If you’ve ever been told to just “push through the resistance” but something in your business still doesn’t feel right, this episode is going to challenge that advice. In this episode of The Real Truth About Business podcast, I’m breaking down why resistance isn’t always something you need to override and how it directly impacts your business strategy and revenue growth. This is for service-based entrepreneurs who are stuck in a revenue plateau, forcing strategies that don’t feel aligned, and wondering why things still aren’t working. After 9 years of experience, I can tell you this is one of the biggest reasons people stay stuck. Inside this episode, I walk you through how to tell the difference between productive discomfort and true misalignment, and how that distinction changes your pricing strategy, pipeline, and sales process.

What You'll Learn:

• The difference between growth resistance and misalignment in your business
• Why pushing through the wrong resistance slows your revenue growth
• How to identify strategies that don’t fit your business strategy
• The role of self-trust in your sales process and decision-making
• How to adjust strategies instead of forcing what doesn’t work
• Why alignment is critical for sustainable business growth

Episode Highlights:

[00:00] Introduction: Why “just push through it” isn’t always right

[03:00] The difference between discomfort and misalignment

[06:00] Real example: forcing strategies that don’t feel good

[10:00] When resistance is actually a sign to stop

[14:00] Visibility example: when outsourcing is the better strategy

[18:00] How to adjust strategies to fit your strengths

[20:00] Letting go of guilt around strategies that don’t work

Key Takeaways:

Not All Resistance Means You’re Growing

Here’s what I see constantly. Business owners being told that resistance always means they’re on the edge of a breakthrough.

After 9 years of working with service-based entrepreneurs, I can tell you that’s not always true.

Sometimes resistance is growth.

And sometimes resistance is misalignment.

If you don’t know the difference, you end up forcing strategies that were never meant for you. And that’s what keeps you stuck in a revenue plateau.

Growth Resistance Feels Different Than Misalignment

This is the distinction that changes everything.

Growth resistance feels like:

• Nervous but excited
• Scared but aligned
• Uncomfortable because it’s new

Misalignment feels like:

• Dread
• Avoidance
• Frustration or resentment

Inside the Focused Visionary Framework, this matters because your Pricing, Pipeline, and Sales all depend on execution. And you won’t execute consistently on something that feels misaligned.

Forcing the Wrong Strategy Leads to Burnout

When you push through misalignment, you don’t get better results.

You get:

• Inconsistency
• Self-doubt
• Guilt and shame

And eventually, burnout.

This is where so many service-based entrepreneurs get stuck. They think they need more discipline when really, they need a different strategy.

Every Strategy Works. But Not for Everyone

This is one of the most important truths.

Conversion events work.

Cold pitching works.

Content marketing works.

Launches work.

But not every strategy will work for you.

Your business strategy has to match:

• How you think
• How you show up
• How you best serve

When it doesn’t, resistance shows up as a signal, not a problem.

You Can Adapt Strategy to Fit You

This is where most people get stuck in all-or-nothing thinking.

They assume:

• Either I do it exactly like this
• Or I don’t do it at all

But the real solution is adaptation.

If you don’t like slides, don’t use slides.

If you don’t like visibility, outsource it.

If you don’t like launching, build evergreen.

You don’t need a new business. You need a better-fitting strategy.

Let Go of Guilt Around What Doesn’t Work

One of the biggest blockers to business growth is guilt.

Guilt that:

• You invested in something and didn’t use it
• A strategy works for others but not for you
• You “should” be able to make it work

But none of that matters.

Your job is not to prove a strategy works.

Your job is to build a business that works for you.

Self-Trust Is the Real Strategy

At the end of the day, this is what this comes down to.

You are the CEO.

You get to decide:

• What strategies you use
• How you run your business
• What you say yes and no to

When you trust yourself enough to examine resistance instead of override it, your business strategy becomes clearer, your execution becomes stronger, and your revenue growth becomes more sustainable.

