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Figure Out What Scares You The Most And Do That First.
-Steven Pressfield
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Figure Out What Scares

Steven Pressfield
...
Figure Out What Scares You The Most And Do That First.

Understanding the Quote: "figure out what scares you the most and do that first...."

This quote by Steven Pressfield reflects deeply on the theme of scare. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Scare, Firsts, Figures, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Steven Pressfield interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Steven Pressfield

Steven Pressfield is celebrated for insightful thoughts on scare and firsts. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Scare
Firsts
Figures
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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.
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Nothing Fires The Warrior’s Heart More With Courage Than To Find Himself And His Comrades At The Point Of Annihilation, At The Brink Of Being Routed And Overrun, And Then To Dredge Not Merely From One’s Own Bowels Or Guts But From One’s Discipline And Training The Presence Of Mind Not To Panic, Not To Yield To The Possession Of Despair, But Instead To Complete Those Homely Acts Of Order Which Dienekes Had Ever Declared The Supreme Accomplishment Of The Warrior: To Perform The Commonplace Under Far-from-commonplace Conditions.
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Don't Prepare. Begin. Our Enemy Is Not Lack Of Preparation. The Enemy Is Resistance, Our Chattering Brain Producing Excuses. Start Before You Are Ready.
Preparation
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If You're Are Paralyzed With Fear It's A Good Sign. It Shows You What You Have To Do.
Fear
Shows
Paralyzed
The Artist And The Fundamentalist Both Confront The Same Issue, The Mystery Of Their Existence As Individuals.
Artist
Issues
Mystery
Start Before You’re Ready. Good Things Happen When We Start Before We’re Ready.
Good Things
Ready
Happens
One Thing I've Found In Any Project Is Almost Universally About Three Quarters Of The Way Through - Or Maybe A Little Father, Maybe Seventh Eighths On The Way Through - Any Project Will Explode.
Father
Three
Littles
The Professional Conducts His Business In The Real World. Adversity, Injustice, Bad Hops And Rotten Calls, Even Good Breaks And Lucky Bounces All Comprise The Ground Over Which The Campaign Must Be Waged. The Field Is Level, The Professional Understands, Only In Heaven.
Real
Adversity
Heaven
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.
War
Artist
Squares
Seeking Support From Friends And And Family Is Like Having People Gathered Around At Your Deathbed. It's Nice, But When The Ship Sails, All They Can Do Is Stand On The Dock Waving Goodbye.
Goodbye
Nice
People
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.
Believe
Warrior
Artist
Reading Is Alive And Well And Will Get More Alive And More Well. Reading On Tablets (or Whatever The Next Tech Device Will Be) Is The Future - And The Future Is Now.
Reading
Alive
Tablets
We Will Have To Choose Between The Life We Want For Our Future And The Life We Have Left Behind.
Want
Left Behind
Our Future
It Is One Thing To Study War And Another To Live The Warrior's Life.
Motivational
War
Study
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.
Attitude
Rain
Dark
Every Artist Has To Face His Own Demons And Evolve His Own Method Of Working.
Artist
Faces
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As Artists And Professionals, It Is Our Obligation To Enact Our Own Internal Revolution, A Private Insurrection Inside Our Own Skulls. In This Uprising We Free Ourselves From The Tyranny Of Consumer Culture.
Artist
Uprising
Skulls
Contempt For Failure Is Our Cardinal Virtue.
Virtue
Cardinals
Contempt
A Child Has No Trouble Believing The Unbelievable, Nor Does The Genius Or The Madman. It’s Only You And I, With Our Big Brains And Our Tiny Hearts, Who Doubt And Overthink And Hesitate.
Children
Believe
Heart
Resistance Is Experienced As Fear; The Degree Of Fear Equates To The Strength Of Resistance.
Degrees
Resistance
Indicators
Is There A Spiritual Element To Creativity? Hell, Yes. Our Mightiest Ally (our Indispensable Ally) Is Belief In Something We Cannot See, Hear, Touch, Taste, Or Feel.
Spiritual
Creativity
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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.
Patience
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Careers
We Feed It [resistance] With Power By Our Fear Of It. Master That Fear And We Conquer Resistance.
Resistance
Conquer
Masters
The Artist Committing Himself To His Calling Has Volunteered For Hell, Whether He Knows It Or Not. He Will Be Dining For The Duration On A Diet Of Isolation, Rejection, Self-doubt, Despair, Ridicule, Contempt, And Humiliation.
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Self
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Resistance Cannot Be Seen, Touched, Heard, Or Smelled. But It Can Be Felt. We Experince It As An Energy Field Radiating From A Work-in-potential... Its Aim Is To Shove Us Away, Distract Us, Prevent Us From Doing Our Work.
