This post is inspired by a book written by Steven Pressfield entitled The War of Art: Break through the Blocks and Win your Inner Creative Battles. I am on my second reading within 2 months. It is compact, easy to read and has totally kicked my butt.
Before you say “But I am not an artist.”, let me say that Pressfield defines creativity as something within you that you have an urge to manifest. That includes entrepreneurs creating a business, community minded folks that want to solve a problem, business people that want to create a loyal customer base, a dynamite culture or a new way to do their work. It may be an individual that wants to create a healthier lifestyle or redecorate their house. Or it may be what we traditionally think of as creative – those of us who want to draw, paint, sculpt, write or design.
So, assuming that each and every one of us has some inner urge to create something, what wisdom does Pressfield share? Ahhh… way too much to share here. So I’ll provide some headlines and a few quotes pulled from the book.
Resistance arises with anything you do that requires sacrifice today for a better future.
And comes from:
Any act that defers immediate gratification in favor of long term growth, health or integrity. Or, expressed another way, any act that derives from our higher nature instead of our lower. Any of these will elicit Resistance.
Resistance takes many shapes, yet is invisible, totally within.
We blame others, we procrastinate, we have many reasons to yield to its power. Here are Pressfield’s words on procrastination – which trips up just about everyone:
Procrastination is the most common manifestation of Resistance because it is 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 am just going to start tomorrow.”
The greater the resistance, the more important the work.
Resistance is directly proportional to love. If you’re feeling massive Resistance, the good news is, it means there is tremendous love in there too. If you didn’t love the project that is terrifying you, you wouldn’t feel anything. The opposite of love isn’t hate; it is indifference.
The more Resistance you experience, the more important your unmanifested art/project/enterprise is to you – and the more gratification you will feel when you finally do it.
Rationalization is an insidious form of resistance.
Rationalization is Resistance’s spin doctor. It’s Resistance’s way of hiding the Big Stick behind it’s back. Instead of showing us our fear (which might shame us and impel us to do our work), Resistance presents us with a series of plausible, rational justifications for why we should not do our work.
Resistance can be beaten.
If Resistance couldn’t be beaten, there would be no Fifth symphony, no Romeo and Juliet, no Golden Gate Bridge. Defeating Resistance is like giving birth. It seems absolutely impossible until you remember that women have been pulling it off successfully, with support and without, for fifty million years.
How can you beat resistance? Pressfield says to turn “pro” and to invoke the muse. In short, turning pro means to look at your endeavor as a professional would. Show up every day. Do the work. No excuses. To invoke the muse, turn to a higher power – whatever that is for you. For bringing forth what only you can bring into this world is a higher calling!
To learn more, you’ll just have to buy the book. And I highly recommend that – for anyone who has anything that they want to bring into this world.
One Response
Just Bought the Book! Thanks as always for your great insight Kris.
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