Steven Pressfield Resistance Quotes

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Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield
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Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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If you're are paralyzed with fear it's a good sign. It shows you what you have to do.
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Steven Pressfield
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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 certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That's why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there'd be no Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Resistance by definition is self-sabotage.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Resistance is directly proportional to love. If you're feeling massive Resistance, the good news is that it means there's tremendous love there too.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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The more resistance you experience, the more important your unmanifested art/project/enterprise is to you - and the more gratification you will fell when you finally do it.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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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. 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.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Resistance is not a peripheral opponent. Resistance arises from within. It is self-generated and self-perpetuated. resistance is the enemy within.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be felt.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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We feed it [Resistance] with power by our fear of it. Master that fear and we conquer Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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No matter how great a writer, artist, or entrepreneur, he is a mortal, he is fallible. He is not proof against Resistance. He will drop the ball; he will crash. That’s why they call it rewriting.
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Steven Pressfield (Do the Work)
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In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term grown, health, or integrity. Or, expressed another way, any act that derives from our high nature instead of our lower. Any of these will elicit Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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We're wrong if we think we're the only ones struggling with Resistance. Everyone who has a body experiences Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Resistance gets us to plunge into a project with an overambitious and unrealistic timetable for its completion.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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The enemy is Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield (Do the Work)
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You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study... Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I'll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.
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Steven Pressfield
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Resistance obstructs movement only from a lower sphere to a higher. It kicks in when we seek to pursue a calling in the arts, launch an innovative enterprise, or evolve to a high station morally, ethically, or spiritually.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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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 (The War of Art)
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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 (The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle)
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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 (The War of Art)
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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 (The War of Art)
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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 (The War of Art)
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Like a magnetized needle floating on a surface of oil, Resistance will unfailingly point to true North - meaning that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing. We can use this. We can use it as a compass. We can navigate by Resistance, letting it guide us to that calling or action that we must follow before all others.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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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 (Do the Work)
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Its [Resistance] aim is to shove us away, distract us from doing our work.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Resistance has no conscience.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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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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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel
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Steven Pressfield (Do the Work)
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There's a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don't, and the secret is this: It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Resistance's goal is not to would or disable. Resistance aims to kill.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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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.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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On the field of the Self stand a knight and a dragon. Β  You are the knight. Resistance is the dragon.
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Steven Pressfield (Do the Work)
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Anything that draws attention to ourselves through pain-free or artificial means is a manifestation of Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.
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Steven Pressfield (Do the Work)
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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 take Resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get. Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle)
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What does Resistance feel like? Β  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 (The War of Art)
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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.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Resistance is implacable, intractable, indefatigable.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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You think Resistance isn't real? Resistance will bury you.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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We do not overidentify with our jobs. We may take pride in our work, we may stay late and come in on weekends, but we recognize that we are not our job descriptions. The amateur, on the other hand, overidentifies with his avocation, his artistic aspiration. He defines himself by it. He is a musician, a painter, a playwright. Resistance loves this. Resistance knows that the amateur composer will never write his symphony because he is overly invested in its success and overterrified of its failure. The amateur takes it so seriously it paralyzes him.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Sometimes on Wednesday I’ll read something that I wrote on Tuesday and I’ll think, β€œThis is crap. I hate it and I hate myself.” Then I’ll re-read the identical passage on Thursday. To my astonishment, it has become brilliant overnight. Ignore false negatives. Ignore false positives. Both are Resistance. Keep working.
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Steven Pressfield (Do the Work)
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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... 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. He knows that any job, whether it's a novel or kitchen remodel, takes twice as long as he thinks and costs twice as much. He accepts that. He recognizes it as reality.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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The professional loves it so much he dedicates his life to it. He commits full-time. That's what I mean when I say turning pro. Resistance hates it when we turn pro.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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The pro keeps coming on. He beats Resistance at its own game by being even more resolute and even more implacable than it is.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Resistance knows that the amateur composer will never write his symphony because he is overly invested in its success and overterrified of its failure.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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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 (The War of Art)
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Resistance is the enemy within.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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The professional has learned better. He respects Resistance. He knows if he caves in today, no matter how plausible the pretext, he’ll be twice as likely to cave in tomorrow.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle)
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Resistance has no strength of its own. Every ounce of juice it possesses comes from us. We feed it with power by our fear of it. Master that fear and we conquer Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Steven Pressfield's book The War of Art describes what he calls "Resistence," a mysterious force in the world that seems to challenge every creative act. Pressfield isn't a Christian, as far as I know, but when he talks about the way we have to fight an opposing force in order to bring something beautiful into the world, I resonate. I believe there's a Resistance, and it's made up of what Paul called the rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers over this present darkness, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12). If you're called to speak light into the darkness, then believe this: the darkness wants to shut you up.