Resources Mentioned

• Subscribe to Back Pocket Insights for FREE
• Book a CEO Strategy Call
• Learn more about The Missing Piece Intensive
• Learn more about The Focused Visionary Accelerator
• Download the FREE Lead and Conversion Tracker
• Subscribe to the Sunday Morning Brew Newsletter

About the Host:

Michelle DeNio is a business strategist based in Sarasota, Florida, specializing in helping service-based entrepreneurs break through revenue plateaus using her Focused Visionary Framework. With over 300 podcast episodes and 9 years running her consulting business, she helps coaches, consultants, and service providers scale sustainably through strategic planning, pricing optimization, and sales process development.

Connect with Michelle

1. Website
2. Threads
3. Instagram
4. LinkedIn
5. Facebook

How many times have you been told to just push through the resistance, right?

That if you're feeling resistant, it means you're on the edge of a breakthrough and just do it anyway?

I hope that you can sense the sarcasm in my voice, because I'm like, literally calling bullshit on this.

Right?

Because some resistance isn't just something you push through.

Sometimes the resistance is your body telling you.

Your body, your mind, your heart, whatever tells you, telling you that the strategy that you are trying to force is wrong for you.

Right?

And today, that's what we want to talk about.

I want to talk about this.

The difference between this productive discomfort and misalignment and why you don't have to carry this guilt or shame for strategies that just don't work for you, and how to, like, literally trust yourself enough to make your own decisions as a business owner.

Okay, this one might get a little spicy.

All right, let's dive in.

Okay, so I have so many thoughts on this.

And this episode was stemmed.

I actually recorded an episode years ago.

There's probably another one.

If you went back to the beginning of this podcast, there's all.

There's another episode called Examine the Resistance, because this topic comes up a lot.

But this.

This particular episode was stemmed from a threads post that I saw of a woman saying that she was in a coaching program, and the coaching was very much centered around doing conversion events, which know I'm a huge fan of.

Right?

But she's like, for whatever reason, it just doesn't feel good to me, but yet this coach is telling me that it's so great and that it works and I just need to push through it because this is the strategy that works.

But she's like, does anybody else.

Like, is there anybody else that feels this way?

Like, what is going on?

And so I.

That's what stem this.

So I ended up giving her this long response.

And this is where I'm saying, like, examine the resistance.

And I want people to understand that there is a big difference in resistance.

Of.

I'm resisting this because it feels a little bit uncomfortable.

Right?

And I know that this is something that is like, I'm resisting it because I know I want to do it because it's growth and it feels uncomfortable, but it's scary at first, and I just need to take for the action, right?

And like, I just need to move through it.

And sometimes you need help and you need support and you need somebody to be there with you, but, you know, you need to do this, and it's something you want to do, but your body is resisting it because it's, it, it's, it's feeling unsafe, right?

It's a new territory.

And your body is not feeling safe.

Your body and mind is not feeling safe.

And so this resistance is trying to pull you back, right?

But you know that you are on the edge of growth and you need to do this, right?

So like, this could look like raising prices.

It could look like niching down.

It could look like just sending an email, sending a follow up, right?

Like a lot of times we resist follow up because it's like, I know I need to do this, right?

And so sometimes you do need to push through the resistance, right?

In that instance, the resistance is showing up and you got to freaking do it anyways, right?

Like, because that is growth.

That is what you have to do for growth.

However, there's also resistance.

Like this lady was feeling of like, I just don't want to freaking do this.

Like, I don't enjoy this business model.

This does not feel good to me.

I don't, it's not resonating with me.

I don't like it.

Right?

And so pushing through it is not going to get you the results.

Like, you've got to be, be able to discern and ask yourself, like, am I feeling resistance because I'm on the edge of growth and it feels uncomfortable.

And it's like, I'd rather do the safe, comfortable, you know, comfort zone thing.

Or is the resistance coming up?

Because my body and my mind and everything is telling me like, I just don't want to do this.

I just don't want to do it, right?

Because if that's the resistance you're coming up against, then I'm going to tell you to honor that frigging resistance.

And I'm going to give you another example of this.

I have a client who has a very hard time with visibility.

Like, she goes in waves with it.

Like when she's on it, she's on it.

She gets into visibility.

She, she shows up, she has all these great conversations, she does all these things and then she gets new clients and then she literally, her visibility goes out the fricking window.

