Tag: 2019

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The War of Art

Author: Steven Pressfield
Recommended for: Anyone working on a creative or entrepreneurial endeavor
Read: November 2014, October 2019

Quick Summary:

The War of Art is an essential book for anyone working on a creative or entrepreneurial endeavor. In The War of Art, Steven Pressfield identifies the force that opposes our creative efforts as Resistance. Pressfield points out the different forms that Resistance takes and methods that it uses to undermine us every step of the way. Pressfield also provides strategies for overcoming Resistance, primarily by focusing on mastering our craft and showing up every single day.

If you enjoyed The War of Art, you can follow the book with Do the Work, a short follow-up read that focuses on overcoming and defeating Resistance.

There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance. 

What does it tell us about the architecture of our psyches that, without our exerting effort or even thinking about it, some voice in our head pipes up to counsel us (and counsel us wisely) on how to do our work and live our lives? Whose voice is it? What software is grinding away, scanning gigabytes, while we, our mainstream selves, are otherwise occupied? 

Key Lessons:

  • That feeling that I feel inside – the one that attempts to block me at every turn – that is real, and not something I made up. All creative individuals must wrestle with it.
  • We can defeat Resistance by simply dedicating ourselves to our work at the same time every day. Treat your work professionally. Show up, no matter what.

My Highlights

Italicized sub-bullet comments are mine.