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Andrew Peterson (Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making)
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Resistance is directly proportional to love. If you're feeling massive Resistance, the good news is, it means there's tremendous love 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's indifference.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Be brave, my heart [wrote the poet and mercenary Archilochus]. Plant your feet and square your shoulders to the enemy. Meet him among the man-killing spears. Hold your ground. In victory, do not brag; in defeat, do not weep. The ancients resisted innovation in warfare because they feared it would rob the struggle of honor. King Agis was shown a new catapult, which could shoot a killing dart 200 yards. When he saw this, he wept. β€œAlas,” he said. β€œValor is no more.
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Steven Pressfield (The Warrior Ethos)
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The professional gives an ear to criticism, seeking to learn and grow. But she never forgets that Resistance is using criticism against her on a far more diabolical level. Resistance enlists criticism to reinforce the fifth column of fear already at work inside the artist's head, seeking to break her will and crack her dedication. The professional does not fall for this. Her resolution, before all others, remains: No matter what, I will never let Resistance beat me.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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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. 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.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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The danger is greatest when the finish line is in sight. At this point, Resistance knows we're about to beat it. It hits the panic button. It marshals one last assault and slams us with everything it's got.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. Β  What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle)
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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.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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I once worked as a writer for a big New York ad agency. Our boss used to tell us: Invent a disease. Come up with the disease, he said, and we can sell the cure. Attention Deficit Disorder, Seasonal Affect Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder. These aren't diseases, they're marketing ploys. Doctors didn't discover them, copywriters did. Marketing departments did. Drug companies did. Depression and anxiety may be real. But they can also be Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Resistance is diabolical. It can harness our drive for greatness and our instinct for professionalism and yoke them, instead, to a shadow profession, whose demands will keep us from turning our energies toward their true course.
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Steven Pressfield (Turning Pro)
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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 certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That's why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there'd be no Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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In other words, 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. Any of these will elicit Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Have you seen interviews with the young John Lennon or Bob Dylan, when the reporter tries to ask about their personal selves? The boys deflect these queries with withering sarcasm. Why? Because Lennon and Dylan know that the part of them that writes the songs is not "them," not the personal self that is of such surpassing fascination to their boneheaded interrogators. Lennon and Dylan also know that the part of themselves that does the writing is too sacred, too precious, too fragile to be redacted into sound bites for the titillation of would-be idolators (who are themselves caught up in their own Resistance).
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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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. Unalleviated, Resistance mounts to a pitch that becomes unendurable. At this point vices kick in. Dope, adultery, web surfing.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Resistance, his all-encompassing term for what Freud called the Death Wish β€” that destructive force inside human nature that rises whenever we consider a tough, long-term course of action that might do for us or others something that's actually good.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Like our IQ, talent is a gift from our ancestors. If we're lucky, we inherit it. In the fortunate talented few, the dark dimension of their natures will first resist the labor that creativity demands, but once they commit to the task, their talented side stirs to action and rewards them with astonishing feats. These flashes of creative genius seem to arrive from out of the blue for the obvious reason: They come from the unconscious mind. In short, if the Muse exists, she does not whisper to the untalented.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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RESISTANCE AND PROCRASTINATION Β  Procrastination is the most common manifestation of Resistance because it’s the easiest to rationalize. We don’t tell ourselves, β€œI’m never going to write my symphony.” Instead we say, β€œI am going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start tomorrow.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle)
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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 certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That's why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there'd be no Resistance. Have you ever watched Inside the Actors Studio? The host, James Lipton, invariably asks his guests, "What factors make you decide to take a particular role?" The actor always answers: "Because I'm afraid of it." The professional tackles the project that will make him stretch. He takes on the assignment that will bear him into uncharted waters, compel him to explore unconscious parts of himself. Is he scared? Hell, yes. He's petrified. (Conversely, the professional turns down roles that he's done before. He's not afraid of them anymore. Why waste his time?) So if you're paralyzed with fear, it's a good sign. It shows you what you have to do.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Do we have to stare death in the face to make us stand up and confront Resistance? Does Resistance have to cripple and disfigure our lives before we wake up to its existence? How many of us have become drunks and drug addicts, developed tumors and neuroses, succumbed to painkillers, gossip, and compulsive cell-phone use, simply because we don't do that
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Anything worthwhile is opposed. Steven Pressfield (War of Art) calls this the Resistance.
