Great Work is the work that matters most to you.
👋 Hi, I'm Dr. Amanda Crowell.
I'm a cognitive psychologist and the author of Great Work. I study one of the most frustrating contradictions in human behavior: why we resist doing the very things that matter most to us.
Procrastination. Perfectionism. Overthinking. Avoidance. Delaying. Self-sabotage.
These are all familiar ways we get in our own way. And they have something important in common: they replace productive failure (where you do it badly, but get better over time) with defensive failure (the failure of doing nothing, which gets you nowhere).
The more we understand what's driving this resistance, the more freedom we have to do the work that matters most to us.
🧠 LEARN MORE
What Is Resistance?
Why We Sabotage Our Great Work
You know what matters to you. You may even know exactly what you need to do next.
So why do you keep putting it off?
The answer lies in the psychology of resistance.
From procrastination and perfectionism to the competing commitments that keep us stuck, understanding resistance can change how we approach our Great Work.
Where Would You Like To Begin?
Your Great Work is yours.
Yours to discover. Yours to do. Yours to share.
And there's no better time to start than NOW!
LET'S DO THIS!
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Your Great Work Is Waiting (free course)
Discover the clues to your Great Work in this free, self-paced course. Explore what excites you, what matters most, and what you might be ready to bring into the world.
👉 Find Your Great WorkRead the Book
Discover what makes work meaningful, why we resist doing what matters most, and how to overcome the barriers that keep us stuck.
👉 Explore the BookTry the Journal
Make room for your Great Work with a simple daily practice that helps you clarify your priorities, stay connected to your vision, and keep moving forward.
👉 Explore the Journal -
Understand What's Keeping You Stuck
Explore the psychology of resistance, competing commitments, and defensive failure, and discover why we sometimes sabotage the work that matters most to us.
👉 Read the Resistance GuideJoin a Great Work Workshop
Join interactive workshops that help you rethink familiar challenges, experiment with new approaches, and bring more of your Great Work into your life.
👉 Explore Upcoming WorkshopsGet Coaching for Your Great Work
Work with Amanda to understand what's keeping you stuck, navigate competing commitments, and make meaningful progress on your Great Work.
👉 Explore Coaching -
Why Aren't You Promoting Your Great Work?
You know your ideas could help people. So why is it so hard to put yourself out there? Take the quiz to discover what's driving your resistance to visibility.
👉 Take the Visibility QuizExplore the Great Work Visibility Lab
Build an audience for your ideas, become known for your expertise, and create opportunities for your Great Work without relying on constant posting or performative self-promotion.
👉 Explore the Visibility Lab
ABOUT DR. AMANDA CROWELL
I help people discover, do, and share their Great Work (without sacrificing everything else).
I'm a cognitive psychologist, the author of Great Work, and a professor at the Hunter College School of Education in New York City.
Over the years, I've explored lots of questions about productivity, motivation, creativity, and mindset in the pursuit of Great Work.
In all that time, there's one subject that gets people going every single time: resistance.
It's the subject of my Quartz article about the psychology of following through, which went wildly viral, and it's at the core of my viral TEDx talk about why we don't do what we say we want to do, where I explore defensive failure. And frankly, it's the part of Great Work people talk to me about most.
There's something endlessly fascinating and deeply frustrating about being genuinely committed to your Great Work while seemingly doing everything in your power to avoid it.
Through my speaking, coaching, workshops, and teaching, I help people understand what's driving their resistance and use that understanding to make progress on their Great Work.
3 Reasons You Aren't Doing What You Say You Will Do
A 12-minute TEDx talk about defensive failure, resistance, and why doing our Great Work can be surprisingly difficult.
THE CATALYST BLOG
Ideas for Doing Your Great Work
“What happens when clarity meets consistency:
I read this book during a week I was feeling discouraged about how long it was taking to make progress on one of my big goals. The author does a great job of identifying many of the ways we hold ourselves back, and I love her model for how to break your vision into 90 day goals, a weekly task, and daily to dos. Lo and behold, before I had finished the book, one of my little actions had led to a big breakthrough!”