Why Am I So Resistant To Structure?

I’ve found that many people are very resistant to adding more structure to their life. They believe that more structure would confine them, limit their ability to be spontaneous, and put them in a box that takes away their freedom. But seeing what structure actually does for people rather than relating with it in an extreme way, I believe there’s a way to reframe structure so that you can see it as a tool that actually helps you live in closer alignment to who you want to be, even as a free-spirit.

One of the complaints made by those who are new to ‘having structure’ is that a structured life is overly rigid. That structure eliminates your independence and free-will because it mandates that you live a certain way. But the healthiest type of structure is designed to be accommodating, with enough flexibility to handle variability in life while still offering some guardrails to make sure that you don’t go completely off course. 

The free-flowing person rejects the idea of “coloring between the lines”, but honestly it’s more representative of their personal bias than it is the reality of having structure. The structure is there to help make sure you as an individual are balanced, organized, sustainable, and effective in whatever it is you choose to do. The constraints in place are only enough to make sure you’re living productively and with intentionality, and someone resistant to structure underestimates how much creative freedom they have while living within those constraints.  

Everything I’ve described is pretty abstract, so let’s make it tangible. A simple structure you could create, that many people are most strongly opposed to, is having a schedule for the day. For some, having a schedule feels too routine and robotic to really enjoy life. That following a schedule for the day means you can’t embrace any of the spontaneity of life and it doesn’t enable you to do things when you most feel like doing them.

But in actuality having a schedule helps you to embrace those nuances. A schedule helps you to quantify the implications, consequences, and considerations of spontaneous things and help you thoughtfully decide if you want to do them. It gives you more feedback for your emotions so that you can choose when to be disciplined, and when to be more flowy. 

What a schedule does is it helps you live even more intentionally because every time you want to deviate away from your plan, now you’re choosing to do that. Previous to that, having no structure and no schedule means that you unconsciously go wherever the wind takes you with little thought or control, and it often takes you off track in ways you wouldn’t want to go. But the structure offers you guardrails against that while empowering you to lean fully into the things that most serve you.

Again, if you’re resistant to structure, perhaps all you need is a perspective shift. Discipline can lead to freedom. Structure can be flexible in design. And your life can become more productive, contributing, and enjoyable when you have a foundation of awareness and intentionality built into it.