About Steven Pressfield: Steven Pressfield is an American author, of historical fiction and non-fiction, and screenplays.
To labor in the arts for any reason other than love is prostitution.
Next morning I went over to Paul’s for coffee and told him I had finished. “Good for you,” he said without looking up. “Start the next one today.
Lat at nigh have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized being you were mean to be? Are you a writer who doesn't write, a painter who doesn't pain, an entrepreneur who never starts a ventur...
In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term grown, health, or integrity. Or, expressed another way, any act that derives from our high nature instead of our lower. Any of these will elicit Resistance.
Resistance is not a peripheral opponent. Resistance arises from within. It is self-generated and self-perpetuated. resistance is the enemy within.
Nothing is as empowering as real-world validation, even if it's for failure.
We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are. More than our parents/children/teachers think we are. We fear that we actually possess the talent that our still, small voice tells us. That we actually have the guts, the perseverance, the c...
The part that needs healing is our personal life. Personal life has nothing to do with work. Besides, what better way of healing than to find our center of self-sovereignty? Isn't that the whole point of healing?
. . . None of us are born as passive generic blobs waiting for the world to stamp its imprint on us. Instead we show up possessing already a highly refined and individuated soul. Another way of thinking of it is: We're not born with unlimited choices...
Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.
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 ...
The professional loves her work. She is invested in it wholeheartedly. But she does not forget that the work is not her.
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 b...
To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be.
Resistance is directly proportional to love. If you're feeling massive Resistance, the good news is that it means there's tremendous love there too.
The more resistance you experience, the more important your unmanifested art/project/enterprise is to you - and the more gratification you will fell when you finally do it.
Resistance gets us to plunge into a project with an overambitious and unrealistic timetable for its completion.
Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance.
Resistance by definition is self-sabotage.
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.
