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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.

Steven Pressfield

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

Amateur Call Live Meaning Run True Work
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.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Bed Death Family Friendship Goodbye People Seek Support
Resistance by definition is self-sabotage.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Definition Destruction Myself Resistance
When we turn pro we stop running from our fears. We turn around and face them.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Face Fears Run Stop
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
As all born teachers, he was primarily a student.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Born Himself Learning Student Teacher
Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Life Live Resistance Stand
Stay stupid. Follow your unconventional crazy heart.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Crazy Heart Stay Stupidity Yourself
It is one thing to study war and another to live the warrior’s life.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Life Oneself Study War
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
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
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

Act Attention Cheating Contribution Creativity Yourself
A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. It’s only you and I, with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Believe Big Children Doubt Heart Hesitation Mad Man Myself Thinking Trouble
The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit. We don’t just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Aspect Bed Death Habit Live Ourselves
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
This man has conquered the world! What have you done?” The philosopher replied without an instant’s hesitation, “I have conquered the need to conquer the world.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Deep Hesitation Man Myself Need Philosophy World
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
Do you love your idea? Does it feel right on instinct? Are you willing to bleed for it?
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Blood Feeling Ideas Inspirational Love Right Yourself
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
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.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Capacity Discover Fear Perseverance Thinking
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
What finally convinced me to go ahead was simply that I was so unhappy not going ahead.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Happiness Myself Simplicity
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
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
A cavalryman’s horse should be smarter than he is. But the horse must never be allowed to know this.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Animal Home Man Smart
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
The critic hates most that which he would have done himself if he had had the guts.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD

Action Brave Criticism Hate Himself

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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