Do The Work Steven Pressfield Quotes

#1. 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.

Steven Pressfield

#2. Rationalization is Resistance's right-hand man. Its job is to keep us from feeling the shame we would feel if we truly faced what cowards we are for not doing our work.

Steven Pressfield

#3. It can pay off, being a hack. Given the depraved state of American culture, a slick dude can make millions being a hack. But even if you succeed, you lose, because you've sold out your Muse, and your Muse is you, the best part of yourself, where your finest and only true work comes from.

Steven Pressfield

#4. Then there's the third way proffered by the Lord of Discipline, which is beyond both hierarchy and territory. That is to do the work and give it to Him. Do it as an offering to God. Give the act to me. Purged of hope and ego,

Steven Pressfield

#5. The song we're composing already exists in potential. Our work is to find it.

Steven Pressfield

#6. The professional is acutely aware of the intangibles that go into inspiration. Out of respect for them, she lets them work. She grants them their sphere while she concentrates on hers.

Steven Pressfield

#7. 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 one 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.

Steven Pressfield

#8. The essence of professionalism is the focus upon the work and its demands, while we are doing it, to the exclusion of all else.

Steven Pressfield

#9. The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.

Steven Pressfield

#10. The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work.

Steven Pressfield

#11. Making yourself a corporation (or just thinking of yourself in that way) reinforces the idea of professionalism because it separates the artist-doing-the-work from the will-and-consciousness-running-the-show.

Steven Pressfield

#12. Is it healthy for a society to entrust its defense to one percent of its population, while the other 99 percent thanks its lucky stars that it doesn't have to do the dirty work?

Steven Pressfield

#13. The professional, though he accepts money, does his work out of love. He has to love it. Otherwise he wouldn't devote his life to it of his own free will.

Steven Pressfield

#14. We all fight wars - in our work, within our families and abroad in the wider world. Each of us struggles every day to define and defend our sense of purpose and integrity, to justify our existence on the planet and to understand, if only within our own hearts, who we are and what we believe in.

Steven Pressfield

#15. The professional loves her work. She is invested in it wholeheartedly. But she does not forget that the work is not her.

Steven Pressfield

#16. We unplug ourselves from the grid by recognizing that we will never cure our restlessness by contributing our disposable income to the bottom line of Bullshit, Inc., but only by doing our work.

Steven Pressfield

#17. Art is a war - between ourselves and the forces of self-sabotage that would stop us from doing our work. The artist is a warrior.

Steven Pressfield

#18. Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on Resistance. This second, we can sit down and do our work.

Steven Pressfield

#19. Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work.

Steven Pressfield

#20. Its [Resistance] aim is to shove us away, distract us from doing our work.

Steven Pressfield

#21. Playing the game for money produces the proper professional attitude. It inculcates the lunch-pail state of mind that shows up for work despite rain or snow or dark of night and slugs it out day after day.

Steven Pressfield

#22. The professional arms himself with patience, not only to give the stars time to align in his career, but to keep himself from flaming out in each individual work.

Steven Pressfield

#23. Research can become Resistance. We want to work, not prepare to work.

Steven Pressfield

#24. The payoff of living in the past or the future is you never have to do your work in the present.

Steven Pressfield

#25. At least twice a week, I pause in the rush of work and have a meeting with myself. (If I were part of a team, I'd call a team meeting.) I ask myself, again, of the project: "What is this damn thing about?" Keep refining your understanding of the theme; keep narrowing it down.

Steven Pressfield

#26. We must do our work for its own sake, not for fortune or attention or applause.

Steven Pressfield

#27. Monopoly money; it's not legal tender in that sphere where we have to do our work. In fact, the more energy we spend stoking up on support from colleagues and loved ones, the weaker we become and the less capable of handling our business.

Steven Pressfield

#28. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us .

Steven Pressfield

#29. 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?

Steven Pressfield

#30. The opposite of fear is love - love of the challenge, love of the work, the pure joyous passion to take a shot at our dream and see if we can pull it off.

Steven Pressfield

#31. The sign of the amateur is overglorification of and preoccupation with the mystery. The professional shuts up. She doesn't talk about it. She does her work.

Steven Pressfield

#32. The concept in all these environments seems to be that one needs to complete his healing before he is ready to do his work.

Steven Pressfield

#33. Artists are modest. They know they're not doing the work; they're just taking dictation.

Steven Pressfield

#34. In my experience, depth of work consists of two components. The first is recklessness; the second is discipline. Dionysian; Apollonian. Passion;reason.

Steven Pressfield

#35. Resistance is a repelling force. It's negative. Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work.

Steven Pressfield

#36. 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.

Steven Pressfield

#37. Remember, Resistance wants us to cede sovereignty to others. It wants us to stake our self-worth, our identity, our reason-for-being, on the response of others to our work. Resistance knows we can't take this. No one can.

Steven Pressfield

#38. 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

#39. A great trick that I learned having worked as a screenwriter for many years, the way screenwriters work, is they break the project down into three-act structure: Act 1, Act 2, Act 3. I think that is a great way to break down any project, whether it's a new business or anything at all.

Steven Pressfield

#40. Do I really believe that my work is crucial to the planet's survival? Of course not. But it's as important to me as catching that mouse is to the hawk circling outside my window. He's hungry. He needs a kill. So do I.

Steven Pressfield

#41. A work-in-progress generates its own energy field. You, the artist or entrepreneur, are pouring love into the work; you are suffusing it with passion and intention and hope.

Steven Pressfield

#42. 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 come, whatever they like.

Steven Pressfield

#43. Instead of applying self-knowledge, self-discipline, delayed gratification and hard work, we simply consume a product.

Steven Pressfield

#44. Do you understand? I hadn't written anything good. It might be years before I would, if I ever did at all. That didn't matter. What counted was that I had, after years of running from it, actually sat down and done my work.

Steven Pressfield

#45. The only items you get to keep are love for the work, will to finish, and passion to serve the ethical, creative Muse.

Steven Pressfield

#46. The professional does not permit himself to become hidebound within one incarnation, however comfortable or successful. Like a transmigrating soul, he shucks his outworn body and dons a new one. He continues his journey.

Steven Pressfield

#47. Casting yourself as a victim is the antithesis of doing your work. Don't do it. If you're doing it, stop.

Steven Pressfield

#48. Figure out where you want to go; then work backwards from there.

Steven Pressfield

#49. Writers think in metaphors. Editors work in metaphors. A great reader reads in metaphors.
All are continually asking, "What does this represent? What does it stand for?"
They are trying to take everything one level deeper. When they get to that level, they will try to go deeper again.

Steven Pressfield