and making progress. And I call this part resistance. And it's this brick wall that we hit anytime that we want to do something, but we can't, no matter how much we want to do it. So to answer your question, I got into it because I struggled with this a lot, you know, from a very young age. I always wanted to do stuff, and although I would start, I wouldn't get to the finish, or I would sabotage myself, or I went from one thing to another. And then I noticed that a lot of people were struggling with this as well. And I realized that this topic was very important because I think a lot of the information that we get from mainstream personal development as well as mainstream media focuses all on the motivation and inspiration. They're kind of pumping us with all this motivation, which is why I said we live in a culture and society with so much personal development content. And although motivation is good, it doesn't really address the underlying issue because once the motivation wears off, we're kind of still stuck. And I always wondered why that was. So that's why I I uh really went into this.

Speaker 1 5:52

Yeah, it's it's interesting because we all suffer from it at one point or another. Um, it doesn't matter what you're doing. I mean, I've got videos to to edit, and I you know, open the files and I look at it, and then I think, yeah, I you know, I really want to do it. But there's something just stops me from doing it. And you know, it's the internal resistance from from, and I know what it I know that there is resistance or procrastination, perhaps it is, that is stopping me from doing it, even though that that I have the desire.

Speaker 2 6:29

Yeah. So the way internal resistance works is it helps to understand that the part of the brain that creates wants and desires, it works separate and independent of the part that actually allows us to act on the desire. And this is really important. So I'll say it one more time. The part of the brain that creates the wants works separate from the part that actually gives a green light to act on it. So you have one part of the brain that's creating wants, and in a way, it's creating endless wants one after another. It doesn't check to see if you have the time, energy, resources to achieve the want. It simply creates the want. And so this part of the brain, its job isn't to see if you can do this thing, if it'll be easy, if um it'll be safe to do it. Its only job is to create wants. And it can kind of go on a rampage creating endless wants. And so we have another part that actually looks at the want to see if it's worth doing, if you have the time, if you have the energy, the skill, and if it's something even achievable and not something that is kind of outside of the realm of reality. And this is the part that puts the brakes on the decision. Now, what's really important to understand is that it is possible for the brain to both create a desire for something and hold us back from it. In fact, for a long time, when I struggled, I used to wonder whoever created humanity in this reality must have been really sick and twisted. Because how could they do that to us? How could they create these strong desires and wants and keep us from going after them? It just seems like such an awful thing to do. Yeah. But it makes sense when you look at it from this perspective. And so when resisting comes up, it comes up because this part of the brain looks at the want through a whole host of criteria. And if the desire is not in line with any of the criteria, it will prevent action. And in my work, I found there's at least a good 25 to 30 criteria the brain will filter through. And just to look at your example, some of the criteria it could filter through is limiting beliefs. You know, that's one of the bigger things that get talked about. Maybe there's a belief that says this that the thing that you're trying to do is hard, or it's gonna take a lot of time, or that you don't have the skill, or that you can't do it. You may not be noticing what the mind is filtering through, but it is being filtered. And if you can't do it, it could be getting up on that. But there's even more things. Let's just say um some person, some people have more sensitivity to mistakes than others. So anytime they make a mistake, the brain releases some really difficult to sit with feelings. And the more sensitive a person is to mistakes, the more resistance is gonna arise. And so it becomes harder to do. So for we're just gonna use uh what you had mentioned, an example, not to say this is the case for you, but let's say this editing that you're trying to do, you know, there's a lot of nuances to it. And if it's not done correctly, there's a lot of mistakes that can happen. Now, the more, like I said, the more sensitive a person is, the more the brain's gonna release unpleasant feelings, and the more resistance is going to try to protect us from those feelings. And if it feels like there's a potential for too much pain, it will hold us back. Though these are just very um, these are just a few examples. Like I said, there's many more examples that the brain goes through. And some of them are pretty deep in nature. Like you wouldn't think of them as things that might hold us back. And I'll give uh a quick example of what that could be. Like one of them is authority issues. Authority issues relate to our unconsciously held attitudes toward authority figures, such as parents, principals, teachers, police officers, and even personal development mentors like myself. So what happens is at a certain point, well, we're growing when we're growing up, if we were around an environment where everyone's telling us what to do and how to do it and what not to do and how not to do it, at a certain point the brain gets fed up and doesn't want to listen to anything from anyone, even information that is helpful. And what's fascinating is as we grow older, it still holds on to that. So even when we want to do something, we can because the authority response kicks in. So we're just gonna use your example is there could be some authority issues where when you did things well, it gave satisfaction to the people who told you what you do. And as adults, we could still be carrying that. Like what I say is we hold, we can hold resentment to our grave. And so if you try to do something that might give the authorities in our lives satisfaction that we're listening to them, it won't want to do it, even though it's healthy and beneficial for us. So this is just another example, but again, there's many criteria the brain goes through.

