The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
This month I was seeing what makes a good story and thought I’d round out with some advice on actually writing a book, with this weeks book, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield.
This is not going to be a very long review, as the book itself was only 165 pages, broken into three parts: Book One Resistance (or Defining the Enemy); Book Two Combating Resistance (or Turning Pro); and Book Three Beyond Resistance (or The Higher Realm).
And basically, this is more psychological help on getting you motivated to do….whatever endeavor you know you need to do to live your own life.
Once you get past the forward, written by Robert McKee, who points out that anyone reading this will surely recognize themselves in the pages herein, McKee certainly recognized himself in the pages on Resistance, can learn from this how to break out of resistance, aka procrastination, and Do the Work.
So what is resistance and when are you likely to encounter it? Resistance is whatever reason you use to justify NOT doing The Thing. The Thing can be any creative pursuit, i.e. writing, painting, music, dancing, anything creative. Starting that diet you know you need to start. Spiritual enrichment….remember almost a year ago when I wanted to start meditating. Guess what I never started? Guess why….resistance. As Pressfield says “any act that rejects 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.”
It's procrastination. It’s sometimes something we can try and blame on others…my husband thinks I’m doing too much, maybe I need to cut back on my gym time.” Husband is an excuse to stop going to the gym. Because you know it’s good for you, you know your health NEEDS you to get your ass on a treadmill. But you really don’t want to. You want that donut. So you blame your husband, rather than putting down the donut and hopping on the treadmill.
My wife thinks I don’t spend enough time with the children, but I really want to write the book. But I also want to play golf. So I will play golf, and spend time with the children, and not write the book. I mean…there are only so many hours in the day, so something’s gotta give.
Here’s the thing though. Pressfield says Resistance lies. It will make deals with yourself…today I play golf, tomorrow I spend time with the kids, then in the evening I will write. Except…by the time evening comes, you’re exhausted from golf, and from the day at the park with the kids, so instead you grab a beer and sit on the couch watching YouTube videos.
But resistance doesn’t care about YOU. It just wants you to do nothing, to take the path of least resistance. It’s easy to sit on the couch, drinking beer, watching YouTube, where the hardest decision you have to make is WHAT to watch.
As Pressfield says, “The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.”
The closer you get to reaching your goal, whether it’s finishing the book, your goal weight, reaching that next meditative state…the more resistance will push back. I’m so close to the goal weight, surely a piece of cheesecake has been earned. I’ve been meditating every night for a month, I can take a night off to go out camping with my friends….and then one night off becomes a week, and before you know it, a year has passed.
Anything you know you should be doing today for your own mental, spiritual, or physical well being, that you tell yourself can wait until tomorrow, that is resistance.
So what do we do about resistance?
Do the work. It really is that simple. And that difficult. Making yourself sit down and do X…whatever X may be for you.
So how do you set yourself up for success? Well, having finished my gunsmithing course, I’m on to learning coding. So as soon as I finish my day job…because as a bare beginner with coding, it’s definitely not a self-sustaining venture for me…I immediately turn on my computer and run through my next coding lesson. Make X part of your routine.
And understand, Pressfield is not JUST referring to creative endeavors. Maybe you want to open your own HVAC business. Set your day up so you can run your business and do the work necessary to make this happen. Resistance will fight you. So you fight back by getting your butt to work. And the work may suck. You may throw the results right in the garbage. But you did SOMETHING. And for this, the muses reward you.
Yep, Pressfield calls them the muses, naming all nine of the original Greek muses, and citing how they will whisper encouragement in your ear…once you get started.
Pressfield says “aspiring artists defeated by Resistance share one trait. They all think like amateurs. They have not yet turned pro…the amateur plays for fun. The professional plays for keeps…the amateur is a weekend warrior. The professional is there seven days a week.”
It’s like that quote from I believe it’s Tim Notke, “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” You can be the most gifted amateur in the world. If you only practice a few hours on the weekend, you’re gonna get blown out of the water by the most plebeian competitor, if that competitor shows up every day and puts in hours perfecting the art…every day.
Because the muses, those artistic angels that float around looking for talent to reward, will see that the gifted amateur is wasting their talents, while the plebeian is struggling to master the forms.
Pressfield breaks it down further by pointing out the habits that already make you a professional. You show up every day for work. No matter what. We stay all day at work, for the long haul, year over year. You do this for a job because you need to pay the bills. Why won’t you do it for something you care passionately about? It may not pay the bills YET, but if you don’t put in the effort, it never will.
So eliminate chaos as much as you can. Make your work part of your day. And you will beat resistance. And become an artists…whatever that may mean to you. And the angels or muses will support you in your goal. Because ultimately, while you will undoubtedly put out some very bad product, when you truly find your talent, and you put in the effort, nothing will hold you back.
This is a decent little piece of motivational writing. I think if you are engaged in any creative project, whatever that may be, then this is a good piece to read to remind you that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel…as long as you don’t cave to Resistance.
