Do the Work

by Steven Pressfield

Let’s consider the champions on our side: Stupidity Stubbornness Blind faith Passion Assistance (the opposite of Resistance) Friends and family

When we conquer our fears, we discover a boundless, bottomless, inexhaustible well of passion.

Only two things will remain with us across the river: our inhering genius and the hearts we love.

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

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.

Discipline yourself to boil down your story/new business/philanthropic enterprise to a single

Break the sheet of foolscap into three parts: beginning, middle, and end.

The old saw says there’s no such thing as writing, only rewriting. This is true.

Better to have written a lousy ballet than to have composed no ballet at all.

Here’s a trick that screenwriters use: work backwards. Begin at the finish.

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.

We can never eliminate Resistance. It will never go away. But we can outsmart it, and we can enlist allies that are as powerful as it is.

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.

Any project or enterprise can be broken down into beginning, middle, and end. Fill in the gaps; then fill in the gaps between the gaps.

One rule for first full working drafts: get them done ASAP. Don’t worry about quality. Act, don’t reflect. Momentum is everything. Get to THE END as if the devil himself were breathing down your neck and poking you in the butt with his pitchfork.

Only one thing matters in this initial draft: get SOMETHING done, however flawed or imperfect. You are not allowed to judge yourself.

Ignore false negatives. Ignore false positives. Both are Resistance. Keep working.

Have that meeting twice a week. Pause and reflect. “What is this project about?” “What is its theme?” “Is every element serving that theme?

The first principle of Resistance is that there is an enemy.

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.

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 enemy is inside you.

The fourth axiom of Resistance is that the enemy is inside you, but it is not you.

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

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. Resistance is the shadow cast by the innovative self’s sun.

In Greek, the word is eros. Life force. Dynamis, creative drive.

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.

“How bad do you want it?” This is Resistance’s first question.

“Why do you want it?

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 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.

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.

Creative panic is good. Here’s why: Our greatest fear is fear of success.

In the belly of the beast, we go back to our allies: Stupidity Stubbornness Blind faith

We are too dumb to quit and too mulish to back off. In the belly of the beast, we remind ourselves of two axioms:

The problem is not us. The problem is the problem. ...

It takes balls of steel to ship.

Shipping is not for the squeamish or the faint of heart. It requires killer instinct. We’ve got the monster down; now we have to drive a stake through its heart.

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.

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. Ship it.

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.