The War Of Art — Conquering Resistance, Turning Pro

“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the life unlived within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” -Steven Pressfield

Guys, I have to blog every day for the entire month! And I think I’ve complained about that somehow in every single post this month so far.

Guess what I do every day instead of blogging? ANYTHING. Napping, cooking, calling my friends, taking walks, drinking coffee, looking at instagram.

You may think these things are just me living my life, but most of the time they are actually RESISTANCE.

Have you ever read the War of Art? If you haven’t, you need to, just as bad as this baby needs a nap. (I will politely ignore the fact that a certain someone sent me that video, saying I was the crier). #hey

Anyway, all my gallivanting around, taking photos of inspirational graffiti when I have blogs to write? Steven Pressfield GETS IT.

“There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writer’s 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.

Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet. It stunts us and makes us less than we were born to be. It’s harder to kick than crack cocaine.”

I love this guy.

Well, little bees, the reason I committed to blogging every day this month is not because I want to live my entire life as a wannabe writer. It’s because I want to be a real writer. And I don’t want Resistance to defeat me. So now I have to work on beating it every day.

Here are are a few things according to Mr. Pressfield that most commonly elicit Resistance:

• The pursuit of any calling in any creative art
• The launching of any entrepreneurial venture
• Any diet or health regimen
• Any program of spiritual advancement
• Any program designed to overcome addictions
• …and more

Probably why I took a nap yesterday instead of cleaning out my inbox. :) It’s DEFINITELY the reason I haven’t written a book yet.

Do you relate? I know you do!!! The good news:

“Resistance is directly proportional to love. If you didn’t love the project that is terrifying you, you wouldn’t feel anything. The more Resistance you experience, the more important your unmanifested project is to you – and the more gratification you will feel when you finally do it.”

YES!

TURNING PRO

Steven Pressfield talks a lot about “turning pro” in this book. He says, “the amateur does not love the game enough. The professional loves it so much he dedicates his life to it…that’s what I mean by turning pro. Resistance hates it when we turn pro.”

Personally, I would like to give Resistance a run for its money… :)

In the book he gives some of his own tips for overcoming Resistance, but I wanted to share some of mine that I’ve been using the last 10 days to get myself to write, to blog every day, to act more pro.

• Pick an action towards your goal that you can do every day. I always have these insane goals, like “write a book by the end of the month!” and then I curl up in bed and hide. Because “write a book in a month” is not a daily goal. But “publish a blog every day” is something I can actually tackle. It’s challenging, yes, but it’s not so lofty that I get overwhelmed and have to hide my head in the sand.

• Make it public. I told everyone on my blog and instagram that I was going to blog every day for all of January. That makes me feel like I need to be more accountable. If I hadn’t said anything, I would be able to justify not doing it.

• Have a buddy. Having a buddy that you check in with is crucial. I text my buddy when I don’t want to blog and he motivates me to do it. The other day he said to me, “what decision will you respect yourself the most for later?” Obviously, the answer is writing a blog.

• Drink a lot of water. Honestly. The more water you drink the less irritated you will be, and the more energy you’ll have for your work. I don’t care how clean or dirty your diet is, if you drink a lot of water you will feel better. I believe this wholeheartedly.

• Make it THE priority for the day and make it non-negotiable. I hate scheduling, but the past 10 days I’ve had to schedule in when I’m gonna write a blog or somehow time just slips away while I’m rearranging my supplement bottles. Sometimes I don’t do it exactly on schedule, but I WILL NOT let myself sleep until it’s done. I hate saying no to lunches with people or any kind of social plans, but so far in 2015 I’ve been only saying yes to things that will allow me to write every day. If I have dinner plans, I bang out the blog before I go, OR I leave in time to get home and get the blog published by midnight. It’s non-negotiable.

Those are my tips, check out the book if you want more from Steven Pressfield on overcoming this pesky Resistance.

Do you have any other great tips for “turning more pro”? I’d love to hear. You guys rule so much it makes my brain hurt. I should probably drink some more water.

Love you,
Jenny