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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 Pressfield

The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Confidence Death Reality Scare Wild
When we turn pro we stop running from our fears. We turn around and face them.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Face Fears Run Stop
In my experience, depth of work consists of two components. The first is recklessness; the second is discipline.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Death Discipline Experience Work
The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Call Scare Work
The professional does not wait for inspiration; he acts in anticipation of it.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Act Himself Inspirational Professional Wait
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.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Reality Resistance Secret Writing
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
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.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Feeling Ourselves Potential Resistance See Touch 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 artist cannot look to others to validate his efforts or his calling. If you don’t believe me, ask Van Gogh, who produced masterpiece after masterpiece and never found a buyer in his whole life.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Artist Believe Effort Inspirational Life Production
The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Art Day Exception Important Try Work
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
We feed it [Resistance] with power by our fear of it. Master that fear and we conquer Resistance.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Feed Food Resistance
The critic hates most that which he would have done himself if he had had the guts.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Action Brave Criticism Hate Himself
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.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Born Defeat Impossible Resistance Success Support Time
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

Cure Destroy Fusion Hurt Planet Symphony Writing Yourself

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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