29 Jul Read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

Read The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield.  This is a tough love book for all artists, businesspeople, creatives, gym goers, job seekers, basically for anyone trying to accomplish a goal, a vision, a dream, a life you want to live.  What a powerful book – a must read for this summer and so relevant during these unprecedented times.  It’s another favorite on Integrated Staffing’s book club reads.

Stephen Pressfield has 3 major themes for this book:

1) Resistance is real.  It is a real force we face when we are trying to accomplish a big goal, vision, and/or dream.

2) Inspiration is Divine.  The artist muse is real.

3) To achieve divine inspiration, you must turn pro.

Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet.  It is what keeps all of us from living the unlived lives inside of us.  It can destroy us in any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, anything that brings us to our higher self all fits into the category of something that that resistance can stop us from doing such as healthy dieting, exercising, and career growth. Resistance is internal, invisible insidious…the dark force.  Resistance is universal, everyone experiences it.  It stays with all of us for our entire lives.  Resistance is fueled by our own fear. The more important something is to us, the more resistance we encounter as we start or as we actually start to achieve our goals.  Resistance becomes the worse when we are at the finish line. Symptoms of resistance: procrastination, alcohol, eating, drama, habitually lying to ourselves by saying we will deal with it tomorrow, constantly distracting ourselves, being in isolation, criticizing others, and fear.  We live in a society that is so good at exploiting and accommodating resistance and the feelings that it causes within us.

To become great at anything, we must do the hard work.  Push past the resistance and defy it.  According to Steven Pressfield, “the most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.”  You must treat your goal, vision, and dream like a full-time job.  Stop treating your dream like it’s a hobby, it’s your dream for crying out loud!  Don’t just tinker around for a few hours here and there, go all in, all chips into the pot.  When you treat your dream like your regular, full-time job, you can transfer a lot of the skills you apply to the latter to the former, even if they are not related at all.  Once you hit this point, you become a professional versus an amateur.

The Professional does the most important first, which is the hard work. The Professional is patient.  The Professional knows the tortoise versus the hare, a long-haul marathon.  The Professional seeks order and focuses on techniques and fundamentals. The Professional knows that fear will never go away and doesn’t use good excuses because if he/she gets a good excuse today, it will be even easier to use one for tomorrow.  The Professional knows the world is unfair but doesn’t use that as an excuse, he/she simply takes it into account. The Professional doesn’t show off, isn’t afraid to ask for help, endures adversity, and doesn’t take success and failure too seriously.  The Professional blows critics off, recognizes their own limitations, reinvents themselves, and treats him/herself like a corporation. All of this happens when they decide to turn pro.

The Professional also commits to a territory, when you commit to a territory, you can change the world. Each of us has a different calling. Some of us are sales executives, some write books or articles, or construct homes.  That means we all pick different territories to leave our mark in.  You find your territory based on the following:

• It makes you feel better every time you go there. Your territory is a place where you feel you grow, where you are challenged and satisfied at the same time.  You become a pro in your territory.
• You can only become king of the hill through hard work.
• It is endless. You get back however much you put in.

Not only will owning your territory benefit you and your work, you just might change the entire world, and live the life you are meant to live.

Whether you are looking to start something new during this pandemic, grab that dream job you’ve always wanted, write your own book, paint a picture, or just get out of whatever rut you might be in due to the pandemic, work on defying the resistance that Steven Pressfield outlines in his book.  The best place to start is by reading his book as you will have a better insight into your actions and why we prevent ourselves, at times, from succeeding. This book will give you just the right push and motivation to finish whatever important goal, vison or dream you want to accomplish.