Steven Pressfield
Turning pro is a mindset. If we are struggling with fear, self-sabotage, procrastination, self-doubt, etc., the problem is, we're thinking like amateurs. Amateurs don't show up. Amateurs crap out. Amateurs let adversity defeat them. The pro thinks differently. He shows up, he does his work, he keeps on truckin', no matter what.Collection: Work
The difference between an amateur and a professional is in their habits. An amateur has amateur habits. A professional has professional habits. We can never free ourselves from habit. But we can replace bad habits with good ones.Collection: Good
Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on Resistance. This second, we can sit down and do our work.Collection: Change
Artists, writers and people in creative fields are entrepreneurs by necessity. Nobody gives them a paycheck or picks up their medical insurance. The ones who succeed learn to think and act like 'independent operators.' I think people who are technically 'employees' have to think this way as well. The company is not looking out for you.Collection: Medical
Long-term, we must begin to build our internal strengths. It isn't just skills like computer technology. It's the old-fashioned basics of self-reliance, self-motivation, self-reinforcement, self-discipline, self-command.Collection: Technology
Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.Collection: Motivational
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.Collection: Preparation
Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.Collection: Life
Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny.Collection: Destiny
Turning pro is a mindset. If we are struggling with fear, self-sabotage, procrastination, self-doubt, etc., the problem is, we’re thinking like amateurs. Amateurs don’t show up. Amateurs crap out. Amateurs let adversity defeat them. The pro thinks differently. He shows up, he does his work, he keeps on truckin’, no matter what.Collection: Struggle
Don't cheat the world of your contribution. Give it what you've got.Collection: Inspirational
Research can become Resistance. We want to work, not prepare to work.Collection: Research
Our enemy is not lack of preparation; it’s not the difficulty of the project or the state of the marketplace or the emptiness of our bank account. The enemy is our chattering brain, which, if we give it so much as a nanosecond, will start producing excuses, alibis, transparent self-justifications and a million reasons why we can’t/shouldn’t/won’t do what we know we need to do.Collection: Self
The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a by-product of work. The professional concentrates on the work and allows rewards to come or not come, whatever they like.Collection: Art
The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.Collection: Art
The professional does not wait for inspiration; he acts in anticipation of it.Collection: Motivational
Look in your own heart. Unless I'm crazy, right now a still small voice is piping up, telling you as it has ten thousand times, the calling that is yours and yours alone. You know it. No one has to tell you. And unless I'm crazy, you're no closer to taking action on it than you were yesterday or will be tomorrow. You think Resistance isn't real? Resistance will bury you.Collection: Motivational
Figure out what scares you the most and do that first.Collection: Scare
We show up. We do our best. Good things happen.Collection: Good Things
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.Collection: Procrastination
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.Collection: Jobs
Those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them.Collection: Masters
Resistance in my experience always kicks in when you're trying to move from a lower level to a higher level or to identify with a braver part of yourself or your higher nature. So it's that negative repelling force. It's kind of the dragon that we have to slay every day if we're artists or entrepreneurs.Collection: Moving
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.Collection: Believe
Put your ass where your heart wants to be.Collection: Heart
We will have to choose between the life we want for our future and the life we have left behind.Collection: Want
It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write.Collection: Writing
The more you love your art/ calling/ enterprise, the more important its accomplishment to the evolution of your soul, the more you will fear it and the more Resistance you will experience facing it.Collection: Art
The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.Collection: New Beginnings
Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it. Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That's why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there'd be no Resistance.Collection: Self
Resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be felt.Collection: Resistance
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.Collection: Hurt
We’re all pros already. 1) We show up every day 2) We show up no matter what 3) We stay on the job all day 4) We are committed over the long haul 5) The stakes for us are high and real 6) We accept remuneration for our labor 7) We do not overidentify with our jobs 8 ) We master the technique of our jobs 9) We have a sense of humor about our jobs 10) We receive praise or blame in the real worldCollection: Jobs
Art is a war - between ourselves and the forces of self-sabotage that would stop us from doing our work. The artist is a warrior.Collection: Art
When we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived out our own.Collection: Crazy
Don't prepare, do. Don't let Resistance sucker you into wasting months on background, foundation, planning. All that can come later.Collection: Foundation
It's one thing to lie to ourselves. It's another thing to believe it.Collection: Lying
The best and only thing that one artist can do for another is to serve as an example and an inspiration.Collection: Inspiration
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. Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second we can turn the tables on Resistance. This second, we can sit down and do our work.Collection: Motivational
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.Collection: War
Do you love your idea? Does it feel right on instinct? Are you willing to bleed for it?Collection: Love You
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.Collection: Real
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.Collection: Men
Our greatest battle is to become ourselves, in the face of adversity.Collection: Adversity
Socrates demonstrated long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery.Collection: Self
The Principle of Priority states (a) you must know the difference between what is urgent and what is important, and (b) you must do what’s important first.Collection: Differences
The critic hates most that which he would have done himself if he had had the guts.Collection: Hate
Stay stupid. Follow your unconventional crazy heart.Collection: Crazy
Resistance really takes the shape, for me, in voices in my head telling me why I can't do something or why I should put it off for another day, procrastinate for another day.Collection: Voice