Motivation
Fields
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When We Sit Down Each Day And Do Our Work, Power Concentrates Around Us... Ideas Come. Insights Accrete.
Power
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Each Day
These Are Not Easy Questions. Who Am I? Why Am I Here? They're Not Easy Because The Human Being Isn't Wired To Function As An Individual.
Easy
Individual
Function
Nothing Is As Empowering As Real-world Validation, Even If It's For Failure.
Real
Validation
Empowering
Its [resistance] Aim Is To Shove Us Away, Distract Us From Doing Our Work.
Resistance
Aim
I Was Keenly Conscious Of The Comrades-in-arms Who Had Fallen With Me. A Bond Surpassing By A Hundredfold That Which I Had Known In Life Bound Me To Them. I Felt A Sense Of Inexpressible Relief And Realized That I Had Feared, More Than Death, Separation From Them. I Apprehended That Excruciating War Survivor's Torment, The Sense Of Isolation And Self-betrayal Experienced By Those Who Had Elected To Cling Yet To Breath When Their Comrades Had Let Loose Their Grip.
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Fame Imperishable And Glory That Will Never Die -- That Is What We March For!
March
Glory
Fame
Anything That Draws Attention To Ourselves Through Pain-free Or Artificial Means Is A Manifestation Of Resistance.
Pain
Mean
Attention
Our Job In This Lifetime Is Not To Shape Ourselves Into Some Ideal We Imagine We Ought To Be, But To Find Out Who We Already Are And Become It. If We Were Born To Paint, It’s Our Job To Become A Painter. If We Were Born To Raise And Nurture Children, It’s Our Job To Become A Mother. If We Were Born To Overthrow The Order Of Ignorance And Injustice Of The World, It’s Our Job To Realize It And Get Down To Business.
Mother
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What Force Is Yanking At Our Sleeves? This Process Of Self-revision And Self-correction Is So Common We Don't Even Notice. But It's A Miracle.
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Miracle
Revision
We’re All Pros Already. 1) We Show Up Every Day 2) We Show Up No Matter What 3) We Stay On The Job All Day 4) We Are Committed Over The Long Haul 5) The Stakes For Us Are High And Real 6) We Accept Remuneration For Our Labor 7) We Do Not Overidentify With Our Jobs 8 ) We Master The Technique Of Our Jobs 9) We Have A Sense Of Humor About Our Jobs 10) We Receive Praise Or Blame In The Real World
Jobs
Real
Long
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.
Soul
Growth
Important
Those Who Will Not Govern Themselves Are Condemned To Find Masters To Govern Over Them.
Masters
Self Mastery
The Professional Dedicates Himself To Mastering Technique Not Because He Believes Technique Is A Substitute For Inspiration But Because He Wants To Be In Possession Of The Full Arsenal Of Skills When Inspiration Does Come. The Professional Is Sly. He Knows That By Toiling Beside The Front Door Of Technique, He Leaves Room For Genius To Enter By The Back.
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Late At Night Have You Experienced A Vision Of The Person You Might Become, The Work You Could Accomplish, The Realized Being You Were Meant To Be? Are You A Writer Who Doesn't Write, A Painter Who Doesn't Paint, An Entrepreneur Who Never Starts A Venture? Then You Know What Resistance Is.
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Making A Judgment, Taking A Stand And Then Acting Against An Injustice Or Acting To Support Excellence Is The Stuff Of The Everyman Hero. If You Are An Aspiring Artist And You Wish To Avoid “judgments,” You'll Find That You Have Nothing To Say.
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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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Don't Wait For Someone Else To Validate You. Validate Yourself.
Waiting
Someone Once Asked Somerset Maughham If He Wrote On A Schedule Or Only When Struck By Inspiration. "i Write Only When Inspiration Strikes," He Replied. "fortunately It Strikes Every Morning At Nine O'clock Sharp.
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That’s Why An Artist Must Be A Warrior And, Like All Warriors, Artists Over Time Acquire Modesty And Humility. They May, Some Of Them, Conduct Themselves Flamboyantly In Public. But Alone With The Work They Are Chaste And Humble. They Know They Are Not The Source Of The Creations They Bring Into Being. They Only Facilitate. They Carry. They Are The Willing And Skilled Instruments Of The Gods And Goddesses They Serve.
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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.
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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.
Work
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Entrepreneur
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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The Best And Only Thing That One Artist Can Do For Another Is To Serve As An Example And An Inspiration.
