Resolve Inner Conflict

Most advice for being stuck comes down to pushing through. Make yourself do it, talk yourself out of it, or pick a side and stop thinking about it. That can carry you for a day. But the part of you that objected hasn’t gone anywhere, and it tends to come back as dread, putting things off, or regret.

Resolve Inner Conflict takes the other road. It’s a skill, a set of plain written instructions you add to an AI such as Claude or ChatGPT, that turns the AI into a patient thinking partner for one job. It helps you find a plan that no part of you is still fighting. Resistance is treated as a criticism worth hearing out, not a weakness to overcome, and the way forward usually turns out to be something new that answers both sides rather than a trade between them.

It’s for anyone who keeps putting something off, can’t choose between two options, has said yes to something they dread, or feels uneasy about a plan without knowing why. It works on small things, like finally starting at the gym, and big ones, like leaving a course or moving for a job.

Add it to your AI

Copy this line into a new chat with your AI, whether that’s Claude, ChatGPT or another.

AI tools that work with files on your computer, such as Claude Code and Codex, install it for good. A chat app such as Claude or ChatGPT reads it and uses it in that chat. To have it in every chat, or if your AI can’t open links, add it by hand (opens in a new tab).

What a session is like

You start a chat by asking your AI to use Resolve Inner Conflict and saying what’s going on, in your own words. From there the AI asks one short question at a time and follows where your answers go. Half-formed answers are fine. “Something’s off” counts, even when you can’t say why.

You lead. It doesn’t push you towards either side, and it keeps its own ideas for a way forward until you’ve been properly heard, then asks before offering one. If you ask what it thinks, it tells you honestly and says it’s a guess. If you hit a practical snag, such as not knowing where to begin, it helps with that straight away.

Here’s how a session might begin (the person is made up).

You: Use Resolve Inner Conflict. I keep telling myself I’ll start at the gym, and then I don’t go.

AI: What comes to mind when you picture walking in tomorrow?

You: Dread, honestly. Wandering round the machines with no plan while everyone watches.

AI: That sounds like the real obstacle, more than the exercise. Most gyms offer a free first session with a trainer who’ll give you a short routine. Would having a plan handed to you change how tomorrow feels?

A session ends when you’re no longer fighting the plan, or whenever you want to stop. Either way you get a short summary in your own words of what became clearer, the plan if there is one, and anything still open. In AI tools that can save files, it can also keep notes so you can pick up another day without starting over.

It’s a thinking partner, not a counsellor or a doctor. If anything you say points to a risk of serious harm to you or someone else, it will ask about it kindly and point you to help, and it won’t treat that as one more side to weigh.

Adding it by hand

First, download the skill. It’s one small folder of plain text files, zipped.

Claude: on the web or in the desktop app, on any plan including the free one.

1. In Settings, open Capabilities and turn on code execution, if it isn’t on already.
2. Go to Customize, then Skills. Choose +, then Create skill, then Upload a skill, and pick the zip file.

ChatGPT: if you see Skills in the sidebar (some work and school plans have it), choose Create, then Upload from your computer, and pick the zip. If you don’t, use a project.

1. Unzip the file. Make a new project and add the files inside to it (SKILL.md and the three files in its references folder).
2. Set the project’s instructions to “When I ask for Resolve Inner Conflict, follow SKILL.md.” Then start your chats in that project.

Claude Code: unzip it into ~/.claude/skills.

Codex, Cursor and other coding tools: most of them, including Gemini CLI and GitHub Copilot, read ~/.agents/skills, so unzip it there.

Any other AI: open SKILL.md from the zip, copy all of it, and paste it at the start of a new chat. That one file does the main work. The others add detail for keeping notes and for unusual situations.

Then, in whichever AI you use, start a new chat by asking it to use Resolve Inner Conflict, followed by what’s on your mind. In coding tools you can also type its short name, $resolve-inner-conflict.

The source

The skill is free and open source, under the MIT licence. You can read every word of it, or suggest a change, on GitHub (opens in a new tab).