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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.

Steven Pressfield

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
What finally convinced me to go ahead was simply that I was so unhappy not going ahead.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Happiness Myself Simplicity
Slay that dragon once, and he will never have power over you again.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Fantasy Fight Inspirational Win Yourself
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.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Artist Believe Fear Freedom Professional Warrior Work
Research can become Resistance. We want to work, not prepare to work.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Preparation Research Resistance Work
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.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Amateur Glory Hereslf Mystery Occupation Professional Talk Work
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

Brain Enemy Preparation Production Resistance Start Yourself
When we turn pro we stop running from our fears. We turn around and face them.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Face Fears Run Stop
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.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Exploration Himself Professional Project Water
To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Born Limitation Ourselves Resistance Spirit Worth
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.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Imagination Job Life Ourselves Philosophy Time
I wrote in the War of Art that I could divide my life neatly into two parts: before turning pro and after. After is better.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Art Better Division Life Myself War Writing
Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Resistance Work Yourself
In my experience, depth of work consists of two components. The first is recklessness; the second is discipline.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Death Discipline Experience Work
When we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived out our own.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Authentic Beginning Crazy Drive Live Ourselves See
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

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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