Inspiration
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Example
Ignorance And Arrogance Are The Artist's And Entrepreneur's Indispensable Allies. She Must Be Clueless Enough To Have No Idea How Difficult Her Enterprise Is Going To Be And Cocky Enough To Believe She Can Pull It Off Anyway."
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A Horse Must Be A Bit Mad To Be A Good Cavalry Mount, And Its Rider Must Be Completely So.
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Mad
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This Man Has Conquered The World! What Have You Done?" The Philosopher Replied Without An Instant's Hesitation, "i Have Conquered The Need To Conquer The World.
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Conquer The World
Needs
Start Before You’re Ready.
Inspirational
Work
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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.
Hate
Mean
Love Is
Slay That Dragon Once, And He Will Never Have Power Over You Again.
Dragons
Over You
You Again
This Is The Other Secret That Real Artists Know And Wannabe Writers Don’t. When We Sit Down Each Day And Do Our Work, Power Concentrates Around Us. The Muse Takes Note Of Our Dedication. She Approves. We Have Earned Favor In Her Sight. When We Sit Down And Work, We Become Like A Magnetized Rod That Attracts Iron Filings. Ideas Come. Insights Accrete.
Real
Artist
Dedication
Be Too Dumb To Quit And Too Stubborn To Back Off.
Dumb
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Quitting
Resistance In My Experience Always Kicks In When You're Trying To Move From A Lower Level To A Higher Level Or To Identify With A Braver Part Of Yourself Or Your Higher Nature. So It's That Negative Repelling Force. It's Kind Of The Dragon That We Have To Slay Every Day If We're Artists Or Entrepreneurs.
Moving
Artist
Dragons
If You Find Yourself Asking Yourself (and Your Friends), "am I Really A Writer? Am I Really An Artist?" Chances Are You Are. The Counterfeit Innovator Is Wildly Self-confident. The Real One Is Scared To Death.
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I Believe In Previous Lives And The Muse—and That Books And Music Exist Before They Are Written And That They Are Propelled Into Material Being By Their Own Imperative To Be Born, Via The Offices Of Those Willing Servants Of Discipline, Imagination And Inspiration Whom We Call Artists.
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It Is A Commonplace Among Artists And Children At Play That They're Not Aware Of Time Or Solitude While They're Chasing Their Vision. The Hours Fly. The Sculptress And The Tree-climbing Tyke Both Look Up Blinking When Mom Calls, 'suppertime!'
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As All Born Teachers, He Was Primarily A Student.
Teacher
Students
Born
The Spartans Say That Any Army May Win While It Still Has Legs Under It; The Real Test Comes When All Strength Is Fled And The Men Must Produce Victory On Will Alone.
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Army
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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 Only To Lead Them Forward.
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The Artist Must Be Like That Marine. He Has To Know How To Be Miserable. He Has To Love Being Miserable. He Has To Take Pride In Being More Miserable Than Any Soldier Or Swabbie Or Jet Jockey. Because This Is War, Baby. And War Is Hell.
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War
Marine
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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Resistance Will Tell You Anything To Keep You From Doing Your Work.
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The Professional Does Not Wait For Inspiration; He Acts In Anticipation Of It.
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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.
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Culture
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Turning Pro Is A Mindset. If We Are Struggling With Fear, Self-sabotage, Procrastination, Self-doubt, Etc., The Problem Is, We’re Thinking Like Amateurs. Amateurs Don’t Show Up. Amateurs Crap Out. Amateurs Let Adversity Defeat Them. The Pro Thinks Differently. He Shows Up, He Does His Work, He Keeps On Truckin’, No Matter What.
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Procrastination
Adversity
When We Conquer Our Fears, We Discover A Boundless, Bottomless, Inexhaustible Well Of Passion.
Passion
Conquer
Wells
Resistance Is Implacable, Intractable, Indefatigable.
Resistance
Socrates Demonstrated Long Ago, That The Truly Free Individual Is Free Only To The Extent Of His Own Self-mastery.
Self
Long Ago
Mastery
You Don't Need To Take A Course Or Buy A Product. All You Have To Do Is Change Your Mind.
Mind
Needs
Courses
The Essence Of Professionalism Is The Focus Upon The Work And Its Demands, While We Are Doing It, To The Exclusion Of All Else.
Work
Essence
Focus
The Awakening An Artist Must Be Ruthless, Not Only With Herself But With Others.
Artist
Awakening
Ruthless
When We Are Succeeding - That Is, When We Have Begun To Overcome Our Self-doubt And Self-sabotage, When We Are Advancing In Our Craft And Evolving To A Higher Level - That's When Panic Strikes. When We Experience Panic, It Means That We're About To Cross A Threshold. We're Poised On The Doorstep Of A Higher Plane.