Speaker 1 11:54

Interesting. I think you know, you you don't really think that this really has to do with childhood trauma or all those other things, or you know, women living through um, you know, domestic violence. Um, you know, that they don't like to be told what they're doing, and so they resist doing other things, and so they're um because they're being, you know, told, not told, told, but told by um, you know, some internal uh dialogue that you know they must do something, um, but they don't do it because um yeah, that they're resisting the the authority figure.

Speaker 2 12:32

Yeah, and this is a big one. Sometimes, not sometimes, actually, oftentimes, we will hold ourselves back just to not give an authority a satisfaction. And what I say is a lot of times when we're you know resisting an authority or have authority issues, we are actually not hurting anyone, anyone else but ourselves. So when we don't listen to advice, we're not hurting the person giving it, we're actually hurting ourselves. And this is how, in many ways, crazy our authority issue response can be. Even though something is healthy and beneficial, this response can kick us, kick in and keep us from doing it. And you know, what you mentioned about certain women in abusive relationships or not being able to get out, it could be because of this. And not to say it is, there could be other reasons. For example, another reason resistance comes up has to do with the undeserving. And when I use the word undeserving, I don't mean like a conscious level, I don't deserve this, but I'm talking about this deep rooted feeling inside. And all of our desires filter through that feeling of undeserving. And if we are trying to do something that unconsciously we don't feel deserving of, resistance will arise. And so for some people, if it means leaving an unhealthy relationship or actually attracting, accepting a healthy relationship, if we have that undeserving, resistance will keep us from doing it. So then we gotta work on that. And again, like I said, this stuff isn't very simple because there are a lot of criteria. And some of these criteria you wouldn't think of, like unless a person spent a lot of time understanding the complexities of the human brain, it we wouldn't think logically to think, oh wow, the reason I'm stuck, or the reason I keep finding myself in unhealthy patterns around unhealthy people, is because I have some unresolved authority issues, or I have this deep-rooted, undeserving, or it could be limiting beliefs, or a host of other things. What actually comes up is I'm not good enough, or I don't have what it takes, or um, something's wrong with me. And I want people to understand that that's not the case. There's nothing wrong with you, it's just you have this part of your brain that's holding you back. And it's designed to hold us back, and it's really good at holding us back, to the point that it can cause more strain and pain in our lives than good.

Speaker 1 15:23

Yeah, I've just um I've lived through all of that, and uh, you know, for me, resistance was um he was unwell and um so I didn't want to abandon him, but um, you know, it came to a point where my mental health was had to become a priority over uh you know anything that my brain was telling me and my you know my instincts. So yeah, I totally get that. But you know, Cam, how can we work through this internal resistance when um you know the the part of the brain is you know stopping us from you know leaving the unhealthy relationship or leaving um a workplace that you know is a little bit toxic? Um, you know, what dialogue can we use?

