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b925600
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The enemy is Resistance.
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self-help
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Steven Pressfield |
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dd426f2
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The professional cannot take rejection personally because to do so reinforces Resistance. Editors are not the enemy; critics are not the enemy. Resistance is the enemy. The battle is inside our own heads. We cannot let external criticism, even if it's true, fortify our internal foe. That foe is strong enough already.
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Steven Pressfield |
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0b9e32e
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In their minds it is the mark of an ill-prepared and amateur army to rely in the moments before battle on what they call pseudoandreia, false courage, meaning the artificially inflated martial frenzy produced by a general's eleventh-hour harangue or some peak of bronze-banging bravado built to by shouting, shield-pounding and the like[...] It made no difference. None was a match for the warriors of Lakedaemon, and all knew it.
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warrior-ethos
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Steven Pressfield |
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596b1a5
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My wish for you, Kallistos, is that you survive as many battles in the flesh as you have already fought in your imagination. Perhaps then you will acquire the humility of a man and bear yourself no longer as the demigod you presume yourself to be.
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warrior
warrior-ethos
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Steven Pressfield |
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ddba8fe
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Turning pro is like kicking a drug habit or stopping drinking. It's a decision, a decision to which we must re-commit every day.
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Steven Pressfield |
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766f6df
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In the hierarchy, the artist faces outward. Meeting someone new he asks himself, What can this person do for me? How can this person advance my standing? In the hierarchy, the artist looks up and looks down. The one place he can't look is that place he must: within.
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Steven Pressfield |
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9cbc4e8
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The drawing is also a reminder that there's an artist within each of us, and we must encourage that artist to do the work, to make something that matters, regardless of anything else that is going on.
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Steven Pressfield |
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6b42c35
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In my younger days dodging the draft, I somehow wound up in the Marine Corps. There's a myth that Marine training turns baby-faced recruits into bloodthirsty killers. Trust me, the Marine Corps is not that efficient. What it does teach, however, is a lot more useful. The Marine Corps teaches you how to be miserable. This is invaluable for an artist. Marines love to be miserable. Marines derive a perverse satisfaction in having colder chow, ..
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artist
author
creative-block
focus
marine
perseverance
writers-block
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Steven Pressfield |
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69f47f5
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Lat at nigh have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized being you were mean to be? Are you a writer who doesn't write, a painter who doesn't pain, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what Resistance is.
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dream
dreams
meaning-of-life
meant-to-be
resistance
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Steven Pressfield |
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1f4b405
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The awakening an artist must be ruthless, not only with herself but with others.
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artist
ruthless
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Steven Pressfield |
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b2e776f
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Warfare is theatre, I have said, and the essence of theatre is aritifce. What we show, we will not do. What we don't show, we will do.
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Steven Pressfield |
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d81c0e2
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Fame Imperishable and glory that will never die -- that is what we march for!
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glory
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Steven Pressfield |
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323daf7
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Don't think. Act. We can always revise and revisit once we've acted. But we can accomplish nothing until we act.
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Steven Pressfield |
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1ad836f
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Do we have to stare death in the face to make us stand up and confront Resistance?
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Steven Pressfield |
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197a110
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Its [Resistance] aim is to shove us away, distract us from doing our work.
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distraction
resistance
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Steven Pressfield |
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60a7794
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Resistance has no conscience.
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Steven Pressfield |
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d306b59
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These scars on my body," Alexander declared, "were got for you, my brothers. Every wound, as you see, is in the front. Let that man stand forth from your ranks who has bled more than I, or endured more than I for your sake. Show him to me, and I will yield to your weariness and go home." Not a man came forward. Instead, a great cheer arose from the army. The men begged their king to forgive them for their want of spirit and pleaded with him..
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Steven Pressfield |
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f085f42
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What's the difference between a Spartan king and a mid-ranker? One man will lob this query to his mate as they prepare to bed down in the open in a cold driving rain. His friend considers mock-theatrically for a moment. .'The king sleeps in that shithole over there' he replies. 'We sleep in this shithole over here.
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Steven Pressfield |
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75d7bf2
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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.
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Steven Pressfield |
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928d8ef
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Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. It will perjure, fabricate, falsify; seduce, bully, cajole. Resistance is protean. It will assume any form, if that's what it takes to deceive you. It will reason with you like a lawyer or jam a nine-millimeter in your face like a stickup man. Resistance has no conscience. It will pledge anything to get a deal, then double-cross you as soon as your back is turned. If you ta..
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Steven Pressfield |
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27423a7
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Cousin, the days of gods and heroes are over." "Not to me. Not to them."
