Winning Your Inner Creative Battles
Drawing on his many year’s experience as a writer, Steven Pressfield (The Legend of Bagger Vance, Gates of Fire) goes self-help in The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles. Dubbing itself a cross between Sun-Tzu’s The Art of War and Julie Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, Pressfield’s book aims to help readers “overcome resistance” so that they may achieve “the unlived life within.”
Even though the book is mostly written for frustrated writers struggling with writer’s block, business owners will find the wisdom in this book helpful. After all, you are attempting to channel your creative energies as you develop marketing plans, write copy, or go through the sales process with a potential client.
Whether one wishes to embark on a diet, a program of spiritual advancement or an entrepreneurial venture, it’s most often resistance that blocks the way. To kick resistance, Pressfield stresses loving what one does, having patience and acting in the face of fear.
Here are some selections from the book that struck me as particularly poignant:
I hold Olympic records for procrastination. I can procrastinate thinking about my procrastination problem. I can procrastinate dealing with my problem of procrastinating thinking about my procrastination problem.
Look in your 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.
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. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts and later to the School of Architecture. 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.
Seeking support from friends and family is like having your people gathered around at your deathbed. It’s nice, but when the ships sails, all they can do is stand on the dock waving goodbye.
It is one thing to study war and another to live the warrior’s life. ~ Telamon of Arcadia, mercenary of the fifth century B.C.
Someone once asked Somerset Maugham 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.”
What came up for you when you read the selections from the book? Have you read the book? Feel free to share with us in the comments.
