The most sophisticated villain creation happens in your own head. You split yourself into parts and declare war. The disciplined self fights the lazy self. The ambitious self quarrels with the comfortable self. The good self goes to war with the bad self.
This internal villainization feels productive because you're fighting your demons and conquering weakness. You declare war on procrastination, make it the enemy, and fight it with willpower and discipline. It fights back by getting stronger. The harder you battle, the more energy you feed it. Your resistance becomes its fuel.
Every internal villain follows the same pattern. The more you fight anxiety, the more anxious you become about being anxious. The more you battle negative thoughts, the more mental energy you spend thinking negative thoughts. The more you battle against your body, the more your body wars against you. . . .
The solution is integration and understanding that your procrastination is trying to protect yourself from judgment, your anxiety is trying to keep you safe, and your comfortable self is trying to preserve energy for survival.
They are merely parts of you serving outdated functions. Fighting them creates internal civil war, but understanding them creates internal peace. The issue is peace doesn't provide the same chemical hit as war, so most people keep fighting themselves until they die.
-Stan Taylor, The Black Book of Power
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