Mean
Self
Doubt
When We Turn Pro We Stop Running From Our Fears. We Turn Around And Face Them.
Running
Faces
Turns
The Athlete Knows The Day Will Never Come When He Wakes Up Pain-free. He Has To Play Hurt.
Hurt
Pain
Athlete
The Instinct That Pulls Us Toward Art Is The Impulse To Evolve, To Learn, To Heighten And Elevate Our Consciousness. The Ego Hates This. Because The More Awake We Become, The Less We Need The Ego.
Art
Hate
Ego
I Guess What I Want To Say To Us Artists And Entrepreneurs Is That Conventional Yardsticks Of Success Don't Apply To All Enterprises. Labors Of Love Count.
Artist
Entrepreneur
Want
Resistance’s Goal Is Not To Wound Or Disable. Resistance Aims To Kill
Goal
Resistance
Aim
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.
Doe
Mystery
Shut Up
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.
Love
Dream
Work
No Industry Is Immune And No Occupation Is Safe. All Of Us Need To Begin To Think In Terms Of Our Own Inner Strengths, Our Resilience And Resourcefulness, Our Capacity To Adapt And To Rely Upon Ourselves And Our Families.
Thinking
Rely Upon
Resilience
Resistance Cannot Be Seen, Touched, Heard, Or Smelled. But It Can Be Felt.
Resistance
Heard
Touched
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. 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.
Oil
Soul
Important
The Professional Will Not Tolerate Disorder... He Wants The Carpet Vacuumed And The Threshold Swept, So The Muse May Enter And Not Soil Her Gown.
Order
May
Want
The Artist And The Mother Are Vehicles, Not Originators. They Don't Create The New Life, They Only Bear It. This Is Why Birth Is Such A Humbling Experience. The New Mom Weeps In Awe At The Little Miracle In Her Arms. She Knows It Came Out Of Her But Not From Her, Through Her But Not Of Her.
Mom
Mother
Artist
Picasso Painted With Passion, Mozart Composed With It. A Child Plays With It All Day Long. You May Think You’ve Lost Your Passion, Or That You Can’t Identify It, Or That You Have So Much Of It, It Threatens To Overwhelm You. None Of These Is True.
Children
Passion
Thinking
To Labor In The Arts For Any Reason Other Than Love Is Prostitution.
Art
Love Is
Reason
On The Artist's Journey We Are Redefining And Reconfiguring Ourselves And Our Lives.
Artist
Journey
Redefining
To Feel Ambition And To Act Upon It Is To Embrace The Unique Calling Of Our Souls.
Ambition
Unique
Soul
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. That Is Why The True Warrior Cannot Speak Of Battle Save To His Brothers Who Have Been There With Him. The Truth Is Too Holy, Too Sacred, For Words." -suicide (gates Of Fire)
Suicide
Brother
Heart
The Only Intercourse Possible Between The Knight And The Dragon Is Battle.
Knights
Dragons
Battle
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.
Inspiration
Spheres
Grants
Do We Have To Stare Death In The Face To Make Us Stand Up And Confront Resistance?
Resistance
Faces
Staring
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.
Believe
Survival
Important
The Professional Loves Her Work. She Is Invested In It Wholeheartedly. But She Does Not Forget That The Work Is Not Her.
Doe
Forget
Wholeheartedly
We Are All Warriors. 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.
Integrity
Believe
Struggle
We Come Into This World With A Specific, Personal Destiny. We Have A Job To Do, A Calling To Enact, A Self To Become. We Are Who We Are From The Cradle, And We're Stuck With It.
Jobs
Destiny
Self
When We Make Our Art A Practice, When We Make Our Workspace Sacred And Enter It Daily With Respect And High Intention, Then We Elevate Our Actions (even If They're Taking Place Within The Profane Arena Of Commerce) Beyond Ego And Above Gimme-gimme Ambition.
Art
Ambition
Practice
Most Of Us Have Two Lives. The Life We Live, And The Unlived Life Within Us. Between The Two Stands Resistance.
Life
Two
Resistance
You Are A Writer When You Tell Yourself You Are. No One Else's Opinion Matters. Screw Them. You Are When You Say You Are.
Matter
Opinion
Screws
Courage Is Inseparable From Love And Leads To What May Arguably Be The Noblest Of All Warrior Virtues: Selflessness.
Warrior
May
Selflessness
Research Can Become Resistance. We Want To Work, Not Prepare To Work.
Research
Want
Resistance
Look In Your Own Heart. Unless I'm Crazy, Right Now A Still Small Voice Is Piping Up, Telling You As It Has Ten Thousand Times, The Calling That Is Yours And Yours Alone. You Know It. No One Has To Tell You. And Unless I'm Crazy, You're No Closer To Taking Action On It Than You Were Yesterday Or Will Be Tomorrow. You Think Resistance Isn't Real? Resistance Will Bury You.