She doesn't show up in her community, she doesn't show up on her socials.

Like it's this cycle, right?

And she goes through this cycle all the time.

And we've had a lot of conversations about it.

Her and I have been working together for almost two years now, actually, maybe even more than that.

Yeah, I think we're on almost going on a year Three.

Wow.

Okay.

Fun.

And so she came to me with this question.

She's in the Focus Visionary accelerator.

And she came to me and she's like, I need to talk about my visibility.

I'm in this cycle again.

Let's talk about it.

I need to create a plan.

And I literally looked at her and I said, you're not going to do it.

You're not going to do it.

So instead of trying to create yet another plan to help you maintain some level of visibility, I think it's time we start talking about outsourcing it.

I think it's time we start talking about you hiring somebody to do this for you because you yourself are not going to do it.

She has a ton of resistance around it.

She doesn't enjoy it.

She gets obsessive about it.

And literally the relief in her shoulders when I said this, she was like, you're right.

You're so right.

I'm not going to do it.

I'm not going to do it.

And she was guilt.

Feeling guilty about it.

She was giving her, you know, the stories in her mind were making her feel like a failure.

She felt all this shame around it.

And the reality is there's nothing to be shameful about.

There's nothing to feel guilty about.

There's nothing wrong with it.

Like, just admit that, like, you.

This is not your strong suit.

This is not what you want to do.

This is not how you love to show up and so outsource it or find another way.

But, like, continuing to try and find a strategy for something that you do not enjoy and that you're not going to enjoy is just freaking ridiculous.

And it's not.

It's going to send you down the path of burnout.

It's going to make you really start to spiral from, like I said, this guilt, this shame, all of these stories, right?

You're going to start to create all these stories in your head.

How is that freaking productive, right?

So all of these coaches out there telling you, like, just push through the resistance, that's not freaking productive.

If it's going to send you into a spiral of I don't want to do this, right?

And especially add on adhd.

And if you have any level of demand avoidance, your demand avoidance is going to kick in twice as freaking hard.

And then you're really not going to do it.

And then you're going to feel even more guilty and even more bad because it's like, oh, my God, I should be doing this.

And this spiral never freaking ends.

The spiral never ends.

So Resistance is actually a really good thing, right?

And I want you to really understand that you don't need to just always push through, through the resistance, that sometimes you just need to examine the resistance.

Because the resistance can be one of two things.

It can be a growth edge, or it can be a total mis.

Alignment, right?

And if it's growth, if it's like, I'm on the edge of growth, then you're likely going to feel scared, but you're excited about it, right?

Like, I still.

You see the.

Like, you see this side, the other side of it.

It doesn't mean you're any.

It doesn't mean you're not scared.

It doesn't mean that it doesn'.

It doesn't feel a little bit, like, super unfamiliar, right?

It's new, it's unfamiliar, but, you know, it's in alignment with where you want to go, right?

You are very convicted.

And this is the direction I want to go.

Even though this path feels a little bit scary, even though this feels a little bit uncomfortable, like I'm resisting it simply because I'm a little bit nervous.

But you're not, like, it's not this, like, oh, my God, dread feeling, right?

So that's that productive discomfort.

That pushing through the resistance in that way is productive.

However, if you are on the other side of this and it's a total misalignment, you're gonna feel dread, right?

It's not gonna be nervous.

You're gonna get that pit in your stomach like, I don't want to do this.

That's it, right?

Or you will have tried it multiple times, and you're gonna be like, why am I not getting the results when everybody else gets the results?

Well, everybody else is getting the results because it's in alignment for them, right?

And it's not in alignment for you, right?

So if you're forcing yourself into someone else's strategy, that's what I was telling this lady on threads.

I was like, I think that you just need to examine the resistance.

So although the conversion event strategy works very well, it's one that I teach all the time.

It may not be for you, right?

It's not for everybody.

Teaching, doing events, setting them up, creating the content, doing the slides, right?

Here's another example of that.

You all, if you've been around a while, you know this about me is I resisted doing events and, like, workshops and all of that for so long because I freaking hate creating slide decks.

