Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be

by Steven Pressfield

“Put your ass where your heart wants to be,” we mean station your physical body in the spot where your dream-work will and must happen.

When I sit down to write in the morning, I literally have no expectations for myself or for the day’s work. My only goal is to put in three or four hours with my fingers punching the keys. I don’t judge myself on quality. I don’t hold myself accountable for quantity. The only questions I ask are, Did I show up? Did I try my best?

Tremendous power lies in the simple, physical act of stationing our body at the epicenter of our dream.

Leave the town or city where you live and move to the hub of the creative or entrepreneurial world where your dreams are most likely to come true.

There’s a second reason to pack up. People. You, the aspiring actress, may step off the bus in New York City friendless and alone. But six weeks later, after you’ve finished your first round of classes at the Actors Studio or the Neighborhood Playhouse, you’ll have more sidekicks and BFFs than you know what to do with.

I realized, This is how you write a song! Not in one crazed pass, not scribbling notes and losing them in your jacket pockets or your glove compartment . . . but sitting down like a pro and working with the material, changing and improving the song over and over, until you had it exactly the way you wanted it.

The point, again, is there is no substitute for being there, at the heart of the action. And to get there, you have to leave “here.”

John Lennon in London can trade notes with Mick Jagger or turn down Eric Clapton for the gig that will go to George Harrison.

It’s not enough for your heart to be in the right place. Your ass has to be there too.

There’s no substitute for your physical presence at Ground Zero of your dream. I’m sorry, but you can’t phone it in from the boonies unless you’re already established, unless you have paid your dues and had your ticket punched.

When you move your material ass to the geographic site of your dream, your peers and potential mentors think at once, This person is serious. She has committed. She has burned the boats. She is one of us.

So let me modify the statement of the previous chapters. Let’s carve out a special exemption for writers and other artists who can do their work in rustic cabins, poolside villas, and other abodes of seclusion and solitude. We’ll give their physical bodies a pass. But what about their metaphorical bodies? These, I will make the case, have moved to the epicenter of their dreams.

When we say, “Put your ass where your heart wants to be” in this sense, we mean, “Commit emotionally, psychologically, spiritually to your dream.”

But my attitude toward the process, I thought, does not have to be cynical or condescending. In fact, I am grateful as hell to be here working on this sausage and to have a chance to grind it out. And furthermore: Nobody, including the studio and the studio exec, can stop me from giving my all to make it the best sausage possible.

Every project doesn’t have to be Citizen Kane. It’s okay to work on “B” movies and “C” pictures or to write trade ads for Preparation H. As long as we do our absolute best and keep our eyes on the prize of producing, maybe five or ten years from now, our own best material, as truly as we can to our own lights.

The first thing I do when I enter my office each morning is say a prayer to the Muse. I say it out loud in dead earnest.

When we commit fully to our calling, we acknowledge the forces of inspiration that we hope to summon to our aid. For me, this prayer is part of that process.

O, Divine Poesy, Goddess, daughter of Zeus, sustain for me this song . . .

Here’s my frame of mind as I sit down to work: This is the day. There is no other day. This is the day. In other words, I release every thought that smacks of, “Maybe we can do this some other time.” There is no other time. Today is the Superbowl. Today is the day I give birth. Today is the day I die.

I stop working when I start making mistakes. Typos and misspellings tell me I’m tired. I have reached the point of diminishing returns.

The primary principle of Stoicism, as I understand it, is that Fortune is unknowable, unpredictable, and for sure uncontrollable. The proper province of a Stoic, therefore, is to strengthen herself mentally and emotionally so the inevitable glories and catastrophes of life do not cause her to unravel or to act in a manner unworthy of her highest self.

I think you can influence Fortune, if by Fortune we mean the unknowable will and actions of heaven. I believe our actions here on the mortal plane not only do not go unnoticed by the Plane of Potentiality, but that there is a direct (if still unfathomable) connection. In fact, our mantra—Put your ass where your heart wants to be—implies exactly that.

He who watcheth me everywhere, I watch him always. He never loses sight or me Nor I lose sight of him. This statement by Krishna is a declaration of the indisseverabilty of the mortal plane and the Immortal. Those who worship lesser teachers go unto them. My devotees, Arjuna, come unto me.

What does all this have to do with you and me on planet Earth? It means that putting our ass where our heart wants to be is the equivalent of Alexander charging into the breach at the Granicus River or at Issus or Gaugamela. We too are risking all. We too hold nothing back. We too have hurled ourselves headlong into the unknown.

This psychic transformation—the relocation of the identity from the ego to the Self— happens when a person with an addiction (to alcohol, to drugs, to self-dramatization, whatever) ceases to be in denial about this and instead declares to him or herself, “I have a problem that will kill me if I don’t stop it . . . and I am powerless to overcome it.”

An opportunity may be presented to us that we would have jumped at in a prior incarnation—say, to acquire wealth or to achieve great personal or professional recognition—and we may turn it down.