The Curious Case of the Endless Learning Curve: Resistance as Research

Have you ever found yourself optimizing instead of doing? Today I'm sharing how my deep dive into sleep hygiene turned into a masterclass in creative resistance and why your curiosity might be pointing in the wrong direction.

3, 2, 1. Let's go. Welcome to Transition Space, your gateway from thinking to doing. I'm Mia Torr. If you're called to create meaningful work, use this podcast as part of your starting ritual. Make your coffee and clear your desk while you listen, and we'll hang out as you ease into focused flow. While you create your space, I'll help you entertain the transition. Come on in.

Today on Transition Space, a story about sleep hygiene, infinite rabbit holes, and what happens when your distractions come disguised as research.

Let's rewind to a phase I now lovingly refer to as the Great Sleep Spiral.

It was late fall, one of those weeks when the leaves were gold on the trees and soggy on the ground. I remember it so clearly because our weather saw two straight weeks of fog. 

I had never seen anything like it. We were blanketed in fog morning through night. The visibility was dismal, and the fog outside mirrored how I felt on the inside.

I was deep in caregiving mode for my elderly dad, who had just come home from four months in the hospital. I was coordinating home nursing, navigating new prescriptions, and trying so hard to keep up with the kids' school schedules. At the same time, my work sat in the background like a forgotten tab.

But the thing that was taking the biggest hit? My sleep.

I was tired, burned out, wired, and exhausted at the same time. I knew I wasn't getting enough rest. And every productivity expert, wellness influencer, and oat milk drinking mindfulness coach on the Internet had made one thing abundantly clear. My sleep was the missing puzzle piece. It was the key to everything. Focus, creativity, metabolism, mood, ambition, skin relationships, and probably world peace.

So naturally, I did what any overwhelmed woman with a wifi connection would do. I began a sleep optimization project.

Not by sleeping. No, that would be too obvious.

I downloaded sleep trackers. I listened to podcasts. I bought lavender sprays, magnesium gummies, a sunrise alarm clock, and four different herbal teas that promised to tuck me in with angelic harp sounds. I found YouTube videos on sleep hygiene, and I binge-watched ASMR. If good sleep required a PhD, I was gunning for it.

I knew everything about sleep except what it felt like.

And still, every night, I found myself doomscrolling in bed until 1am- not because I didn't know better, but because research somehow felt like action. But that wasn't what I needed, what I really needed was permission to stop scrolling, put the phone down, and rest.

So I did something revolutionary. I gave myself that permission. And I stopped.

I put away the apps, I skipped the podcasts, I stopped trying to biohack my biology. I listened to my body, put on my coziest pajamas, turned out the light, and just let myself be tired.

That night I slept.

It was the first time in weeks I woke up actually feeling rested, feeling human. And I realized the same thing that had sabotaged my sleep was also creeping into my work. I'd been collecting rituals instead of writing, researching instead of reaching for the work, mistaking preparation for progress. And just like with sleep, what I really needed wasn't another trick or tracker. It was a way to stop circling and finally begin.

This is exactly why my favorite book has lived on my desk for 14 years. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. It's not that I've forgotten to shelve it for over a decade, though. Honestly, that tracks.

It's because it's my getting-started bible, my compass for those moments when resistance is dressed up as curiosity, productivity, or even self-care. That book has saved me more times than I can count, usually when I've managed to turn resistance into something that looks deceptively productive.

Which brings me to one of my personal classic moments.

Picture me undercaffeinated and bedraggled and two hours deep into journaling about why I'm not qualified to start. I would write pages and pages of gorgeous, perfectly articulated self-doubt. I was still that kid who could ace the test but couldn't turn in the homework. Still finding new ways to know everything except how to trust myself to begin.

Here's the thing. When you're curious about everything, it makes every distraction look important.

My daily journal became an elaborate proof of my own unreadiness. The same voice that used to say "I know" to everything was now expertly documenting all the reasons I don't know enough.

And look. Being able to find meaning everywhere. It is absolutely a superpower. It's an absolute gift to be present to so much possibility in the world. But resistance knows exactly how to use it against me.

When everything is fascinating, your knowledge risks the danger of stretching a mile wide and an inch deep. I feel like I wade in and suddenly feel out of my depth. 

That's exactly what Steven Pressfield warned me about 14 years ago and every productive workday since. The more important the work is to your soul's calling, the more sophisticated the distractions, the closer you get to meaningful creation, the more interesting everything else becomes.

The War of Art also taught me something else. Resistance points directly at the work that matters most. It's a compass. The stronger the Resistance, the more interesting my distractions become, the more certain I can be that I'm facing exactly what I need to do next.

These days, when I catch myself creating elaborate systems instead of using them, or developing fascinating theories about why I'm not ready, I reach for that battle-tested book on my desk. I open it to a random page. I let it remind me what I'm really facing. And then. This is key. I turn that meaning-making superpower toward the work itself.

Because Resistance doesn't need you to fail. It just needs you to get brilliantly, fascinatingly distracted. To make everything else so interesting that you never quite get to the one thing that matters most.

The trick isn't to stop being curious. It's not about shutting down your ability to find meaning everywhere. It's about you using that same gift to make the actual work as fascinating as the distractions.

Your brain is brilliant at making meaning. And your curiosity is proof. Proof your mind is wired for depth.

You are as ready as you need to be. That depth is a powerful foundation. Stand on it, light it up, and go build what matters.

Whether you're making coffee or arranging your desk right now, ask yourself, what if your gift for making things fascinating became your way into the work instead of your escape route?

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Visit authenticnetworker.com/transitionspace and tell me all about your resistance disguised as research.

This is Transition Space, where you clear your path from thinking to doing. I'm Mia, and together we've shaped what's possible. Now it's your turn to make it real.