Do the Work

by Steven Pressfield

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.

Get the serum to Nome. Get the Conestoga wagon to the Oregon Trail. Get the first version of your project done from A to Z as fast as you can.

The opposite of Resistance is Assistance.

“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.”

In our feel-good, social-safety-net, high-self-esteem world, you and I have been brainwashed to believe that there is no such thing as evil, that human nature is perfectible, that everyone and everything can be made nice.

The only intercourse possible between the knight and the dragon is battle.

Because finishing is the critical part of any project. If we can’t finish, all our work is for nothing.

That was when I realized I had become a pro. I had not yet had a success. But I had had a real failure.

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.

“Good for you,” he said. “Now start the next one.”