I hate it.

And so as soon as I realized that, like, no, I actually Love the strategy.

I just don't like feeling obligated to create a slide deck.

And I told myself, like, you don't have to push through this resistance.

You can actually just create a worksheet, which is what you love to do, and it's how you love to teach.

And as soon as I gave myself permission to do that, I have run conversion events successfully now for almost seven, eight years now.

Right.

And I.

It's one of my top converting events.

But it wasn't when I felt like I had to create a slide deck.

I don't like the way I talk with a slide deck.

I don't like the way my brain.

I just.

It doesn't work.

Although I did do a slide deck for the talk I did in person at Power Table Live, and I did.

Okay.

But it was a topic that I knew, and I just had the slides there.

I didn't even really use them.

But again, I was forcing myself into somebody else's strategy that said you had to create slides to.

In order to do these masterclasses, workshops, et cetera.

And I was like, yeah, no, I'm not doing it.

So as soon as I stopped doing it, I was like, there was no resistance.

Right?

Like that.

It could be something as simple as that.

Right?

But again, if it's misalignment, you're likely feeling some level of shame around it.

You're feeling some level of guilt, because it's like, I know that this works for other people.

I feel like I should be able to do this.

But you're not.

Right?

And so if there is some shame around it, then examine the resistance and look at it and be like, no, I just don't want to do it.

Right.

I just don't want to do it.

And so some questions that you can ask yourself to very clearly immediately shift.

This is like, does this feel hard because it's new, or does it feel hard because it doesn't feel good?

Like it's wrong?

It feels wrong for me, okay?

And then it's, am I resisting because I'm scared of the success that will come with it, or am I resisting the this because it just genuinely does not fit who I am as a person, my personality, how I like to show up, how I best serve, Right?

And then if you could design this strategy your own way, what would you change?

Right?

So if you could take that strategy, some strategy, and you could design it your own way, what would you change about it?

Right?

And then the last question I would give yourself is a.

A diagnostic would be like, am I doing this because I really want to?

Or I'm doing this because I feel like I'm supposed to the should, right?

Am I doing this because I feel like I should be doing it?

Okay, I'm telling you, I have been doing this almost a decade, pushing through resistance.

This is 90% of the time when people come to me, truly, and that is a very true statement is most of the time people come to me when they have felt like they continue to push through a strategy that they don't freaking like.

And they are feeling so bad about it and they're like, michelle, I just don't understand why it's not working for me.

And I am.

The very first thing I immediately do is go, well, let's just stop fucking doing that then.

I mean, that's as simple as it is, right?

Like, I've said it a hundred times, every strategy works.

But not every strategy is going to work for you.

There is another strategy out there that will work.

So if this one doesn't work for you, then stop fucking doing it.

Period.

End of story.

Okay?

You don't need to keep pushing yourself and forcing yourself to do it.

That is why people stay with me for three, four years.

Like that client, I was just telling you because I know her.

I know where her resistance is going to come up.

I know when I can push her through because she's resisting something because it feels scary and it feels a little bit uncomfortable.

And I know when I have to say to her, we're not pushing through this anymore because it's not going to work.

Right?

That is what is so helpful.

And that is where I really love, love, love working with my clients, especially in the Focus Visionary accelerator.

Because that's more long term, right?

It's not that I can't do this in like the shorter term, no commitment offers, but the, the beautiful growth is in the longer term strategy.

That's why FVA is a hundred percent my main signature offer.

It will be.

And it's one that still lights me up.

Right?

Like we talked about in the last episode about boredom.

I'm not bored with FVA because it's still something that works for me and there are people out there.

I have had coaches tell me, like, you give too much, you don't need to show up that much.

You have too many calls on the calendar, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

That's what works for you.

Thank you very much.

Goodbye.

Right.

Like, there's no resistance here.

I.

There's absolutely no resistance for me inside of the focus Visionary accelerator because it is created in a way for me.

I built it in what works for me in the way I best serve.

So there's no resistance coming up about it.

I can talk about it easily.

You can hear the passion in my voice about it because I freaking love it.

There's nothing I am resisting.