  • When inspiration touches talent, she gives birth to truth and beauty. 
  • How many pages have I produced? I don’t care. Are they any good? I don’t even think about it. All that matters is I’ve put in my time and hit it with all I’ve got. 
    • Eventually, once you’ve put in enough time, you’ll come up with something good!
  • There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance. 
  • Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance. 
  • One night I was layin’ down, I heard Papa talkin’ to Mama. I heard Papa say, to let that boy boogie-woogie. ‘Cause it’s in him and it’s got to come out. — John Lee Hooker, “Boogie Chillen”
  • How many of us have become drunks and drug addicts, developed tumors and neuroses, succumbed to painkillers, gossip, and compulsive cell-phone use, simply because we don’t do that thing that our hearts, our inner genius, is calling us to? Resistance defeats us. 
  • The enemy is a very good teacher. — the Dalai Lama 
  • Resistance is not a peripheral opponent. Resistance arises from within. It is self-generated and self-perpetuated. Resistance is the enemy within. 
  • Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it. 
  • We’re wrong if we think we’re the only ones struggling with Resistance. Everyone who has a body experiences Resistance. 
  • The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day. 
  • Resistance has no strength of its own. Every ounce of juice it possesses comes from us. We feed it with power by our fear of it. Master that fear and we conquer Resistance. 
  • RESISTANCE IS MOST POWERFUL AT THE FINISH LINE 
  • Odysseus almost got home years before his actual homecoming. Ithaca was in sight, close enough that the sailors could see the smoke of their families’ fires on shore. Odysseus was so certain he was safe, he actually lay down for a snooze. It was then that his men, believing there was gold in an ox-hide sack among their commander’s possessions, snatched this prize and cut it open. The bag contained the adverse Winds, which King Aeolus had bottled up for Odysseus when the wanderer had touched earlier at his blessed isle. The winds burst forth now in one mad blow, driving Odysseus’ ships back across every league of ocean they had with such difficulty traversed, making him endure further trials and sufferings before, at last and alone, he reached home for good. 
  • The danger is greatest when the finish line is in sight. At this point, Resistance knows we’re about to beat it. It hits the panic button. It marshals one last assault and slams us with everything it’s got. 
  • The professional must be alert for this counterattack. Be wary at the end. Don’t open that bag of wind. 
  • The reason is that they are struggling, consciously or unconsciously, against their own Resistance. The awakening writer’s success becomes a reproach to them. If she can beat these demons, why can’t they? 
  • Often couples or close friends, even entire families, will enter into tacit compacts whereby each individual pledges (unconsciously) to remain mired in the same slough in which she and all her cronies have become so comfortable. 
  • The highest treason a crab can commit is to make a leap for the rim of the bucket. 
  • The awakening artist must be ruthless, not only with herself but with others. Once you make your break, you can’t turn around for your buddy who catches his trouser leg on the barbed wire. The best thing you can do for that friend (and he’d tell you this himself, if he really is your friend) is to get over the wall and keep motating. 
  • The best and only thing that one artist can do for another is to serve as an example and an inspiration. 
  • The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit. We don’t just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed. 
  • Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on Resistance. 
  • We get ourselves in trouble because it’s a cheap way to get attention. Trouble is a faux form of fame. It’s easier to get busted in the bedroom with the faculty chairman’s wife than it is to finish that dissertation on the metaphysics of motley in the novellas of Joseph Conrad. 
  • Ill health is a form of trouble, as are alcoholism and drug addiction, proneness to accidents, all neurosis including compulsive screwing-up, and such seemingly benign foibles as jealousy, chronic lateness, and the blasting of rap music at 110 dB from your smoked-glass ’95 Supra. Anything that draws attention to ourselves through pain-free or artificial means is a manifestation of Resistance. 
    • I have certainly been guilty here. For years at a time.
  • The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work. The working artist banishes from her world all sources of trouble. She harnesses the urge for trouble and transforms it in her work. 
    • And this is my cure
  • When we drug ourselves to blot out our soul’s call, we are being good Americans and exemplary consumers. We’re doing exactly what TV commercials and pop materialist culture have been brainwashing us to do from birth. Instead of applying self-knowledge, self-discipline, delayed gratification and hard work, we simply consume a product. 
  • What finally convinced me to go ahead was simply that I was so unhappy not going ahead. I was developing symptoms. As soon as I sat down and began, I was okay. 
  • John Lennon once wrote: Well, you think you’re so clever and classless and free / But you’re all fucking peasants / As far as I can see 
  • We unplug ourselves from the grid by recognizing that we will never cure our restlessness by contributing our disposable income to the bottom line of Bullshit, Inc., but only by doing our work. 
  • We’re wired tribally, to act as part of a group. Our psyches are programmed by millions of years of hunter-gatherer evolution. We know what the clan is; we know how to fit into the band and the tribe. What we don’t know is how to be alone. We don’t know how to be free individuals. 
  • The artist and the fundamentalist arise from societies at differing stages of development. The artist is the advanced model. His culture possesses affluence, stability, enough excess of resource to permit the luxury of self-examination. The artist is grounded in freedom. He is not afraid of it. He is lucky. He was born in the right place. He has a core of self- confidence, of hope for the future. He believes in progress and evolution. His faith is that humankind is advancing, however haltingly and imperfectly, toward a better world. 
  • Fundamentalism is the philosophy of the powerless, the conquered, the displaced and the dispossessed. Its spawning ground is the wreckage of political and military defeat, as Hebrew fundamentalism arose during the Babylonian captivity, as white Christian fundamentalism appeared in the American South during Reconstruction, as the notion of the Master Race evolved in Germany following World War I. In such desperate times, the vanquished race would perish without a doctrine that restored hope and pride. 
  • The humanist believes that humankind, as individuals, is called upon to co-create the world with God. This is why he values human life so highly. In his view, things do progress, life does evolve; each individual has value, at least potentially, in advancing this cause. 
  • The paradox seems to be, as Socrates demonstrated long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery. While those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them. 
  • If you find yourself criticizing other people, you’re probably doing it out of Resistance. When we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived out our own. 
  • Individuals who are realized in their own lives almost never criticize others. If they speak at all, it is to offer encouragement. 
  • Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it. 
  • The professional tackles the project that will make him stretch. He takes on the assignment that will bear him into uncharted waters, compel him to explore unconscious parts of himself. 
  • (Conversely, the professional turns down roles that he’s done before. He’s not afraid of them anymore. Why waste his time?) 
  • If you didn’t love the project that is terrifying you, you wouldn’t feel anything. 
  • Grandiose fantasies are a symptom of Resistance. They’re the sign of an amateur. The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a by-product of work. 
  • The professional concentrates on the work and allows rewards to come or not come, whatever they like. 
  • What are we trying to heal, anyway? The athlete knows the day will never come when he wakes up pain-free. He has to play hurt. 
  • Have you ever been to a workshop? These boondoggles are colleges of Resistance. They ought to give out Ph.D.’s in Resistance. What better way of avoiding work than going to a workshop? But what I hate even worse is the word support. 
    • Pressfield’s view certainly makes me feel less guilty about holding this view as well!
  • It is one thing to study war and another to live the warrior’s life. — Telamon of Arcadia, mercenary of the fifth century B.C. 
  • Someone once asked Somerset Maugham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration. “I write only when inspiration strikes,” he replied. “Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.” That’s a pro. 