Motivational
Crazy
Real
The Principle Of Priority States (a) You Must Know The Difference Between What Is Urgent And What Is Important, And (b) You Must Do What’s Important First.
Differences
Priorities
Important
Stay Stupid. Follow Your Unconventional Crazy Heart.
Crazy
Stupid
Heart
When We Sit Down To Work, We Become Like A Magnetized Rod That Attracts Iron Filings. Ideas Come. Insights Accrete.
Ideas
Iron
Insight
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.
Years
Giving
Support
Resistance By Definition Is Self-sabotage.
Self
Definitions
Resistance
Fear Doesn't Go Away. The Warrior And The Artist Live By The Same Code Of Necessity, Which Dictates That The Battle Must Be Fought Anew Every Day.
Fear
Warrior
Artist
The Gnostics Believed That Exile Was The Essential Condition Of Man. Do You Agree? I Do. The Artist And The Addict Both Wrestle With This Experience Of Exile. They Share An Acute, Even Excruciating Sensitivity To The State Of Separation And Isolation, And Both Actively Seek A Way To Overcome It, To Transcend It, Or At Least To Make The Pain Go Away. What Is The Pain Of Being Human? It's The Condition Of Being Suspended Between Two Worlds And Being Unable To Fully Enter Into Either.
Pain
Artist
Men
A Cavalryman's Horse Should Be Smarter Than He Is. But The Horse Must Never Be Alowed To Know This.
Horse
Should
Knows
He Who Whets His Steel, Whets His Courage
Military
Steel
The Last Thing We Want Is To Remain As We Are.
Want
Lasts
Don't Prepare, Do. Don't Let Resistance Sucker You Into Wasting Months On Background, Foundation, Planning. All That Can Come Later.
Foundation
Resistance
Months
Long-term, We Must Begin To Build Our Internal Strengths. It Isn't Just Skills Like Computer Technology. It's The Old-fashioned Basics Of Self-reliance, Self-motivation, Self-reinforcement, Self-discipline, Self-command.
Motivation
Technology
Self
Right Now With Blogs And The Flood Of Internet Access, A Multitude Of Aspiring Writers Think They're Ready For Prime Time. They're Not. Be Great. Read. Write. Bust Your Ass. Learn And Find Your Voice. As Hard As You Think It Is, It's A Hundred Times Harder.
Writing
Thinking
Voice
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.
Art
War
Self
We Show Up. We Do Our Best. Good Things Happen.
Good Things
Shows
Happens
Resistance Is Not A Peripheral Opponent. Resistance Arises From Within. It Is Self-generated And Self-perpetuated. Resistance Is The Enemy Within.
Self
Enemy
Opponents
In My Experience, Depth Of Work Consists Of Two Components. The First Is Recklessness; The Second Is Discipline. Dionysian; Apollonian. Passion;reason.
Passion
Two
Discipline
Tomorrow Morning The Critic Will Be Gone, But The Writer Will Still Be There Facing The Blank Page. Nothing Matters But That He Keep Working.
Morning
Gone
Pages
Playing For Money, Or Adopting The Attitude Of One Who Plays For Money, Lowers The Fever.
Money
Attitude
Play
Always Attack. Even In Defense, Attack. The Attacking Arm Possesses The Initiative And Thus Commands The Action. To Attack Makes Men Brave; To Defend Makes Them Timorous.
Men
Brave
Defense
The Song We’re Composing Already Exists In Potential. Our Work Is To Find It.
Song
Composing
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.
Uncharted Waters
Bears
Scared
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.
Art
Rewards
Products
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.
Angel
Opposites
Allies
The More Scared We Are Of A Work Or Calling, The More Sure We Can Be That We Have To Do It.
New Beginnings
Calling
Scared
Resistance Is Greatest Just Before The Finish Line.
Lines
Resistance
Finish Line
We Fear Discovering That We Are More Than We Think We Are. More Than Our Parents/children/teachers Think We Are. We Fear That We Actually Possess The Talent That Our Still, Small Voice Tells Us. That We Actually Have The Guts, The Perseverance, The Capacity. We Fear That We Truly Can Steer Our Ship, Plant Our Flag, Reach Our Promised Land. We Fear This Because, If It’s True, Then We Become Estranged From All We Know. We Pass Through A Membrane. We Become Monsters And Monstrous.
Perseverance
Teacher
Fear
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.
