Steven Pressfield

Between the two

Published June 8 · All posts on Jun 8

Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.

~ Steven Pressfield, from Writing Wednesdays: The Unlived Life

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For me there’s a huge tension between those two. I see so many things that I want to do—and I don’t mean binge-watch TV shows. I imagine something I’d like to write—for example, a weekly, emailed publication for paying subscribers—and the complexity of creating it overwhelms me. The writing is the easy part; Or, am I deluding myself? The only salve I’ve found is to remind myself over and over and over that I consistently overestimate what I can get done in a day, and underestimate what I can get done in a lifetime.

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Don’t stand in the shade

Published April 3 · All posts on Apr 3

Remember we employed a visual to help us understand this. We said that the Dream is like a tree in the middle of a sunny meadow. The tree casts a shadow.

~ Steven Pressfield, from Writing Wednesdays: Gotta Do It

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I find Pressfield’s metaphor to be striking. The tree in the meadow casts a real shadow. I was struck by the layers in this metaphor: light and darkness, the singular clarity of lone tree in an open space as a symbol of a life’s purpose, the proportional relationship of the larger the tree the larger and darker the shadow, and that one’s ability to avoid or at least escape the shadow is a choice we make.

By extension then, if one attempts to nurture multiple callings, visions or projects, one has multiple big trees. That’s at least a copse of trees whose shadows merge together creating something much more significant to avoid or escape from.

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The real fear

Published March 3 · All posts on Mar 3

These are serious fears. But they’re not the real fear. Not the Master Fear, the Mother of all Fears that’s so close to us that even when we verbalize it we don’t believe it. Fear That We Will Succeed. That we can access the powers we secretly know we possess. That we can become the person we sense in our hearts we truly are.

~ Steven Pressfield

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Professionalism

Published February 13 · All posts on Feb 13

The essence of professionalism is the focus upon the work and its demands, while we are doing it, to the exclusion of all else. The ancient Spartans schooled themselves to regard the enemy, any enemy, as nameless and faceless. In other words, they believed that if they did their work, no force on Earth could stand against them.

~ Steven Pressfield

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Overcoming fear

Published January 1 · All posts on Jan 1

The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; Then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. He knows there is no such thing as a fearless warrior or a dread-free artist.

~ Steven Pressfield

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The professional

Published December 23 · All posts on Dec 23

In my view, the amateur does not love the game enough. If he did, he would not pursue it as a sideline, distinct from his “real” vocation. The professional loves it so much he dedicates his life to it. He commits full-time. That’s what I mean when I say turning Pro. Resistance hates it when we turn Pro.

~ Steven Pressfield

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Grandiose fantasies

Published December 18 · All posts on Dec 18

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 professional concentrates on the work and allows rewards to come or not com, whatever they like.

~ Steven Pressfield

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Self-realized

Published December 13 · All posts on Dec 13

Individuals who are realized in their own lives almost never criticize others. If they speak at all, it is to offer encouragement. Watch yourself. Of all the manifestations of Resistance, most only harm ourselves. Criticism and cruelty harm others as well.

~ Steven Pressfield

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Procrastination

Published December 8 · All posts on Dec 8

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’m going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start tomorrow.”

~ Steven Pressfield

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A repelling force

Published November 23, 2024 · All posts on Nov 23

Resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be felt. We experience it as an energy field radiating from a work-in-potential. It’s a repelling force. It’s negative. Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work.

~ Steven Pressfield

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Sit down

Published November 12, 2024 · All posts on Nov 12

There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is resistance.

~ Steven Pressfield

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The Work

Published October 12, 2024 · All posts on Oct 12

After reading the first “book” in Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, I’m inspired to define, for me specifically: What is “the work?”

In a specific moment, on a specific day, when I feel that odd uneasiness, I will not try to identify the specific form Resistance is taking. Instead as Pressfield mentions on page 12:

[…] We can use this. We can use it as a compass. We can navigate by Resistance, letting it guide us to that calling or action that we must follow before all others.

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.

As a real example of my own experience, Resistance’s compass guides me towards watching sci-fi entertainment (“a harmless relaxation,” I think after working in my yard for hours). So the opposite would be to… organize and streamline my writing environment and processes so tomorrow I can write more easily! No. My hiding in preparation and perfection is just another form of Resistance.

The best way for me is to look at all the possible things I could do, rather than follow Resistance’s compass. Then boil that down to a list of positive, actionable, directions in which I can sit down and work.

In a specific moment, on a specific day, when I feel that odd uneasiness, I can glance at my list and simply do a bit of The Work.

To defeat Resistance I can simply sit down, and do a little bit of any of the following…

  • do guest outreach for podcasting
  • write the next issue of 7 for Sunday
  • write the next Open + Curious article
  • write new blog posts

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PS: I’ve listed “do guest outreach” because—for me—once I do that consistently for a few weeks, all the rest of the podcasting process follows automatically.

