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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.

Steven Pressfield

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

Herself Investment Love Professional Work
We feed it [Resistance] with power by our fear of it. Master that fear and we conquer Resistance.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Feed Food 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.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Artist Battle Code Day Fear Live Necessary Warrior
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.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Difference Important Principle Urgent Yourself
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.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Beginning Enemy Preparation Resistance Start Yourself
Playing the game for money produces the proper professional attitude. It inculcates the lunch-pail state of mind that shows up for work despite rain or snow or dark of night and slugs it out day after day.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Attitude Day Game Mindset Night Play Production Professional
The opposite of fear is love – love of the challenge, love of the work, the pure joyous passion to take a shot at our dream and see if we can pull it off.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Challenge Dreams Fear Joy Love Ourselves Passion See Work
It’s better to be in the arena, getting stomped by the bull, than to be up in the stands or out in the parking lot.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Action Better Brave Park Place Stand
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.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Art Contribution Himself Professional Recognition Respect Superior
The last thing we want is to remain as we are.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Be Yourself Original Reality
Don’t prepare, do. Don’t let Resistance sucker you into wasting months on background, foundation, planning. All that can come later.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Foundation Preparation Resistance Wasted Time
Don’t cheat the world of your contribution. Give it what you’ve got.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Cheating Contribute World Yourself
Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Resistance Work Yourself
Research can become Resistance. We want to work, not prepare to work.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Preparation Research Resistance Work
The professional does not wait for inspiration; he acts in anticipation of it.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Act Himself Inspirational Professional Wait
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.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Destiny Personal Stuck World

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Steven Pressfield Quotes