Speaker 2 16:08

Yeah, so when it comes to resistance, there isn't a one-fit-all approach. We really have to work on the criteria that's holding us back. So if we have a million beliefs, it's really important to work on the beliefs. If it's the feelings of undeserving, it's important to kind of access those feelings and release them. Uh, if it's dealing with authority issues, it's visiting that. If it has to do with, you know, comfort zone, self-image, and a host of the other stuff, we really need to work on the direct cause of it. And in fact, when the way the resistance works is when we work on one area, it can actually be counterproductive to another area. Though that doesn't really give you much to go by, but there are some simple tools a person can use that can help them not only understand what the resistance is, but help them move forward. And if I was gonna give a tool that to a person I'm not working with, so like an audience of yours that they can use on themselves, I would say start with self-talk. So, self-talk are statements that you say or repeat to yourself of the changes that you want to have or have happen in life. For example, if a person wants to be more assertive, you know, for many of the listeners, I think that's what would be helpful, they would repeat statements like, I am a confident, assertive communicator. I easily communicate uh my needs and wants. Now, on the surface, these statements don't seem like they'll do all that much, but they're huge. That's because words are powerful. One, they go into our unconscious mind and create the outcome that the words describe. And two, most people don't realize, but a lot of their limitations, their limiting beliefs, undeserving, and a lot of the other causes of resistance actually came from words. You know, as we were growing up, the words that people were saying to us, if the parents were saying we weren't good enough, if bullies were making fun of us, if teachers were saying our work is no good, they were just words. But those words seeped in and created our trauma and the challenges and the undeserving and the and the limitations. And so if words have the power to bring us down, they naturally have the power to bring us up. Though the way the brain works, it puts more effort or attention on negative words than positives. So it takes more positive to counteract the negative, which is where self-talk comes in, where we take these statements that describe what we want or the direction we want to go, and we repeat it on a regular basis. And the more we can repeat it, the more we can actually move in the direction that we want. In fact, what I have found with self-talk is that it works so much better, especially as a self-tool, than you know, doing a lot of other things. Like, I don't want to name anything because I don't want to say anything's bad, everything is good, it's just there's levels. But if a person can talk it, they'll actually act out the behavior that they're choosing versus trying to force themselves to do it. And what's really great about self-talk is in the beginning, when you're repeating them, it's very uncomfortable. It's painful and it sucks. But there is a lot of data there. So if a person does repeat, I am a confident assertive communicator, their mind is going to retort and say things like, no, you're not, or you shouldn't do this, or give reasons why. And that is a sign of the resistance that you have. So the uncomfortableness is actually a good thing to go through because it's giving you the information about your resistance. It's telling you the beliefs that you have about asserting yourself, why it's hard or why you shouldn't do it. But what the beauty of self-talk is the more you repeat it, the more the initial uncomfortability, it tends to subside. And when it subsides, it means that resistance is actually releasing, it's actually moving out of our body. And the more we continue to affirm the statements, the more the positive statements start seeping in. And it just naturally allows us to act in that way. And so if I was to give just one simple tool that a person can use on their own without needing the help of others or um assistance from a coach or a mentor or things like that, this is it because it's very free. And it not only helps us give us insight into what our resistance is, but it's a very thing that also helps us move forward. Now, this is just one tool in the toolbox. There's many others, but because of the limited time that we have, I wanted to kind of give one that's really powerful, again, that a person can use without a lot of time and effort.

Speaker 1 21:08

That is so insightful. Thank you so much for sharing that because we all have self-talk, and a lot of us who were brought up with uh, you know, traumatic backgrounds or you know, lived through a traumatic period in our life, um, do use that self-talk. We we fall back on it uh uh often in negative ways because we um we don't know any better. So the positive um aspect of what you've discussed is like gonna help a lot of people and think so. Thank you so much for sharing that.

Speaker 2 21:40

Yeah, no problem.

Speaker 1 21:41

Now you can find Cam on his website at camnight.com and mind Lily.

Speaker 2 21:49

Yeah, so if people want to reach me, they can just go to camnight.com. And I have a technique that helps people go into their unconscious to work on their resistance, including some of Challenges from our past. And if they're interested in that, they can reach out to me at mentor at camnight.com.

Speaker 1 22:07

Lovely. Thank you so much for sharing. Do you have any wise words of wisdom that you'd like to share with our audience today?

Speaker 2 22:13

Yeah, I'd like to usually end the podcast with uh this, which is desire does not lead to action. Just because we want something doesn't mean we'll take the necessary steps to do it. And although our wants and desires can make it seem like that, but it's important to understand we have this part of the mind that is designed to hold us back. And if we go in thinking we could take action and get the result that we want, oftentimes we face up against resistance and then we're not able to move forward, and then we are left feeling, like I had mentioned, like we don't have what it takes, or there's something wrong with us. But if we can come with the perspective that just because I want something doesn't mean it will lead to me doing the necessary steps to get it, allows us to prepare a lot better. And when we can prepare for a challenge, oftentimes the challenge isn't even as big or even really show up at all. But when we are too optimistic and think there won't be any challenges, that's when a lot of times where we fail. So if a person can kind of keep that in mind, it could really help them weep through um the hurdles that they might come up with when they are trying to get to where they are.

Speaker 1 23:41

Thank you for sharing that. That's really powerful. Um yeah, I'm a bit like I'm a bit like I come up with an idea and then just work out the challenges afterwards. Yeah, I just start and then work it out later.

Speaker 2 23:55

Yeah, yeah. And it's okay for some, but a lot of times when for others, they think the way the desire floods our body with these positive emotions, it can give us a delusional feeling that there aren't going to be any challenges. And then when we actually confront a challenge, we and the person ends up stopping and not moving forward. But when they can understand there will be challenges, and you yourself, your own mind is gonna be the one that's really doing it, then they're at a much better place to be able to overcome it.

Speaker 1 24:30

Absolutely, absolutely. Kim, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me here today. And uh, and I look forward to perhaps talking with you again in the future.

Speaker 2 24:40

Yeah, thank you very much.

Speaker 24:46

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Healing Through Love. You can get further resources, leave the terminal, or simply reach out to us.com. Thanks so much for joining us and willing your company next time on the healing through love.