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Michael Hyatt (Living Forward: A Proven Plan to Stop Drifting and Get the Life You Want)
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The professional knows that Resistance is like a telemarketer; if you so much as say hello, you're finished.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Every sun casts a shadow, and genius's shadow is Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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I, on the other hand, believe that the source of creativity is found on the same plane of reality as Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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any act that derives from our higher nature instead of our lower. Any of these acts will elicit Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield (Do the Work)
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If you take Resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get. Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Resistance is 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 (Do the Work)
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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 (The War of Art)
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Resistance plays for keeps. It plays to kill. Resistance is fueled by fear. It has no power on its own. Every ounce of juice it possesses comes from us. Master the fear and we conquer resistance.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Similarly the call to growth can be conceptualized as personal (a daimon or genius, an angel or a muse) or as impersonal, like the tides or the transiting of Venus. Either way works, as long as we're comfortable with it. Or if extra-dimensionality doesn't sit well with you in any form, think of it as "talent," programmed into our genes by evolution. The point, for the thesis I'm seeking to put forward, is that there are forces we can call our allies. As Resistance works to keep us from becoming who we were born to be, equal and opposite powers are counterpoised against it. These are our allies and angels.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art, identifies this reluctance. He calls it resistance. He writes, β€œThere is a force resisting the beautiful things in the world, and too many of us are giving in.
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John C. Maxwell (Intentional Living: Choosing a Life That Matters)
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I thought of you when I read this quote from "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield, Shawn Coyne - "Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Depression and anxiety may be real. But they can also be Resistance. When we drug ourselves to blot out our soul's call, we are being good Americans and exemplary consumers. We're doing exactly what TV commercials and pop materialist culture have been brainwashing us to do from birth. Instead of applying self-knowledge, self-discipline, delayed gratification and hard work, we simply consume a product. Many pedestrians have been maimed or killed at the intersection of Resistance and Commerce.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Once we commit to action, the worst thing we can do is to stop. What will keep us from stopping? Plain old stubbornness. I like the idea of stubbornness because it’s less lofty than β€œtenacity” or β€œperseverance.” We don’t have to be heroes to be stubborn. We can just be pains in the butt. When we’re stubborn, there’s no quit in us. We’re mean. We’re mulish. We’re ornery. We’re in till the finish. We will sink our junkyard-dog teeth into Resistance’s ass and not let go, no matter how hard he kicks.
