Working the Resistance by Parts
The part of you that's scared to ask won't go away by being ignored — interview it instead.
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 88%
The steps of asking are simple; what stops people is resistance. Berger borrows Internal Family Systems to work with it: treat the reluctance as a part of you with its own information, rather than a defect to override. You address the frightened part directly, let it state its catastrophic story, validate that the fear makes sense given the story, and then bring in reality. Embracing the part is what softens the fear — suppressing it is what keeps you stuck.
Origin
The parts model is Internal Family Systems, the psychotherapy modality developed by Richard Schwartz; Berger names IFS explicitly and adapts it to the specific resistance that blocks asking. He also references DBT (Dear Man) and nonviolent communication as converging on the same factual-expression discipline.
Core principles
- 01We already speak this way: 'part of me thinks this, part of me thinks that.'
- 02Parts don't always agree with each other, and that's normal.
- 03We hold some parts as virtuous and others (the whiny one, the scared one) as bad — and only listen to the ones we approve of.
- 04Ignoring the part that's scared to ask is exactly how you stay stuck.
- 05Softening happens through embrace, not through argument or shame.
How to run it
- 1
Notice the resistance as a part, not as truth
When you stall before an ask, name it: a part of me doesn't want to do this. Separating the part from the whole self is what makes it interviewable instead of paralyzing.
- 2
Turn toward it with curiosity
Address it directly and warmly — you seem terrified, what's going on? The tone matters; the point is contact, not interrogation.
Pro tip Include the parts you're least proud of. The whiny part and the scared part carry the data you're missing.
- 3
Let it state the catastrophic story in full
Surface the whole thing: your whole professional reputation is staked on this, you're an impostor, they're going to find out, and you'll never work again. Written out, it becomes an object you can examine.
- 4
Validate the fear given the story
Of course you'd be scared — that makes a ton of sense. Validation is not agreement with the story; it's acknowledgment that the fear is a rational response to the story it believes.
Watch out Skipping straight to 'that's irrational' re-suppresses the part and the fear returns unchanged.
- 5
Introduce reality alongside the fear
I know that's scary, and we also know it's not really true — you're not an impostor, you're an experienced professional. Hold both, then make the ask.
Pro tip Pair this with the factual-expression discipline shared by NVC, Carol Robin's feedback template, and DBT's Dear Man: state what you think, what you feel, and what you observed — a video camera's worth of fact — and drop the stories.
In the wild
Someone can't bring themselves to make an ask. Rather than pushing through, Berger has them address the scared part directly — why are you scared, you seem terrified, what's going on? Out comes the story: your whole professional reputation is staked on this, you're an impostor, they'll find out, and you'll never work again.
→ Embracing the part rather than being ashamed of it is what softens the fear, allowing the person to say: yes, that's scary, and we also know it's not really true — you're an experienced professional. The ask becomes possible.
Berger's read on the documentary: at the top of the sport everyone is technically perfect, so the differentiator is entirely mental. Players carry narratives — I'm behind, the other person's better, I'm not going to be able to do this.
→ The winners are the ones working through the resistance rather than believing it: that's just a story I have, I don't actually know what's going to happen, but I'm going to try to win.
Common mistakes
Trying to overpower the fear instead of listening to it
Pushing the scared part down doesn't remove it — it just removes your access to what it knows, and the resistance keeps operating from underneath, silently blocking every ask.
Only respecting your virtuous parts
Ranking parts (this one is good, that one is whiny and bad) means you discard the information carried by the ones you disapprove of. Effective asking requires bringing all of them in.
Expressing stories as if they were feelings
'I feel like you're being difficult' is a story, not a feeling. Facts are: what I think, what I feel, and what a video camera would have recorded. Stories smuggled in as feelings make the ask murky and put people on the defensive.
Is it for you?
Best for
High-achievers who intellectually understand what to ask for but freeze, procrastinate, or self-censor at the moment of asking
Not ideal for
Purely tactical or transactional asks where no internal resistance is present — this is overhead if you're not blocked
From the transcript
“Well, I I'm I'm a big fan of internal family systems, which is this sort of psychotherapy technique that really talks about parts and and…”
“really to to sort of ask effectively, we generally need to embrace all these parts and really bring in all the information they're bringing in.”
“we can know our thoughts, we can know our feelings cuz no one else can know that better than us. And maybe we can trust…”
From the episode
Why not asking for what you want is holding you back
Kenneth Berger (exec coach, first PM at Slack)