  • I’m keenly aware of the Principle of Priority, which states (a) you must know the difference between what is urgent and what is important, and (b) you must do what’s important first. 
  • The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation. 
  • Remember, the Muse favors working stiffs. She hates prima donnas. To the gods the supreme sin is not rape or murder, but pride. To think of yourself as a mercenary, a gun for hire, implants the proper humility. It purges pride and preciousness. 
  • Resistance loves pride and preciousness. Resistance says, “Show me a writer who’s too good to take Job X or Assignment Y and I’ll show you a guy I can crack like a walnut.”
  • The professional arms himself with patience, not only to give the stars time to align in his career, but to keep himself from flaming out in each individual work. He knows that any job, whether it’s a novel or a kitchen remodel, takes twice as long as he thinks and costs twice as much. He accepts that. He recognizes it as reality. 
  • A pro views her work as craft, not art. Not because she believes art is devoid of a mystical dimension. On the contrary. She understands that all creative endeavor is holy, but she doesn’t dwell on it. She knows if she thinks about that too much, it will paralyze her. So she concentrates on technique. The professional masters how, and leaves what and why to the gods. Like Somerset Maugham she doesn’t wait for inspiration, she acts in anticipation of its apparition. The professional is acutely aware of the intangibles that go into inspiration. Out of respect for them, she lets them work. She grants them their sphere while she concentrates on hers. 
  • The professional shuts up. She doesn’t talk about it. She does her work. 
  • The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. He knows there is no such thing as a fearless warrior or a dread-free artist. 
  • The professional conducts his business in the real world. Adversity, injustice, bad hops and rotten calls, even good breaks and lucky bounces all comprise the ground over which the campaign must be waged. The field is level, the professional understands, only in heaven. 
  • A PROFESSIONAL DEDICATES HIMSELF TO MASTERING TECHNIQUE 
  • The professional respects his craft. He does not consider himself superior to it. He recognizes the contributions of those who have gone before him. He apprentices himself to them. 
  • The professional dedicates himself to mastering technique not because he believes technique is a substitute for inspiration but because he wants to be in possession of the full arsenal of skills when inspiration does come. The professional is sly. He knows that by toiling beside the front door of technique, he leaves room for genius to enter by the back. 
  • A PROFESSIONAL DOES NOT HESITATE TO ASK FOR HELP 
  • Tiger Woods is the consummate professional. It would never occur to him, as it would to an amateur, that he knows everything, or can figure everything out on his own. On the contrary, he seeks out the most knowledgeable teacher and listens with both ears. The student of the game knows that the levels of revelation that can unfold in golf, as in any art, are inexhaustible. 
  • The professional cannot take rejection personally because to do so reinforces Resistance. Editors are not the enemy; critics are not the enemy. Resistance is the enemy. The battle is inside our own heads. We cannot let external criticism, even if it’s true, fortify our internal foe. That foe is strong enough already. 
  • A professional schools herself to stand apart from her performance, even as she gives herself to it heart and soul. The Bhagavad-Gita tells us we have a right only to our labor, not to the fruits of our labor. All the warrior can give is his life; all the athlete can do is leave everything on the field. 
  • The professional loves her work. She is invested in it wholeheartedly. But she does not forget that the work is not her. Her artistic self contains many works and many performances. Already the next is percolating inside her. The next will be better, and the one after that better still. 
  • The professional cannot let himself take humiliation personally. Humiliation, like rejection and criticism, is the external reflection of internal Resistance. 
  • First, he didn’t react reflexively. He didn’t allow an act that by all rights should have provoked an automatic response of rage to actually produce that rage. He controlled his reaction. He governed his emotion. 
  • What he did do was maintain his sovereignty over the moment. He understood that, no matter what blow had befallen him from an outside agency, he himself still had his job to do, the shot he needed to hit right here, right now. And he knew that it remained within his power to produce that shot. Nothing stood in his way except whatever emotional upset he himself chose to hold on to. Tiger’s mother, Kultida, is a Buddhist. Perhaps from her he had learned compassion, to let go of fury at the heedlessness of an overzealous shutter- clicker. In any event Tiger Woods, the ultimate professional, vented his anger quickly with a look, then recomposed himself and returned to the task at hand. 
  • The professional cannot allow the actions of others to define his reality. 
  • Tomorrow morning the critic will be gone, but the writer will still be there facing the blank page. Nothing matters but that he keep working. 
  • Tomorrow morning the critic will be gone, but the writer will still be there facing the blank page. Nothing matters but that he keep working. Short of a family crisis or the outbreak of World War III, the professional shows up, ready to serve the gods. 
  • Remember, Resistance wants us to cede sovereignty to others. It wants us to stake our self-worth, our identity, our reason-for-being, on the response of others to our work. Resistance knows we can’t take this. No one can. 
  • The professional learns to recognize envy-driven criticism and to take it for what it is: the supreme compliment. The critic hates most that which he would have done himself if he had had the guts. 
  • A PROFESSIONAL RECOGNIZES HER LIMITATIONS She gets an agent, she gets a lawyer, she gets an accountant. She knows she can only be a professional at one thing. She brings in other pros and treats them with respect. 
  • A PROFESSIONAL REINVENTS HIMSELF 
  • The professional does not permit himself to become hidebound within one incarnation, however comfortable or successful. Like a transmigrating soul, he shucks his outworn body and dons a new one. He continues his journey. 
  • Making yourself a corporation (or just thinking of yourself in that way) reinforces the idea of professionalism because it separates the artist-doing-the-work from the will-and- consciousness-running-the-show. No matter how much abuse is heaped on the head of the former, the latter takes it in stride and keeps on trucking. Conversely with success: You-the-writer may get a swelled head, but you-the-boss remember how to take yourself down a peg. 
  • Have you ever worked in an office? Then you know about Monday morning status meetings. The group assembles in the conference room and the boss goes over what assignments each team member is responsible for in the coming week. When the meeting breaks up, an assistant prepares a work sheet and distributes it. When this hits your desk an hour later, you know exactly what you have to do that week. I have one of those meetings with myself every Monday. I sit down and go over my assignments. Then I type it up and distribute it to myself. I have corporate stationery and corporate business cards and a corporate checkbook. I write off corporate expenses and pay corporate taxes. I have different credit cards for myself and my corporation. 
  • If we think of ourselves as a corporation, it gives us a healthy distance on ourselves. We’re less subjective. We don’t take blows as personally. We’re more cold-blooded; we can price our wares more realistically. Sometimes, as Joe Blow himself, I’m too mild-mannered to go out and sell. But as Joe Blow, Inc., I can pimp the hell out of myself. I’m not me anymore. I’m Me, Inc. 
  • The first duty is to sacrifice to the gods and pray them to grant you the thoughts, words, and deeds likely to render your command most pleasing to the gods and to bring yourself, your friends, and your city the fullest measure of affection and glory and advantage. –Xenophon, The Cavalry Commander 
  • If it does, you have my permission to think of angels in the abstract. Consider these forces as being impersonal as gravity. Maybe they are. It’s not hard to believe, is it, that a force exists in every grain and seed to make it grow? Or that in every kitten or colt is an instinct that impels it to run and play and learn. 
  • Here’s Socrates, in Plato’s Phaedrus, on the “noble effect of heaven-sent madness”: The third type of possession and madness is possession by the Muses. When this seizes upon a gentle and virgin soul it rouses it to inspired expression in lyric and other sorts of poetry, and glorifies countless deeds of the heroes of old for the instruction of posterity. But if a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the Muses, believing that technique alone will make him a good poet, he and his sane compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the performances of the inspired madman. 
