Conquer the Resistance: 10 Quotes from Steven Pressfield's The War of Art
“There's a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.”
In 2002 Steven Pressfield wrote The War of Art.
Its title is a clever play on Sun Tzu’s infamous work The Art of War, and its message can be boiled down to one simple idea: In order to do work that matters, one must understand and conquer the Resistance.
That’s Resistance, capital ‘R’.
What is Resistance? It’s the internal force that keeps you from showing us your best self. From doing your best work. From taking risks and making mistakes and failing gloriously in pursuit of something greater.
The book is easy-to-read, concise, and broken into many short chapters designed for busy folks who want to pick it up, crack it open, read for 2 minutes, get inspired, put it down and get back to work.
It’s for me. And for you.
This book is one of very few I would put on a global must-read list. Seth Godin calls it the book he wishes he’d written. It doesn’t matter who you are, what hobbies you enjoy, or what you do for a living. Your work, and therefore your life, would be better if you conquered the Resistance.
10 Quotes
Here are ten quotes from Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, in no particular order, to kick your butt into gear.
“Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. … If you take Resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get. Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.”
“The more important a call or action to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.”
“Procrastination is the most common manifestation of Resistance because it’s the easiest to rationalize. We don’t tell ourselves, “I’m never going to write my symphony.” Instead we say, “I am going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start tomorrow.””
“The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.”
“The part that needs healing is our personal life. Personal life has nothing to do with work.”
“Grandiose fantasies are a symptom of Resistance. They’re the sign of an amateur. The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a by-product of work.”
“The amateur plays for fun. The professional plays for keeps.”
“Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action. Do it or don’t do it.”
“The professional, though he accepts money, does his work out of love. He has to love it. Otherwise he wouldn’t devote his life to it of his own free will. The professional has learned, however, that too much love can be a bad thing. Too much love can make him choke.”
“The professional learns to recognize envy driven criticism and to take it for what it is: the supreme compliment.”
You are an Artist
If that sentence scares you, you’re feeling Resistance. All children are creative. All children experiment with imaginations.
As we grow older we are beaten down by systems, rules, and social norms. We are told to color between the lines, stay in our lane, and most importantly, not to rock the boat. By the time we’re adults we are so used to it we don’t even realize what’s at stake.
The War of Art will help you recognize Resistance when it creeps into your work, often in completely predictable but comforting ways, and beat it back.
“Not today,” you’ll tell Resistance. “Today I endeavor to be the best version of myself. To show up fully and completely. And even if I don’t succeed, it will have been a worthy failure. My work matters, and I must keep at it.”
Stop reading this and get back to work.
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