The War on Resistance | “Do The Work!” Part 1
Steven Pressfield is an incredible writer and creative. His writing is both inspiration and incredibly practical at the same time. I read “The War of Art” about 2 years ago for the first time and I was instantly immersed in some of the most practical and inspiring writing that I had ever read.
“The War of Art” made me both inspired to chase my creative dreams and simultaneously put the tools that I needed to do so in my hands.
I don’t know why it’s taken me 2 years, but I’m finally getting around to Pressfield’s other work. His other masterpieces I should say. I’m about to finish his book titled “Do The Work!” and I’m as infatuated with it as I was with “The War of Art”.
I’m excited to share a few thoughts I have on Pressfield’s book and I’m excited to see how the material can change your lives as well.
The Decision to Fight Resistance
Resistance, to paraphrase Pressfield, is the force that pushes against you when you’re working on something that will bring long-term prosperity into your life.
It’s a force that is intangible - it cannot be seen, heard or touched. It’s something that you can feel though - if you’re paying attention.
Before I read Pressfield’s books, I never really noticed resistance. In retrospect after reading about resistance I now know that I’ve been facing it my whole life. Everything important that I’ve done from soccer games to reading to writing to investing has been met with resistance.
What kind of activities bring about resistance? Pressfield says it best:
“Any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity.Or expressed another way, any act that derives from our higher nature instead of our lower. Any of these acts will elicit Resistance.”
When you’re facing resistance, you’ve already had some modicum of success because of the fact that you’re facing resistance. Resistance only rears its head when you’re doing something productive, something that will bring long-term prosperity into your life.
The decision to keep fighting this resistance is a hard one. It’s a battle that you have to return to each and every day. It’s not something that you ever fight off for good.
”Resistance is a repelling force. It’s negative. Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work.
Resistance is a strong force. It’s aim is to completely destroy you. To get you to put on a full-retreat from the battlefield and return to being a couch potato who sits around all day and drools over some netflix and cheetos.
“Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.”
Resistance Can Be Useful:
There are 2 main ways that I think resistance can be useful when pursuing your mission.
The first is that resistance will point you towards your ultimate goal. Like a sailor using the north star, resistance too can point you towards “land”.
“Like a magnetized needle floating on a surface of oil, Resistance will unfailingly point to true North-meaning that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing.
We can use this.
We can use it as a compass."
The second way that resistance helps us is that it can motivate us. As resistance grows, you can be sure that you’re getting closer and closer to your goals.
Resistance is like an opponent that we’re about to face in the ring. We know that the opponent will be formidable and defeating our opponent will require us to become the best version of ourselves.
Defeating our opponent requires that we train day and night. It requires that we become world-class at what we do. It requires that we never forget that our mission is always afoot.
This opponent will never get tired and will never cease in its effort to stop us. It will find you every morning when you open your eyes and every night when you close them. If you want to move forward, you have to fight this ultimate battle.
What noble mission are you deploying your skills and energy toward that is causing resistance in your life? How are you battling this resistance each and every day? Are you making progress and winning in your quest to beat this resistance?
Let me know in the comments!
I know what you're talking about when you say there is resistance when you're working towards a goal. I can feel that resistance daily too. My goal is to have successful, running websites and Facebook groups. Now I'm battling that resistance with a different outcome every day. Sometimes I do better, sometimes worse... but I'm definitely making progress, even though it could be so much faster without that resistance. I think it will eventually weaken if I keep working on it though
AoA khaleelkazi, hope u will be fine , in the new era our life become digital. In many parts of life we adopted digital work. While in past people were habitual of reading books. Those books made good impact on the character of human being. But now we are away from books reading. Steven Pressfield surely make an good impact on your thinking and behaviour to the society.
for me, being in the military is huge when fighting resistance. People in the military tend to settle, and when people like me come around with a fantastic opportunity like Steemit and i try to share it with them, all they do is say scam and fake money and i even show them stuff that i buy. But then you get made fun of anyways. There is resistance everywhere in my life. family friends and work friends but resistance makes you stronger! love the post man keep it up. followed
Currently I am working towards building my steemit account. And a lot of time and effort is been put to make this a reality, however it has not be easy. At this time in my life there are many factors contending for my time, you can call them resistance. They consist other things as well, personal and emotional issues. I have has to keep pushing nevertheless, because I know it would be worth it at the end and I desperately fighting to get out of what I consider the lowest level in my life that I have ever been for such a long period of time. Not having to touch my earning until I become a minnow is really a lofty goal, especially when I need money so badly. I don't know if I can handle the pressure at it keeps intensifying everyday, but I have chosen to take each day a step at a time.
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Nice writting boss,keep write it
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Definitely going to look into that book! Thank you for the recommendation and great article! Resteemed!
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I'm looking into starting another business, but this one is related to the food industry, which is something I know little about. I'm passionate about food but when you want to make a business out of any passion it can be challenging. I study up on everything I can, but there's no better teacher than experience:)