  • Our ancestors were keenly cognizant of forces and energies whose seat was not in this material sphere but in a loftier, more mysterious one. What did they believe about this higher reality? First, they believed that death did not exist there. The gods are immortal. The gods, though not unlike humans, are infinitely more powerful. To defy their will is futile. To act toward heaven with pride is to call down calamity. Time and space display an altered existence in this higher dimension. The gods travel “swift as thought.” They can tell the future, some of them, and though the playwright Agathon tells us, This alone is denied to God: the power to undo the past yet the immortals can play tricks with time, as we ourselves may sometimes, in dreams or visions. The universe, the Greeks believed, was not indifferent. The gods take an interest in human affairs, and intercede for good or ill in our designs. The contemporary view is that all this is charming but preposterous. Is it? Then answer this. Where did Hamlet come from? Where did the Parthenon come from? Where did Nude Descending a Staircase come from? 
  • I’ll take Xenophon at his word; before I sit down to work, I’ll take a minute and show respect to this unseen Power who can make or break me. 
  • Artists have invoked the Muse since time immemorial. There is great wisdom to this. There is magic to effacing our human arrogance and humbly entreating help from a source we cannot see, hear, touch, or smell. 
    • A good habit to build
  • Sustain for me. Homer doesn’t ask for brilliance or success. He just wants to keep this thing going. This song. That about covers it. From The Brothers Karamazov to your new venture in the plumbing-supply business. 
  • I admire particularly the warning against the second crime, to destroy for meat the oxen of the most exalted Sun. That’s the felony that calls down soul-destruction: the employment of the sacred for profane means. Prostitution. Selling out. 
  • Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would not otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man would have dreamed would come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now.” — W. H. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition 
  • When I finish a day’s work, I head up into the hills for a hike. I take a pocket tape recorder because I know that as my surface mind empties with the walk, another part of me will chime in and start talking. 
  • What does it tell us about the architecture of our psyches that, without our exerting effort or even thinking about it, some voice in our head pipes up to counsel us (and counsel us wisely) on how to do our work and live our lives? Whose voice is it? What software is grinding away, scanning gigabytes, while we, our mainstream selves, are otherwise occupied? 
  • The principle of organization is built into nature. Chaos itself is self-organizing. Out of primordial disorder, stars find their orbits; rivers make their way to the sea. 
  • How do we experience this? By having ideas. Insights pop into our heads while we’re shaving or taking a shower or even, amazingly, while we’re actually working. The elves behind this are smart. If we forget something, they remind us. If we veer off-course, they trim the tabs and steer us back. 
  • What can we conclude from this? Clearly some intelligence is at work, independent of our conscious mind and yet in alliance with it, processing our material for us and alongside us. 
  • The power to take charge was in my hands; all I had to do was believe it. 
  • You’re supposed to learn that things that you think are nothing, as weightless as air, are actually powerful substantial forces, as real and as solid as earth. 
  • The moment a person learns he’s got terminal cancer, a profound shift takes place in his psyche. At one stroke in the doctor’s office he becomes aware of what really matters to him. Things that sixty seconds earlier had seemed all- important suddenly appear meaningless, while people and concerns that he had till then dismissed at once take on supreme importance. 
  • Other thoughts occur to the patient diagnosed as terminal. What about that gift he had for music? What became of the passion he once felt to work with the sick and the homeless? Why do these unlived lives return now with such power and poignancy? 
  • Faced with our imminent extinction, Tom Laughlin believes, all assumptions are called into question. What does our life mean? Have we lived it right? Are there vital acts we’ve left unperformed, crucial words unspoken? Is it too late? 
  • The Ego, Jung tells us, is that part of the psyche that we think of as “I.” Our conscious intelligence. Our everyday brain that thinks, plans and runs the show of our day-to-day life. The Self, as Jung defined it, is a greater entity, which includes the Ego but also incorporates the Personal and Collective Unconscious. Dreams and intuitions come from the Self. The archetypes of the unconscious dwell there. It is, Jung believed, the sphere of the soul. 
  • Have you ever wondered why the slang terms for intoxication are so demolition-oriented? Stoned, smashed, hammered. It’s because they’re talking about the Ego. It’s the Ego that gets blasted, waxed, plastered. We demolish the Ego to get to the Self. 
  • The instinct that pulls us toward art is the impulse to evolve, to learn, to heighten and elevate our consciousness. The Ego hates this. Because the more awake we become, the less we need the Ego. 
  • These are serious fears. But they’re not the real fear. Not the Master Fear, the Mother of all Fears that’s so close to us that even when we verbalize it we don’t believe it. Fear That We Will Succeed. 
  • We know that if we embrace our ideals, we must prove worthy of them. And that scares the hell out of us. What will become of us? We will lose our friends and family, who will no longer recognize us. We will wind up alone, in the cold void of starry space, with nothing and no one to hold on to. 
  • Personally I’m with Wordsworth: Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life’s star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come, From God who is our home. 
  • Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it. 
  • In the animal kingdom, individuals define themselves in one of two ways — by their rank within a hierarchy (a hen in a pecking order, a wolf in a pack) or by their connection to a territory (a home base, a hunting ground, a turf). 
  • We thrash around, flashing our badges of status (Hey, how do you like my Lincoln Navigator?) and wondering why nobody gives a shit. 
  • We have entered Mass Society. The hierarchy is too big. It doesn’t work anymore. 
  • But the artist cannot look to others to validate his efforts or his calling. If you don’t believe me, ask Van Gogh, who produced masterpiece after masterpiece and never found a buyer in his whole life. 
  • In other words, the hack writes hierarchically. He writes what he imagines will play well in the eyes of others. He does not ask himself, What do I myself want to write? What do I think is important? Instead he asks, What’s hot, what can I make a deal for? 
  • The artist and the mother are vehicles, not originators. They don’t create the new life, they only bear it. This is why birth is such a humbling experience. The new mom weeps in awe at the little miracle in her arms. She knows it came out of her but not from her, through her but not of her. 
  • Instead let’s ask ourselves like that new mother: What do I feel growing inside me? Let me bring that forth, if I can, for its own sake and not for what it can do for me or how it can advance my standing. 
  • Here’s another test. Of any activity you do, ask yourself: If I were the last person on earth, would I still do it? 
  • Someone once asked the Spartan king Leonidas to identify the supreme warrior virtue from which all others flowed. He replied: “Contempt for death.” For us as artists, read “failure.” Contempt for failure is our cardinal virtue. By confining our attention territorially to our own thoughts and actions — in other words, to the work and its demands — we cut the earth from beneath the blue-painted, shield-banging, spear-brandishing foe. 
  • When Krishna instructed Arjuna that we have a right to our labor but not to the fruits of our labor, he was counseling the warrior to act territorially, not hierarchically. We must do our work for its own sake, not for fortune or attention or applause. 
  • Then there’s the third way proffered by the Lord of Discipline, which is beyond both hierarchy and territory. That is to do the work and give it to Him. Do it as an offering to God. Give the act to me. Purged of hope and ego, Fix your attention on the soul. Act and do for me. The work comes from heaven anyway. Why not give it back? 
  • Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got. 
    • Put this somewhere that you can see it.
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Do the Work