Overcoming Resistance

Published October 6, 2024 · All posts on Oct 6

How many pages have I produced? I don’t care. Are they any good? I don’t even think about it. All that matters is I’ve put in my time and hit it with all I’ve got. All that counts is that, for this day, for this session, I have overcome Resistance.

~ Steven Pressfield

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Writer’s voice

Published August 2, 2024 · All posts on Aug 2

The writer’s voice casts a spell. The right voice makes the work accessible; it gives us the tone and point of view that best illuminate the material and make it shine. The magic of Hemingway’s prose is that it describes events the way the human eye sees them. He taught himself this technique as a journalist and he used it very consciously and deliberately.

~ Steven Pressfield, from Writing Wednesdays: The Writer’s Voice

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The question I’m left with, not specifically from this piece from Pressfield but just in general, is: Is it better to simply write what one feels drawn to write, and to then literally discover—as in, “oh, surprise, so that’s my writer’s voice”—or intentionally seek it out through planned discovery? Because it sure seems that different writers find their voices in different ways. Unfortunately, all I have here is the question. I’m not even sure if it’s really a dichotomy. Maybe it only seems to me, to be a choice. I’m on the “I dunno I’ll just try writing” discovery path. Maybe the other path wouldn’t work for me… maybe if I tried to be more intentional about finding my voice . . . maybe I’d just end up realizing that’s not actually a path to finding my voice.

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How do you finish with it?

Published June 17, 2024 · All posts on Jun 17

Was the project worthy of us? Was it ours alone, in the sense that we were writing from our own gift … and in the face of our own fears? Did we live up to the goddess’s expectations of us? Did we live up to our own? Did we give it all we had?

There are no spotlights in the writer’s life. There’s no moment of acclamation as we tap in a putt on the 72nd green. Our moment is private. When I wrap a book, a lot of times I won’t even tell anybody.

This is self-evaluation. Self-reinforcement. Self-validation.

~ Steven Pressfield from, Writing Wednesdays: Finishing

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As usual, Pressfield is talking about writing and writers. But it made me think about how I finish with an episode…

It occurs to me that the very last things I do, are social media posts, and usual a final “hey thanks, it’s published” to the guest. I’m left [after reading pressfield’s post] wondering if I could re-imagine being done to be something I enjoy… some way to put a positive “done!” on the end.

What might that be? …maybe I print a copy of the episode notes and put it on a pile, or in a binder. …or some other way to create a visible “there’s the stuff that’s done!”

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Resistance

Published May 12, 2024 · All posts on May 12

Opinions are strongly divided about Pressfield’s concept of Resistance. And yes, some days I do find myself over in the Resistance-is-bullshit encampment thinking: No, Resistance is not real. It is important and meaningful for me to be spending my time rearranging these deck chairs, polishing this silverware, sorting these shelved books, getting the edge of my lawn just so, tagging and organizing all these blog posts… And then, “Curse you, Resistance!!“

For myself, I was years into the act of having a practice before I even thought about its efficacy as a strategy to overcome my own Resistance. Resistance was (and is) a given for me. It wakes up with me. I know I will have to face it every day, and I know it will never diminish or relent or go away.

~ Steven Pressfield from, A Practice and Resistance

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I’ve been looking for a word to replace “professional” in my regular usage. (Please hit reply if you’ve got one.) I’ve given up on changing how others perceive the words I say; People take professional to first refer to getting paid for one’s efforts. But by professional I mean—and this is the way Pressfield uses the word—competent, skilled, assured, and approaching mastery. Steve Martin is talking about that sort of professionalism, not about money, when he says, “be so good they can’t ignore you.”

Why do I care? Because with the concept of getting paid pushed aside, then professionalism can be used as a razor for cutting through resistance. I simply consider my practices (left for another day is the discussion of whether or not it works to have more than one practice) and ask the question: Would a professional do this?

Yes, a professional would take time off for this restorative activity. No, a professional would just ignore these deck chairs. Yes, a professional would spend 3 days writing software tooling so 10 years from now this stuff is still organized and useful. No, a professional would not stoop to that level. Yes, a professional would totally get this part pitch perfect.

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Onward

Published April 19, 2024 · All posts on Apr 19

Be sure that you’ve first fully assimilated the idea of ‘no’, above. For if you don’t, you risk the mistake I make of reflexively saying ‘yes’ to the next thing that comes up.

We do it because to stop (or pause) after Project number-1 means we are one-hit wonders. We are dabbling. We are amateurs.

To continue, on the other hand, means we are pursuing our calling as a practice.

~ Steven Pressfield from, Having a Practice

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We do, in fact, want to—we must—say ‘yes’ to some next thing.

First, master the wonderful, short, complete sentence: No. Second, immediately say yes to the correct, next thing.

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