However, I had another offer that was a very high ticket offer.

It was a one month offer.

It was a very specific audience.

It was, it would, it really only works for a very specific type of client in a very specific place in their business.

And like, I had a lot of resistance about posting about it and talking about it.

And I'm like, at the end of the day, I finally just said to myself, like, okay, you have it.

It's not like you can't do it if that one specific like exact client comes.

But like, stop promoting it.

Right?

This is not, this had nothing to do with me feeling uncomfortable about charging a higher ticket.

I have high ticket offers.

Like, I really feel like my offers are fairly high ticket.

Like not.

They're not high ticket, they're kind of mid ticket, right?

Like FVA is 7:50amonth.

So over the course of 12 months, it's a $9,000 offer.

It's not low ticket.

Right.

This other offer was like a 5,000 for a month because it was a super intense, like it was truly an intensive offer.

We were spending multiple days in a row together.

And it worked.

Like I said, for a very specific audience, it worked, but I just had a lot of resistance around it.

And so I've seen other people have those high ticket offers, but I was like, it's just not me.

Like, why am I, why am I creating this when I freaking love FVA and I can talk about it all goddamn day?

Why am I sitting here trying to force myself into this offer for what, when I could just put people in the offer that I love?

Right?

So again, like, was I resisting it because it was new?

Because it was pushing me to a new income level?

No.

Many coaches probably would tell me it was, but I was resisting it because it's like, I don't really love it either.

I don't want that many calls on my calendar.

I don't want to.

It's.

It just wasn't the perfect fit for me.

Right?

And that's what I mean about examining the resistance.

It was like, why am I not promoting this offer?

Well, because I don't really love it.

And so if you don't love it, you're not going to promote it.

If you don't love a strategy.

You're not going to do it.

If you don't love being on video, you're not going to create it.

Right?

But like, again, if you love to write blogs and you love to write long emails and long form content, then, like, find your audience that loves long form content.

You know, I don't always love to create graphics and stuff.

That's why I love threads.

Right.

So again, there's.

There's the resistance that comes up when you're excited but you're nervous.

And it's like, ooh, this feels like this is moving me into a place I've never been before, right?

So like when I applied to speak at certain, like when I apply to be a speaker at in person events, I always have resistance against it because it's uncomfortable.

It's a new territory for me.

Yes, I want to be a speaker, but it's also in the direction I want to go.

I want to be a speaker.

I know I want to be on stage.

I know once I'm on stage, I love it.

I know once the application is filled out, I'm good.

But the resistance always shows up because it is that little bit of like, this is new, right?

But I just.

That's resistance you push through.

But on the other hand, if somebody told me I had to move into a launch energy and I needed to launch FVA instead of making it evergreen, I would resist that all day long.

Because I effing hate being in launch energy.

That is why almost every single one of my offers is evergreen.

Because I do not enjoy launch energy.

I do not enjoy the stress of it.

I will resist it.

It fucks with my mind.

It like, brings up every limiting belief I've ever.

You know, it just.

I don't like it.

I don't like it.

So I can resist it all day long.

I don't like it.

I'm not going to do it.

Right?

And that's the thing is, like, I don't carry any guilt and I don't carry any shame about the fact that some people do launches and it works really fricking well for them and they kill it.

And they have these big huge launches and they make all their money once a year, but there's so much more that goes behind that.

Don't let anybody kid you.

There's so much work that goes behind it.

It's not like they're just throwing something out there making 100k.

Right?

Okay, bye.

But again, I don't carry any guilt or shame around it because it's like, okay, it worked for everybody else, why not me?

Because it's not me, right?

It.

I'm not everybody else.

And I will find a. I will find a way that works for me.

Okay?

And the shame that you have of, like, abandoning strategies that you invested in.

Like, I know that this woman on Threads is feeling kind of like the shame of, like, I invested into this program and I feel bad because I don't want to do it and she's telling me to do the work.

No, you don't have to feel it.

It's just like, okay, you tried it, you learn from it, right?

Like, you don't have to feel shameful of it.

It's just data.

Use it as data, use it as information.