Author: Steven Pressfield
Recommended for: Anyone working on a creative or entrepreneurial endeavor
Last Read: June 2014, October 2019

Quick Summary:

I had ready many of Steven Pressfield’s novels before I had discovered his works  on the creative spirit.  Do the Work is a short read that discusses the role of Resistance in the projects that we tackle.  Pressfield shares anecdotes and provides motivation for pushing past resistance, doing the work, and shipping whatever you’re working on.

While a little woo-woo and out there, I must admit that Do the Work has opened my eyes to the role that Resistance plays in my life.  I have streamlined my processes, separated research and action, and committed doing the work. With results like that, I can’t knock the woo-woo side.

For those interested in creating or producing something, read this book. If you like the book, you can follow it up with The War of Art.

On the field of the Self stand a knight and a dragon.   You are the knight. Resistance is the dragon.

I was thirty years old before I had an actual thought. Everything up till then was either what Buddhists call “monkey-mind” chatter or the reflexive regurgitation of whatever my parents or teachers said, or whatever I saw on the news or read in a book, or heard somebody rap about, hanging around the street corner. 

Key Lessons:

  • The best way to combat Resistance is to commit yourself to doing your work without fail. Show up, every day, like a professional. 
  • Don’t let anything delay you from taking action, because that’s how Resistance creeps in. Act, then revise. Bias yourself toward action.

My Highlights

Italicized sub-bullet comments are mine.

