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.
STEVEN PRESSFIELDThe professional loves her work. She is invested in it wholeheartedly. But she does not forget that the work is not her.
More Steven Pressfield Quotes
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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.
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Those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them.
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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.
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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.
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The professional loves her work. She is invested in it wholeheartedly. But she does not forget that the work is not her.
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When we’re living as amateurs, we’re running away from our calling – meaning our work, our destiny, the obligation to become our truest and highest selves.
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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.
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When we turn pro we stop running from our fears. We turn around and face them.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Be too dumb to quit and too stubborn to back off.
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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.
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In my experience, depth of work consists of two components. The first is recklessness; the second is discipline.
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A cavalryman’s horse should be smarter than he is. But the horse must never be allowed to know this.
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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.
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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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Research can become Resistance. We want to work, not prepare to work.
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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.
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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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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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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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