Self
Soul
Doubt
We Need To Ascend Beyond Our Own Petty Resistance, Our Own Negative Self-judgment And Self-sabotage, Our Own "i'm Not Worthy" Mind-set.
Self
Mind
Negative
The Amateur Tweets. The Pro Works.
Tweet
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.
Real
Writing
Secret
Our Job In This Lifetime Is Not To Shape Ourselves Into Some Ideal We Imagine We Ought To Be, But To Find Out Who We Already Are And Become It.
Jobs
Destiny
Shapes
Our Greatest Battle Is To Become Ourselves, In The Face Of Adversity.
Adversity
Battle
Faces
The Working Artist Will Not Tolerate Trouble In Her Life Because She Knows Trouble Prevents Her From Doing Her Work. The Working Artist Banishes From Her World All Sources Of Trouble. She Harnesses The Urge For Trouble And Transforms It In Her Work.
Artist
World
Trouble
Have You Ever Wondered Why The Slang Terms For Intoxication Are So Demolition-oriented? Stoned, Smashed, Hammered. It's Because They're Talking About The Ego. It's The Ego That Gets Blasted, Waxed, Plastered.
Talking
Ego
Demolition
When We See Others Beginning To Live Their Authentic Selves, It Drives Us Crazy If We Have Not Lived Out Our Own.
Crazy
Self
Authentic Self
Persian Envoy "our Arrows Will Black Out The Sun..." Dienekes Of The Spartans.."good, Then We'll Fight In The Shade.
Fighting
Arrows
Black
Sometimes, When We're Terrified Of Embracing Our True Calling, We'll Pursue A Shadow Calling Instead. That Shadow Career Is A Metaphor For Our Real Career. Its Shape Is Similar, Its Contours Feel Tantalizingly The Same. But A Shadow Career Entails No Real Risk. If We Fail At A Shadow Career, The Consequences Are Meaningless To Us. Are You Pursuing A Shadow Career?
Real
Careers
Risk
The Difference Between An Amateur And A Professional Is In Their Habits. An Amateur Has Amateur Habits. A Professional Has Professional Habits. We Can Never Free Ourselves From Habit. But We Can Replace Bad Habits With Good Ones.
Differences
Habit
Bad Habits
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.
Motivational
Procrastination
Destiny
F@*# Self-doubt. I Despise It. I Hold It In Contempt, Along With The Hell-spawned Ooze-pit Of Resistance From Which It Crawled. I Will Never Back Off. I Will Never Give The Work Anything Less Than 100%. If I Go Down In Flames, So Be It. I'll Be Back.
Creativity
Self
Flames
A Contemporary Or Near-future Book Is Much Harder Because You Can't Fake The Facts. There Are People Alive Who Know Much More Than You Do About The Subject. You Have To Really Have Your Research Together - And Of Course No One Can Know Everything About A Topic.
Book
People
Fake
Cousin, The Days Of Gods And Heroes Are Over." "not To Me. Not To Them.
Cousin
Hero
The Great Thing About Writing About The Ancient Spartans Or Athenians Is That So Much Knowledge Is No Longer Extant That No One, Except Maybe A Cambridge Or Oxford Don, Can Call You Out And Prove You Wrong.
Writing
Oxford
Ancient
Many Pedestrians Have Been Maimed Or Killed At The Intersection Of Resistance And Commerce.
Resistance
Pedestrians
Commerce
Of Any Activity You Do, Ask Yourself: If I Were The Last Person On Earth, Would I Still Do It?
Earth
Lasts
Persons
Ambition, I Have Come To Believe, Is The Most Primal And Sacred And 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.
Believe
Ambition
Unique
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.
Writing
Thinking
Editors
Fear Doesn't Go Away. The Battle Must Be Fought Anew Every Day.
Fear
Going Away
Battle
There's A Phrase You Hear In Israel: "we're Not Jews, We're Israelis." What That Means Is That The Stereotype We're Familiar With Here In The States Of The Diaspora Jew, I.e. Jews In America Or Europe Or Russia, Etc. Does Not Fit At All With The Reality Of The Homegrown "sabras" Of Israel.
Mean
Reality
America
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.
Work
Successful
Journey
It May Be That The Human Race Is Not Ready For Freedom. The Air Of Liberty May Be Too Rarefied For Us To Breathe... The Paradox Seems To Be, As Socrates Demonstrated Long Ago, That The Truly Free Individual Is Free Only To The Extent Of His Own Self-mastery. While Those Who Will Not Govern Themselves Are Condemned To Find Masters To Govern Over Them.
Race
Air
Self
To Yield To Resistance Deforms Our Spirit. It Stunts Us And Makes Us Less Than We Are And Were Born To Be.