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Steven Pressfield (Do the Work)
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When Michael Crichton approached the end of a novel (so I’ve read), he used to start getting up earlier and earlier in the morning. He was desperate to keep his mojo going. He’d get up at six, then five, then three-thirty and two-thirty, till he was driving his wife insane. Finally he had to move out of the house. He checked into a hotel (the Kona Village, which ain’t so bad) and worked around the clock till he’d finished the book. Michael Crichton was a pro. He knew that Resistance was strongest at the finish. He
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Steven Pressfield (Do the Work)
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The next few chapters are going to be about those invisible psychic forces that support and sustain us in our journey toward ourselves. I plan on using terms like muses and angels. Does that make you uncomfortable? If it does, you have my permission to think of angels in the abstract. Consider these forces as being impersonal as gravity. Maybe they are. It's not hard to believe, is it, that a force exists in every grain and seed to make it grow? Or that in every kitten or colt is an instinct that impels it to run and play and learn. Just as Resistance can be thought of as
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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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.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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The fundamentalist (or, more accurately, the beleaguered individual who comes to embrace fundamentalism) cannot stand freedom. He cannot find his way into the future, so he retreats to the past. He returns in imagination to the glory days of his race and seeks to reconstitute both them and himself in their purer, more virtuous light. He gets back to basics. To fundamentals. Fundamentalism and art are mutually exclusive. There is no such thing as fundamentalist art. This does not mean that the fundamentalist is not creative. Rather, his creativity is inverted. He creates destruction. Even the structures he builds, his schools and networks of organization, are dedicated to annihilation, of his enemies and of himself. But the fundamentalist reserves his greatest creativity for the fashioning of Satan, the image of his foe, in opposition to which he defines and gives meaning to his own life. Like the artist, the fundamentalist experiences Resistance. He experiences it as temptation to sin. Resistance to the fundamentalist is the call of the Evil One, seeking to seduce him from his virtue. The fundamentalist is consumed with Satan, whom he loves as he loves death. Is it coincidence that the suicide bombers of the World Trade Center frequented strip clubs during their training, or that they conceived of their reward as a squadron of virgin brides and the license to ravish them in the fleshpots of heaven? The fundamentalist hates and fears women because he sees them as vessels of Satan, temptresses like Delilah who seduced Samson from his power. To combat the call of sin, i.e., Resistance, the fundamentalist plunges either into action or into the study of sacred texts. He loses himself in these, much as the artist does in the process of creation. The difference is that while the one looks forward, hoping to create a better world, the other looks backward, seeking to return to a purer world from which he and all have fallen.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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The epidemic So many people are frozen in the face of uncertainty and paralyzed at the thought of shipping work that matters that one might think that the fear is hardwired into us. It is. Scientists can identify precisely where your lizard brain lives. This is your prehistoric early brain, the same brain that’s in the lizard or the deer. Filled with fear, intent on reproduction. Steven Pressfield gives the voice of the lizard brain a name: he calls it the resistance. And the resistance is talking to you as you read this, urging you to compromise, to not be an troublemaker, to avoid rash moves. For many of us, the resistance is always chattering away, frequently sabotaging our best opportunities and ruining our best chance to do great work. Naming it helps you befriend it, and befriending it helps you ignore it.
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Seth Godin (Poke the Box)
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This is how Resistance disfigures love. The stew it creates is rich, it's colorful; Tennessee Williams could work it up into a trilogy. But is it love? If we're the supporting partner, shouldn't we face our own failure to pursue our unlived life, rather than hitchhike on our spouse's coattails? And if we're the supported partner, shouldn't we step out from the glow of our loved one's adoration and instead encourage him to let his own light shine?
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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Resistance. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's easier to endow our partner with the power that we in fact possess but are afraid to act upon. Maybe it's less threatening to believe that our beloved spouse is worthy to live out his or her unlived life, while we are not. Or maybe we're hoping to use our mate as a model. Maybe we believe (or wish we could) that some of our spouse's power will rub off on us, if we just hang around it long enough. This is how Resistance disfigures love. The stew it creates is rich, it's colorful; Tennessee Williams could work it up into a trilogy. But is it love? If we're the supporting partner, shouldn't we face our own failure to pursue our unlived life, rather than hitchhike on our spouse's coattails? And
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)
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I once worked as a writer for a big New York ad agency. Our boss used to tell us: Invent a disease. Come up with the disease, he said, and we can sell the cure. Attention Deficit Disorder, Seasonal Affect Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder. These aren't diseases, they're marketing ploys. Doctors didn't discover them, copywriters did. Marketing departments did. Drug companies did. Depression and anxiety may be real. But they can also be Resistance. When we drug ourselves to blot out our soul's call, we are being good Americans and exemplary consumers. We're doing exactly what TV commercials and pop materialist culture have been brainwashing us to do from birth. Instead of applying self-knowledge, self-discipline, delayed gratification and hard work, we simply consume a product.
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Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)