  • On the field of the Self stand a knight and a dragon.   You are the knight. Resistance is the dragon. 
  • Resistance cannot be seen, heard, touched, or smelled. But it can be felt. We experience it as an energy field radiating from a work-in-potential. 
  • Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it. 
  • Bad things happen when we employ rational thought, because rational thought comes from the ego. Instead, we want to work from the Self, that is, from instinct and intuition, from the unconscious. 
  • The problem with friends and family is that they know us as we are. They are invested in maintaining us as we are. The last thing we want is to remain as we are. 
  • Ignorance and arrogance are the artist and entrepreneur’s indispensable allies. She must be clueless enough to have no idea how difficult her enterprise is going to be—and cocky enough to believe she can pull it off anyway. 
  • A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. It’s only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate. 
  • Don’t think. Act. We can always revise and revisit once we’ve acted. But we can accomplish nothing until we act. 
  • Once we commit to action, the worst thing we can do is to stop. 
  • There’s an exercise that Patricia Ryan Madson describes in her wonderful book, Improv Wisdom. (Ms. Madson taught improvisational theater at Stanford to standing-room only classes for twenty years.) Here’s the exercise: Imagine a box with a lid. Hold the box in your hand. Now open it. What’s inside? It might be a frog, a silk scarf, a gold coin of Persia. But here’s the trick: no matter how many times you open the box, there is always something in it. Ask me my religion. That’s it. I believe with unshakeable faith that there will always be something in the box. 
  • Fear saps passion. When we conquer our fears, we discover a boundless, bottomless, inexhaustible well of passion.
  • When art and inspiration and success and fame and money have come and gone, who still loves us—and whom do we love? Only two things will remain with us across the river: our inhering genius and the hearts we love. 
  • Don’t prepare. Begin. Remember, our enemy is not lack of preparation; it’s not the difficulty of the project or the state of the marketplace or the emptiness of our bank account. The enemy is Resistance. 
  • Good things happen when we start before we’re ready. For one thing, we show huevos. Our blood heats up. Courage begets more courage. The gods, witnessing our boldness, look on in approval. 
  • Before we begin, you wanna do research? Uh-unh. I’m putting you on a diet. You’re allowed to read three books on your subject. No more. No underlining, no highlighting, no thinking or talking about the documents later. Let the ideas percolate. Let the unconscious do its work. 
  • Research can become Resistance. We want to work, not prepare to work. 
  • The creative act is primitive. Its principles are of birth and genesis. Babies are born in blood and chaos; stars and galaxies come into being amid the release of massive primordial cataclysms. Conception occurs at the primal level. I’m not being facetious when I stress, throughout this book, that it is better to be primitive than to be sophisticated, and better to be stupid than to be smart. 
  • If you and I want to do great stuff, we can’t let ourselves work small. A home-run swing that results in a strikeout is better than a successful bunt or even a line-drive single. 
  • Steve, God made a single sheet of yellow foolscap exactly the right length to hold the outline of an entire novel. 
  • He meant don’t overthink. Don’t overprepare. Don’t let research become Resistance. Don’t spend six months compiling a thousand-page tome detailing the emotional matrix and family history of every character in your book. Outline it fast. Now. On instinct. 
  • Discipline yourself to boil down your story/new business/philanthropic enterprise to a single page. 
  • Three-Act Structure Break the sheet of foolscap into three parts: beginning, middle, and end. This is how screenwriters and playwrights work. Act One, Act Two, Act Three. 
  • Here’s a trick that screenwriters use: work backwards. Begin at the finish. 
  • If you’re writing a movie, solve the climax first. If you’re opening a restaurant, begin with the experience you want the diner to have when she walks in and enjoys a meal. If you’re preparing a seduction, determine the state of mind you want the process of romancing to bring your lover to. Figure out where you want to go; then work backwards from there. 
  • Yes, you say. “But how do I know where I want to go?” Answer the Question “What Is This About?” Start with the theme. What is this project about? 
  • Have you ever meditated? Then you know what it feels like to shift your consciousness to a witnessing mode and to watch thoughts arise, float across your awareness, and then drift away, to be replaced by the next thought and the thought after that. These are not thoughts. They are chatter. 
  • I was thirty years old before I had an actual thought. Everything up till then was either what Buddhists call “monkey-mind” chatter or the reflexive regurgitation of whatever my parents or teachers said, or whatever I saw on the news or read in a book, or heard somebody rap about, hanging around the street corner. 
  • Pay no attention to those rambling, disjointed images and notions that drift across the movie screen of your mind. Those are not your thoughts. They are chatter. They are Resistance. 
  • Chatter is Resistance. Its aim is to reconcile you to “the way it is,” to make you exactly like everyone else, to render you amenable to societal order and discipline. 
  • Where do our own real thoughts come from? How can we access them? From what source does our true, authentic self speak? Answering that is the work you and I will do for the rest of our lives. 
    • This is a purpose to latch onto
  • We’ve got our concept, we’ve got our theme. We know our start. We know where we want to finish. We’ve got our project in three acts on a single sheet of foolscap. Ready to roll? We need only to remember our three mantras: Stay primitive. Trust the soup. Swing for the seats. And our final-final precept: 4. Be ready for Resistance.
  • David Lean famously declared that a feature film should have seven or eight major sequences. That’s a pretty good guideline for our play, our album, our State of the Union address. 
  • Do research early or late. Don’t stop working. Never do research in prime working time. 
  • One trick they use is to boil down their presentation to the following: A killer opening scene Two major set pieces in the middle A killer climax A concise statement of the theme In other words, they’re filling in the gaps. The major beats. 
  • One rule for first full working drafts: get them done ASAP. Don’t worry about quality. Act, don’t reflect. Momentum is everything. 