Yield
Resistance
Spirit
Next Morning I Went Over To Paul’s For Coffee And Told Him I Had Finished. “good For You,” He Said Without Looking Up. “start The Next One Today.
Morning
Coffee
Writing
The Problem I've Always Discovered In My Own Work When This Kind Of Thing Happens When You Hit The Wall Is There's Almost Always A Reason. You've Almost Always Made A Mistake In The Initial Conception Of The Project. You Misapprehended Something Or You Thought Something Would Work And Now You're Three Quarters On The Way Through And You See That It Doesn't Work.
Wall
Mistake
Way
I Love Memoirs, Particularly Obscure Ones Because The Writer Is Usually A Regular Guy Just Telling What Happened To Him And To His Friends. What These Tales Lack In Artfulness They Make Up For In Passion And Authenticity. For A Writer Of Fiction, They Are Solid Gold. I Have Stolen So Much From Memoirs It's Ridiculous.
Passion
Guy
Gold
The Professional Learns To Recognize Envy-driven Criticism And To Take It For What It Is: The Supreme Compliment. The Critic Hates Most That Which He Would Have Done Himself If He Had Had The Guts.
Hate
Envy
Criticism
The Opposite Of Fear," Dienekes Said, "is Love.
Opposites
Said
Don't Cheat The World Of Your Contribution. Give It What You've Got.
Inspirational
Honesty
Giving
We're Wrong If We Think We're The Only Ones Struggling With Resistance. Everyone Who Has A Body Experiences Resistance.
Struggle
Thinking
Body
Resistance Really Takes The Shape, For Me, In Voices In My Head Telling Me Why I Can't Do Something Or Why I Should Put It Off For Another Day, Procrastinate For Another Day.
Voice
Shapes
Resistance
We Fear Discovering That We Are More Than We Think We Are... That We Actually Have The Guts, The Perserverance, The Capacity... Because, If It's True, Then We Become Estranged From All We Know.
Thinking
Perserverance
Capacity
The Counterfeit Innovator Is Wildly Self-confident. The Real One Is Scared To Death.
Inspirational
Real
Self
If You Were Meant To Cure Cancer Or Crack Cold Fusion And You Don't Do It, You Not Only Hurt Yourself, Even Destroy Yourself. You Hurt Your Children, You Hurt Me, You Hurt The Planet. You Shame The Angels Who Watch Over You And You Spite God Almighty, Who Created You And Only You With Your Unique Gifts, For The Sole Purpose Of Nudging The Human Race One Millimeter Further Along Its Path Back To God.
Hurt
Children
Cancer
For What Can Be More Noble Than To Slay Oneself? Not Literally. Not With A Blade In The Guts. But To Extinguish The Selfish Self Within, That Part Which Looks Only To Its Own Preservation, To Save Its Own Skin. That, I Saw, Was The Victory You Spartans Had Gained Over Yourselves. That Was The Glue. It Was What You Had Learned And It Made Me Stay, To Learn It Too.
Selfish
Victory
Skins
The Highest Treason A Crab Can Commit Is To Make A Leap For The Rim Of The Bucket.
Buckets
Crabs
Leap
Thr Principle Of Organization Is Built Into Nature. Chaos Itself Is Self-organizing. Out Of Primordial Disorder, Stars Find Their Orbit; Rivers Make Their Way To The Sea.
Stars
Sea
Organization
Our Enemy Is Not Lack Of Preparation; It’s Not The Difficulty Of The Project Or The State Of The Marketplace Or The Emptiness Of Our Bank Account. The Enemy Is Our Chattering Brain, Which, If We Give It So Much As A Nanosecond, Will Start Producing Excuses, Alibis, Transparent Self-justifications And A Million Reasons Why We Can’t/shouldn’t/won’t Do What We Know We Need To Do.
Self
Giving
Preparation
Artists, Writers And People In Creative Fields Are Entrepreneurs By Necessity. Nobody Gives Them A Paycheck Or Picks Up Their Medical Insurance. The Ones Who Succeed Learn To Think And Act Like 'independent Operators.' I Think People Who Are Technically 'employees' Have To Think This Way As Well. The Company Is Not Looking Out For You.
Independent
Artist
Thinking
If You Were Meant To Cure Cancer Or Write A Symphony Or Crack Cold Fusion And You Don't Do It, You Not Only Hurt Yourself, Even Destroy Yourself. You Hurt Your Children. You Hurt Me. You Hurt The Planet.
Hurt
Children
Cancer
Concerning All Acts Of Initiative There Is One Elementary Truth, The Ignorance Of Which Kills Countless Ideas And Splendid Plans: That The Moment One Definitely Commits Oneself, Then Providence Moves Too.
