Do the Work

by Steven Pressfield

The launching of any entrepreneurial venture or enterprise, for profit or otherwise. Any diet or health regimen. Any program of spiritual advancement.

Doing important things that change your current status is scary. Your brain, which wants comfort and stability, will try to talk you out of it.

Education of every kind.

Education = change. Change = scary. Therefore, education = scary.

The undertaking of any enterprise or endeavor whose aim is to help others.

any act that derives from our higher nature instead of our lower. Any of these acts will elicit Resistance.

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.

fear doesn’t go away. The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day.

Next to Resistance, rational thought is the artist or entrepreneur’s worst enemy. 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. If you’re reading this book, it’s because you sense inside you a second self, an unlived you.

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.

Don’t think. Act. We can always revise and revisit once we’ve acted. But we can accomplish nothing until we act.

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

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, power and magic in it.” Begin it now.

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.

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

If you’re opening a restaurant, begin with the experience you want the diner to have when she walks in and enjoys a meal.

The universe is not indifferent. It is actively hostile. Every principle espoused so far in this volume is predicated upon that truth. The aim of every axiom set forth thus far is to outwit, outflank, outmaneuver Resistance.

Do research early or late. Don’t stop working. Never do research in prime working time. Research can be fun. It can be seductive. That’s its danger. We need it, we love it. But we must never forget that research can become Resistance.

Research is both good and bad. It is necessary, but can become a distraction from doing real work.

Only one thing matters in this initial draft: get SOMETHING done, however flawed or imperfect.

In writing, “action” means putting words on paper. “Reflection” means evaluating what we have on paper. For this first draft, we’ll go light on reflection and heavy on action.

When we say “Stay Stupid,” we mean don’t self-censor, don’t indulge in self-doubt, don’t permit self-judgment.

Stephen King has confessed that he works every day. Fourth of July, his birthday, Christmas. I love that. Particularly at this stage—what Seth Godin calls “thrashing” (a very evocative term)—momentum is everything. Keep it going. How much time can you spare each day? For that interval, close the door and—short of a family emergency or the outbreak of World War III—don’t let ANYBODY in. Keep working. Keep working. Keep working.

If you are passionate about work, why would you take a day off?

“What is this damn thing about?”

More books, movies, new businesses, etc. get screwed up (or rather, screw themselves up) due to failure to confront and solve this issue than for any other reason. It is make-or-break, do-or-die. 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.” 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 fourth axiom of Resistance is that the enemy is inside you, but it is not you.

If you’ve got a head, you’ve got a voice of Resistance inside it.

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

That urge is love. Love for the material, love for the work, love for our brothers and sisters to whom we will offer our work as a gift. In Greek, the word is eros. Life force. Dynamis, creative drive.

The seventh principle of Resistance is that we can align ourselves with these universal forces of Assistance—this dream, this passion to make the unmanifest manifest—and ride them into battle against the dragon.

The only items you get to keep are love for the work, will to finish, and passion to serve the ethical, creative Muse.

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.

Panic is good. It’s a sign that we’re growing.

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.

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.

Hamlet

He knew that Resistance was strongest at the finish.

Fear of success is the essence of Resistance.

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.