  • Unless you’re building a sailboat or the Taj Mahal, I give you a free pass to screw up as much as you like. The inner critic? His ass is not permitted in the building. Set forth without fear and without self-censorship. When you hear that voice in your head, blow it off. This draft is not being graded. There will be no pop quiz. Only one thing matters in this initial draft: get SOMETHING done, however flawed or imperfect. You are not allowed to judge yourself. 
  • Nothing is more fun than turning on the recorder and hearing your own voice telling you a fantastic idea that you had completely forgotten you had. 
  • Let’s talk about the actual process—the writing/composing/ idea generation process. It progresses in two stages: action and reflection. Act, reflect. Act, reflect. NEVER act and reflect at the same time. 
    • A principle of creation
  • Forget rational thought. Play. Play like a child. Why does this purely instinctive, intuitive method work? Because our idea (our song, our ballet, our new Tex-Mex restaurant) is smarter than we are. 
  • Our job is not to control our idea; our job is to figure out what our idea is (and wants to be)—and then bring it into being. 
  • When an idea pops into our head and we think, “No, this is too crazy,” … that’s the idea we want. When we think, “This notion is completely off the wall … should I even take the time to work on this?” … the answer is yes. Never doubt the soup. Never say no. The answer is always yes. 
  • At least twice a week, I pause in the rush of work and have a meeting with myself. (If I were part of a team, I’d call a team meeting.) I ask myself, again, of the project: “What is this damn thing about?” Keep refining your understanding of the theme; keep narrowing it down. 
  • Paddy Chayefsky famously said, “As soon as I figure out the theme of my play, I write it down on a thin strip of paper and Scotch-tape it to the front of my typewriter. After that, nothing goes into that play that isn’t on-theme.”
  • We have been conditioned to imagine that the darkness that we see in the world and feel in our own hearts is only an illusion, which can be dispelled by the proper care, the proper love, the proper education, and the proper funding. It can’t. There is an enemy. There is an intelligent, active, malign force working against us. Step one is to recognize this. This recognition alone is enormously powerful. It saved my life, and it will save yours.
  • Principle Number Two: This Enemy Is Implacable The hostile, malicious force that we’re experiencing now is not a joke. It is not to be trifled with or taken lightly. It is for real. In the words of my dear friend Rabbi Mordecai Finley: “It will kill you. It will kill you like cancer.” This enemy is intelligent, protean, implacable, inextinguishable, and utterly ruthless and destructive. 
  • Pat Riley, when he was coach of the Lakers, had a term for all those off-court forces, like fame and ego (not to mention crazed fans, the press, agents, sponsors, and ex-wives), that worked against the players’ chances for on-court success. He called these forces “peripheral opponents.”
  • Resistance is not a peripheral opponent. It does not arise from rivals, bosses, spouses, children, terrorists, lobbyists, or political adversaries. It comes from us. 
  • The fourth axiom of Resistance is that the enemy is inside you, but it is not you. 
  • The enemy is in you, but it is not you. No moral judgment attaches to the possession of it. You “have” Resistance the same way you “have” a heartbeat. You are blameless. You retain free will and the capacity to act. 
  • On the field of the Self stand a knight and a dragon. You are the knight. Resistance is the dragon. There is no way to be nice to the dragon, or to reason with it or negotiate with it or beam a white light around it and make it your friend. The dragon belches fire and lives only to block you from reaching the gold of wisdom and freedom, which it has been charged to guard to its final breath. The only intercourse possible between the knight and the dragon is battle. The contest is life-and-death, mano a mano. It asks no quarter and gives none. This is the fifth principle of Resistance. 
    • I know the truth of this, deep in my bones
  • The sixth principle of Resistance (and the key to overcoming it) is that Resistance arises second. What comes first is the idea, the passion, the dream of the work we are so excited to create that it scares the hell out of us. 
  • Resistance is the response of the frightened, petty, small-time ego to the brave, generous, magnificent impulse of the creative self. 
  • It means that before the dragon of Resistance reared its ugly head and breathed fire into our faces, there existed within us a force so potent and life-affirming that it summoned this beast into being, perversely, to combat it. 
  • In myths and legends, the knight is always aided in his quest to slay the dragon. Providence brings forth a champion whose role is to assist the hero. Theseus had Ariadne when he fought the Minotaur. Jason had Medea when he went after the Golden Fleece. Odysseus had the goddess Athena to guide him home. In Native American myths, our totemic ally is often an animal—a magic raven, say, or a talking coyote. In Norse myths, an old crone sometimes assists the hero; in African legends, it’s often a bird. The three Wise Men were guided by a star. All of these characters or forces represent Assistance. They are symbols for the unmanifested. They stand for a dream. The dream is your project, your vision, your symphony, your startup. The love is the passion and enthusiasm that fill your heart when you envision your project’s completion. 
  • Test Number One “How bad do you want it?” This is Resistance’s first question. The scale below will help you answer. Mark the selection that corresponds to how you feel about your book/movie/ballet/new business/whatever.   Dabbling • Interested • Intrigued but Uncertain • Passionate • Totally Committed   If your answer is not the one on the far right, put this book down and throw it away. 
  • Test Number Two “Why do you want it?” 
  • Because I have no choice 
  • Did you ever see Cool Hand Luke? Remember “the Box”? You don’t get to keep anything when you enter this space. You must check at the door: Your ego Your sense of entitlement Your impatience Your fear Your hope Your anger You must also leave behind:   All grievances related to aspects of yourself dependent on the accident of birth, e.g., how neglected/abused/ mistreated/unloved/poor/ill-favored etc. you were when you were born. All sense of personal exceptionalness dependent on the accident of birth, e.g., how rich/cute/tall/thin/smart/charming/loveable you were when you were born. All of the previous two, based on any subsequent (i.e., post-birth) acquisition of any of these qualities, however honorably or meritoriously earned. The only items you get to keep are love for the work, will to finish, and passion to serve the ethical, creative Muse. 