Moving
Ignorance
Commitment
But Nothing Really Clicked For Me Until I Gave Up Completely On Hitting The Overlap And Just Did What I Loved, Even When I Thought Nobody Else In The World Would Be Interested.
Would Be
World
Hitting
Every Sun Casts A Shadow, And Genius's Shadow Is Resistance.
Shadow
Genius
Resistance
Go Tell The Spartans, Stranger Passing By, That Here Obedient To Their Laws We Lie.
Lying
Passing By
Law
When A Novelist Or Screenwriter Is Looking For A Subject, The Element He's Seeking Is Conflict. Conflict Makes Drama. Conflict Produces Great Characters And Memorable Scenes. So War Is A Natural Topic.
Drama
War
Character
Do You Love Your Idea? Does It Feel Right On Instinct? Are You Willing To Bleed For It?
Love You
Ideas
Doe
The Amateur Has A Long List Of Fears. Near The Top Are Two: Solitude And Silence. The Amateur Fears Solitude And Silence Because She Needs To Avoid, At All Costs, The Voice Inside Her Head That Would Point Her Toward Her Calling And Her Destiny. So She Seeks Distraction. The Amateur Prizes Shallowness And Shuns Depth. The Culture Of Twitter And Facebook Is Paradise For The Amateur.
Motivational
Destiny
Two
Traditional Publishers Will Be Dominant, And They Should Be Because They Really Do Assure Quality. But Ebooks, Which Are Huge Already, Are Going To Eclipse Everything. They Will Save Traditional Publishing The Way Dvds Saved Movie Studios (for A While) And They'll Greatly Expand The Number Of Readers.
Numbers
Dvds
Quality
...she (the Artist, The Writer) Doesn't Wait For Inspiration, She Acts In The Anticipation Of Its Apparition.
Inspiration
Artist
Waiting
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.
Thinking
Years
Way
The Critic Hates Most That Which He Would Have Done Himself If He Had Had The Guts.
Hate
Done
Critics
The More You Love Your Art/ Calling/ Enterprise, The More Important Its Accomplishment To The Evolution Of Your Soul, The More You Will Fear It And The More Resistance You Will Experience Facing It.
Art
Love You
Accomplishment
The Professional Respects His Craft. He Does Not Consider Himself Superior To It. He Recognizes The Contributions Of Those Who Have Gone Before Him. He Apprentices Himself To Them.
War
Doe
Gone
What Finally Convinced Me To Go Ahead Was Simply That I Was So Unhappy Not Going Ahead.
Unhappy
Convinced
You And I May Only Be Mortals, With All The Foolishness And Fallibility That That State Implies, But We're Mortals Made In The Image Of Heaven. The Gods Can't Do Their Work Without Us. So Let's Be Bold, In Their Cause And In Our Own. It's Our Job, We Humans, To Make Manifest That Which Is Unmanifest-and To Raise Into Consciousness, In This Material Dimension, That Which Had Been Known Before Only In Heaven.
Jobs
Heaven
May
You Have Never Tasted Freedom, Friend, Or You Would Know It Is Purchased Not With Gold, But Steel.
Gold
Steel
Spokes
I Am Going To Write My Symphony; I'm Just Going To Start Tomorrow.
Writing
Symphony
Tomorrow
Creative Work Is Not A Selfish Act Or A Bid For Attention On The Part Of The Actor. It's A Gift To The World And Every Being In It. Don't Cheat Us Of Your Contribution. Give Us What You've Got.
Art
Selfish
Creativity
It's One Thing To Lie To Ourselves. It's Another Thing To Believe It.
Lying
Believe
One Thing
The Most Important Thing About Art Is To Work. Nothing Else Matters Except Sitting Down Every Day And Trying.
Art
Writing
Positive Thinking
The Hero Wanders, The Hero Suffers, The Hero Returns. You Are That Hero.
Hero
Suffering
Return
The Most Important Thing About Art Is To Work. Nothing Else Matters Except Sitting Down Every Day And Trying. Why Is This Important? Because When We Sit Down Day After Day And Keep Grinding, Something Mysterious Starts To Happen. A Process Is Set In Motion By Which, Inevitably And Infallibly, Heaven Comes To Our Aid. Unseen Forces Enlist In Our Cause; Serendipity Reinforces Our Purpose.
Art
Heaven
Serendipity
I Had Always Been An Enthusiastic Reader Of Stuff About Ancient Greece. I Would Read Herodotus And Thucydides Just For Fun.
Fun
Stuff
Ancient
It’s Not The Writing Part That’s Hard. What’s Hard Is Sitting Down To Write.
Writing
Sitting Down
Sitting
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