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Steven Pressfield |
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44fef85
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When we drug ourselves to blot out our soul's call, we are being good Americans and exemplary consumers.
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art
consumerism
creativity
destiny
soul
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Steven Pressfield |
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0db6cc6
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When a warrior fights not for himself, but for his brothers, when his most passionately sought goal is neither glory nor his own life's preservation, but to spend his substance for them, his comrades, not to abandon them, not to prove unworthy of them, then his heart truly has achieved contempt for death, and with that he transcends himself and his actions touch the sublime.
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Steven Pressfield |
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aba00e1
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Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet.
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toxic
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Steven Pressfield |
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9ca1d78
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The amateur allows his worth and identity to be defined by others. The amateur craves third-party validation. The amateur is tyrannized by his imagined conception of what is expected of him. He is imprisoned by what he believes he ought to think, how he ought to look, what he ought to do, and who he ought to be.
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Steven Pressfield |
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cea1418
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If you find yourself criticizing other people, you're probably doing it out of Resistance. When we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived out our own.
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Steven Pressfield |
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f3b21a9
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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.
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Steven Pressfield |
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0dfa52c
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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.
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Steven Pressfield |
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1ee1594
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Many artists are addicts, and vice versa. Many are artists in one breath and addicts in another. What's the difference? The addict is the amateur; the artist is the professional.
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Steven Pressfield |
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14c3fe4
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What does Resistance feel like? First, unhappiness. We feel like hell. A low-grade misery pervades everything. We're bored, we're restless. We can't get no satisfaction. There's guilt but we can't put our finger on the source. We want to go back to bed; we want to get up and party. We feel unloved and unlovable. We're disgusted. We hate our lives. We hate ourselves.
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Steven Pressfield |
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1bd0b29
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RESISTANCE AND FEAR Are you paralyzed with fear? That's a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it. Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certa..
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Steven Pressfield |
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f81423f
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The part that needs healing is our personal life. Personal life has nothing to do with work. Besides, what better way of healing than to find our center of self-sovereignty? Isn't that the whole point of healing?
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Steven Pressfield |
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e5eb53e
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We're never alone. As soon as we step outside the campfire glow, our Muse lights on our shoulder like a butterfly. The act of courage calls for infallibly that deeper part of ourselves that supports and sustains us.
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muse
support
sustain
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Steven Pressfield |
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44786c2
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Ambition, I have come to believe, is the most primal and sacred fundament of our being. To feel ambition and to act upon it is to embrace the unique calling of our souls. Not to act upon that ambition is to turn our backs on ourselves and on the reason for our existence.
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Steven Pressfield |
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3e67ce0
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Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us.
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Steven Pressfield |
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800b424
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The hardship of the exercises is intended less to strengthen the back than to toughen the mind.
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Steven Pressfield |
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6f42840
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Resistance outwits the amateur with the oldest trick in the book: It uses his own enthusiasm against him. Resistance gets us to plunge into a project with an overambitious and unrealistic timetable for its completion. It knows we can't sustain that level of intensity. We will hit the wall. We will crash. The professional, on the other hand, understands delayed gratification. He is the ant, not the grasshopper; the tortoise, not the hare... ..
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Steven Pressfield |
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04b6c20
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What happens when we turn pro is, we finally listen to that still, small voice inside our heads. At last we find the courage to identify the secret dream or love or bliss that we have known all along was our passion, our calling, our destiny.
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Steven Pressfield |
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fedce3c
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A victim act is a form of passive aggression. It seeks to achieve gratification not by honest work or a contribution made out of one's experience or insight or love, but by the manipulation of others through silent (and not-so-silent) threat. The victim compels others to come to his rescue or to behave as he wishes by holding them hostage to the prospect of his own further illness/meltdown/mental dissolution, or simply by threatening to mak..
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Steven Pressfield |
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dee0f9f
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Good. Then we will fight in the shade
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Steven Pressfield |
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f287e0f
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He is prepared, each day, to confront his own self-sabotage.
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Steven Pressfield |
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0b2988d
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The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit. We don't just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed.
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Steven Pressfield |
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db952a3
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By Blake's model, as I understand it, it's as though the Fifth Symphony existed already in that higher sphere, before Beethoven sat down and played dah-dah-dah-DUM. The catch was this: The work existed only as potential -- without a body, so to speak. It wasn't music yet. You couldn't play it. You couldn't hear it. It needed someone. It needed a corporeal being, a human, an artist (or more precisely a genius, in the Latin sense of "soul" or..
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Steven Pressfield |
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e579468
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The professional does not wait for inspiration; he acts in anticipation of it. He
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Steven Pressfield |