Do the Work

by Steven Pressfield

In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity.

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.

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.

Our mightiest ally (our indispensable ally) is belief in something we cannot see, hear, touch, taste, or feel.

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

Let the unconscious do its work.

Figure out where you want to go; then work backwards from there.

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.

Suspending self-judgment doesn’t just mean blowing off the “You suck” voice in our heads. It also means liberating ourselves from conventional expectations—from what we think our work “ought” to be or “should” look like.

In writing, “action” means putting words on paper. “Reflection” means evaluating what we have on paper.

Assistance is the universal, immutable force of creative manifestation, whose role since the Big Bang has been to translate potential into being, to convert dreams into reality.

Ask yourself what’s missing. Then fill that void.

There is an enemy. There is an intelligent, active, malign force working against us.

Its aim is not to obstruct or to hamper or to impede. Its aim is to kill.

This Enemy Is Inside You

The enemy is inside

The Enemy Is Inside You, But It Is Not You

You are the knight. Resistance is the dragon.

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.

The opposite of fear is love—love of the challenge, love of the work, the pure joyous passion to take a shot at our dream and see if we can pull it off.

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

Our greatest fear is fear of success.

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.

Fear of success is the essence of Resistance.

Slay that dragon once, and he will never have power over you again.