Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be

by Steven Pressfield

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.

In other words, these new friends are your true spiritual companions.

They are your karass.

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.

Questions for ourselves: “How much do we want it?” “What sacrifices are we willing to make to see this project succeed?” “Have we ‘moved’—lock, stock, and barrel—to our inner Paris?”

Commitment = exposure. That’s why people don’t commit. They’re not stupid. They don’t want to risk falling off the mountain.

Don’t try to overcome your fear. Fear cannot be overcome. Instead simply move your body into the physical space you fear . . . and see what happens.

Work—day-in, day-out exertion and concentration—produces progress and order. That’s a law of the universe.

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

The Muse does not count hours. She counts commitment. It is possible to be one hundred percent committed ten percent of the time. The goddess understands.

You can be a full-time writer, one hour a day.

But it’s a sacred space too. I’ve made it sacred by the work I’ve done there and by the attitude of respect and devotion I bring with me when I enter.

For writers and artists, the ability to self-reinforce is more important than talent.

Often, “reality” means nothing more than conventional reality. And conventional reality is almost always wrong. Ask Dick Rowe of Decca Records, who turned down the Beatles.

The book/screenplay/nonprofit/start-up already exists in the Other World. Your job and mine is to bring it forth in this one.

You and I can’t put half our ass where our heart wants to be. We have to be in all the way.