As we move into 2026, you’ll hear a lot about goal-setting, planning, and sticking to the plan, but we should also talk about energy-guarding.
Energy-guarding is a human tendency — a part of our evolutionary wiring to conserve energy for when we truly need it.
In primitive times, yes, that meant conserving energy to fight or flee threats to our physical survival.
In modern times, conserving energy often looks like resistance or analysis paralysis; that is, overthinking in loops to the point of being frozen.
That’s why Steven Pressfield’s book, The War of Art, published in 2002, still deeply resonates.
Equated with bringing ‘The Resistance’ we feel to life, Pressfield captured this pull we feel — the desire to do something we want to do but feeling the internal war to not do it.
What do we do when we give into the resistance?
We indulgently engage in the inner war in our heads: the battle between the identity we want (the person who did/does the thing) and the identity we presently feel (the person expending energy circling why we are not doing the thing).
I am painfully familiar with this battle of identities. Maybe you are, too.
The resistance comes up frequently in coaching calls, and when it does, the desperation of feeling held back by it is palpable.
Resistance costs and we pay with time, energy and regret.
Clients talk about:
→ how much life they could’ve lived
→ how much progress they could’ve made
→ how much growth and evolvement as a human they could’ve experienced
if only it weren’t for the resistance.
But what exactly is resistance?
Looking beyond the language we use to describe our struggles often reveals something more fundamental at play.
One way to do this is through first principles thinking.
In the simplest form, reasoning by first principles requires you to approach a problem from the most elemental, foundational, truest information.
Understanding first principles thinking is not the work — it only orients you to where the work is. The work begins when resistance shows up and we use our newfound insight to respond differently.
Often we spiral or ruminate because we’re NOT starting from first principles. When we notice we’re procrastinating, we often tell ourselves things like:
“I don’t know where to start.”
“I’ve avoided this for so long that starting now feels overwhelming.”
“If I start, I’ll have to face how far behind I am.”
If our first thoughts dictate the trajectory, it makes sense that when we keep starting here, we keep ending in the same place — circling the same protective questions that keep us from moving.
Where many of us keep circling is actually about capacity and energy expenditure.
This goes back to the motivational triad, a concept that explains human behavior through the context of species survival. Humans are evolutionarily wired to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and conserve energy.
If we approach inner resistance from reasoning by first principles then:
Resistance is the nervous system’s desire to conserve energy due to lack of hope that expending energy is going to net a reward.
At the core is energy-guarding, a fundamental primitive design for human survival.
If our nervous system’s desire to guard energy is greater than the our mind’s belief that the energy expenditure will net a reward — resistance will win.
With this awareness, it becomes clear that the work isn’t about helping people think different thoughts, per se. That’s certainly what happens, but first principles thinking means starting much further back.
It means helping people who see the energy guarding tendencies within themselves, and who’ve experienced the cost of it, feel safe to start expending their energy toward rewarding goals – goals they feel are deeply worthy of their energy expenditure.
In this context, then, energy-worthy goals must be self-identified, as energy, capacity, bandwidth, white space, or lack thereof, are internal experiences.
They can be revealed through reflective questions like:
- What goals, if achieved, would feel life-changing, like they would be absolutely worth the energy expenditure required to achieve them?
- How can I reduce unnecessary energy expenditure on my way to achieving them?
- On the days I feel frozen in resistance or analysis paralysis, how can I remember to check my commitment to the energy expenditure required to achieve the goal — that is, how can I remember that resistance is part of the human experience, one that manifests when the nervous system’s desire to SAVE energy (energy guarding) is stronger than the mind’s desire for the reward of expending it
What about you? Do you recognize energy-guarding in yourself? What has it cost you?
And what would change for you if you associate what you really desire with being worthy of expending the energy required to get there?
“I’m keenly aware of the Principle of Priority, which states (a) you must know the difference between what is urgent and what is important, and (b) you must do what’s important first. What’s important is the work. That’s the game I have to suit up for. That’s the field on which I have to leave everything I’ve got.”― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