  • The Big Crash is so predictable, across all fields of enterprise, that we can practically set our watches by it. Bank on it. It’s gonna happen. 
    • The trough of sorrow in startup-speak
  • There’s a difference between Navy SEAL training and what you and I are facing now. Our ordeal is harder. Because we’re alone. We’ve got no trainers over us, shouting in our ears or kicking our butts to keep us going. We’ve got no friends, no fellow sufferers, no externally imposed structure. No one’s feeding us, housing us, or clothing us. We have no objective milestones or points of validation. We can’t tell whether we’re doing great or falling on our faces. When we finish, if we do, no one will be waiting to congratulate us. We’ll get no champagne, no beach party, no diploma, no insignia. The battle we’re fighting, we can’t explain to anybody or share with anybody or call in anybody to help. 
  • Crashes are hell, but in the end they’re good for us. A crash means we have failed. We gave it everything we had and we came up short. A crash does not mean we are losers. A crash means we have to grow. 
  • A crash means we’re at the threshold of learning something, which means we’re getting better, we’re acquiring the wisdom of our craft. A crash compels us to figure out what works and what doesn’t work—and to understand the difference. 
  • We got ourselves into this mess by mistakes we made at the start. How? Were we lazy? Inattentive? Did we mean well but forget to factor in human nature? Did we assess reality incorrectly? Whatever the cause, the Big Crash compels us to go back now and solve the problem that we either created directly or set into motion unwittingly at the outset. 
  • Creative panic is good. Here’s why: Our greatest fear is fear of success. 
  • When we experience panic, it means that we’re about to cross a threshold. We’re poised on the doorstep of a higher plane. 
  • In the belly of the beast, we remind ourselves of two axioms: The problem is not us. The problem is the problem. Work the problem. 
  • A professional does not take success or failure personally. That’s Priority Number One for us now. 
  • That our project has crashed is not a reflection of our worth as human beings. It’s just a mistake. It’s a problem—and a problem can be solved. 
  • I’m not trying to be cryptic or facetious. We went wrong at the start because the problem was so hard (and the act of solving it was so painful) that we ducked and dodged and bypassed. We hoped it would go away. We hoped it would solve itself. A little voice warned us then, but we were too smart to listen. The bad news is, the problem is hell. The good news is it’s just a problem. It’s not us. We are not worthless or evil or crazy. We’re just us, facing a problem. 
  • We ask our Big Question: “What’s missing?” 
  • No matter how great a writer, artist, or entrepreneur, he is a mortal, he is fallible. He is not proof against Resistance. He will drop the ball; he will crash. That’s why they call it rewriting. 
  • Why does Seth Godin place so much emphasis on “shipping”? Because finishing is the critical part of any project. If we can’t finish, all our work is for nothing. 
  • How hard is it to finish something? The greatest drama in the English language was written on this very subject. Hamlet knows he must kill his uncle for murdering his father. But then he starts to think—and the next thing you know, the poor prince is so self-befuddled, he’s ready to waste himself with a bare bodkin. 
  • When Michael Crichton approached the end of a novel (so I’ve read), he used to start getting up earlier and earlier in the morning. He was desperate to keep his mojo going. He’d get up at six, then five, then three-thirty and two-thirty, till he was driving his wife insane. Finally he had to move out of the house. He checked into a hotel (the Kona Village, which ain’t so bad) and worked around the clock till he’d finished the book. Michael Crichton was a pro. He knew that Resistance was strongest at the finish. He did what he had to do, no matter how nutty or unorthodox, to finish and be ready to ship. 
  • Marianne Williamson: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. 
  • That’s why we’re so afraid of it. When we ship, we’ll be judged. The real world will pronounce upon our work and upon us. When we ship, we can fail. When we ship, we can be humiliated. 
  • “You’re where you wanted to be, aren’t you? So you’re taking a few blows. That’s the price for being in the arena and not on the sidelines. Stop complaining and be grateful.” 
  • When we ship, we open ourselves to judgment in the real world. Nothing is more empowering, because it plants us solidly on Planet Earth and gets us out of our self-devouring, navel-centered fantasies and self-delusions. 
  • Slay that dragon once, and he will never have power over you again. Yeah, he’ll still be there. Yeah, you’ll still have to duel him every morning. And yeah, he’ll still fight just as hard and use just as many nasty tricks as he ever did. But you will have beaten him once, and you’ll know you can beat him again. That’s a game-changer. That will transform your life. 
  • From the day I finally finished something, I’ve never had trouble finishing anything again. I always deliver. I always ship. 
    • A standard we should live by
  • I stand in awe of anyone who hatches a dream and who shows the guts to hang tough, all alone, and see it through to reality. 
  • I tip my hat to you for what you’ve done—for losing forty pounds, for kicking crack cocaine, for surviving the loss of someone you love, for facing any kind of adversity—internal or external—and slogging through. I come to attention when you walk past. I stand up for you like the spectators in the gallery stood up for Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird. 
  • You have joined an elite fraternity, whether you realize it or not. By dint of your efforts and your perseverance, you have initiated yourself into an invisible freemasonry whose members are awarded no badges or insignia, share no secret handshake, and wear no funny-looking hats. But the fellows of this society recognize one another. I recognize you. I salute you. You can be proud of yourself. You’ve done something that millions talk about but only a handful actually perform. And if you can do it once, you can do it again. I don’t care if you fail with this project. I don’t care if you fail a thousand times. You have done what only mothers and gods do: you have created new life. 
  • Then get back to work. Begin the next one tomorrow. Stay stupid. Trust the soup. Start before you’re ready.