Learn from it, grow from it.

Don't do it again, right?

Like, that's as simple as it has to be.

Like, there is no guilt around it.

You don't have to carry any guilt or shame around it.

You literally can just say, like, I tried it, it didn't work, didn't work.

Right?

And you know, so many people feel like, I invested into this, so I have to make it work.

No, you don't.

Right.

No, you don't.

And that is something that is such a core, core value to me inside of FVA that I work with every single client individually on, because I, that's why it's like, I call it a group program, but it's literally one to one, just disguised in a group mastermind, because there's value in a group mastermind.

But I give every single person in their one to one attention.

I know their business, I know them personally.

Because I never want somebody to jump into the Focus Visionary Accelerator and feel like they have to implement a strategy that everybody else is implementing that, that they don't like.

I literally just had a call, a call today where I told somebody to cold pitch.

She wants to start cold pitching.

I was like, let's do it.

But just understand what it looks like, Just set your expectations.

But if you want a cold pitch, like, it's a strategy that works.

It's worked for a hundred years.

Is it one that's going to work for you?

Probably not for, like, you listening.

Is it one that I would recommend to everybody?

No.

But in her situation, I do agree it's a strategy that will work, right?

So again, that's what I mean.

Like, just because you've paid for something, you don't have to feel like, I, I paid to learn this strategy and now I learned it and I hate it.

But I have to do it anyways because they pay for it.

No, you don't.

Like, you learn from it.

You grow from it.

Okay?

You know, you can.

You can move on from it.

And that is something that I take so seriously inside of the Focus Visionary Accelerator.

Because I do not want anyone to feel like they just got handed this one size fits all strategy and tell you to execute it.

And part of that is because I know my own personality.

I bought those programs, I've been in those programs.

I've done the thing and I'm like, I've carried the guilt, I've carried shame around.

Holy shit.

Why is this working for everybody else and not me?

Because it's not me, right?

It's not me.

And I don't want to do it.

Okay?

So again, I just want you.

I wanted to record this episode because I think it is so important for the conversation to be had around examining the resistance in pushing through.

It is not always the answer.

Pushing through it is not going to get you the growth that you are desiring if your body is not literally telling you it doesn't want to do that.

Okay?

You need to listen to it, you need to examine it, and you need to learn to trust yourself.

You know yourself better than anybody else.

Now, sometimes, like with this client, again, the client that didn't want to do the visibility and stuff like that is the value in having somebody else that can see you.

Because sometimes we can get into those traps where we just constantly feel.

Because the noise, the pressure of the online space or business in general feeling like we have to do, have to do, have to do.

And sometimes we just need somebody to come in and be like, let's talk about this.

Let's.

Let me tell you what I'm seeing.

And now I want you to have the conversation, like, if you can't do that discernment on your own, this is very powerful.

This is part of the value in having a coach, right?

This is why you have coaches.

This is why we hire strategists and coaches.

Because we can't often discern this stuff on our own.

But you can really just sit with yourself and say, like, is this.

Am I resisting this simply because it's new and exciting, but it feels scary as fuck?

Or am I resisting this because it feels, like, completely out of alignment?

And I just freaking do not want to do that.

Right?

There is a big difference.

And that question alone is going to move you so much faster when you can learn to discern that and just examine this versus just constantly pushing through.

Okay, so I'm going to wrap this one up.

I want you to remember, not all resistance is a self sabotage.

Sometimes it's just your body telling you that this strategy is wrong for you.

You do not have to push through everything.

You get to decide what is worth your energy and what is not.

And here's what I really want you to remember.

You are the CEO of your own business.

You make the rules and you don't owe anyone an explanation for doing business your way.

Hopefully you're hearing a theme in these episodes because this is what needs to be said, right?

If you listen to the last episode, you're hearing the same thing.

Around not feeling guilty, around not feeling shameful.

This is my mission in life right now.

This is my mission in business, is to help people get out of this shame and guilt spiral because so many business owners are living in it for absolutely no reason.

Fucking reason.

None.

Okay?

You make the rules.

You are the CEO.

All right?

I love you, I believe in you and I will talk to you soon.