Today, I’d like to reflect on the insights I gained from the book, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield.
This book is aimed at writers, artists, musicians, entrepreneurs or any other professionals who sometimes experience blocks with their creative endeavours.
Part One
In the first part of The War of Art, the author defines the enemy and calls it ‘Resistance’. He says there are many activities that elicit the unseen, unheard and untouchable force that Resistance is.
It is a repelling energy field that distracts and prevents us from doing our work. Also, it has no power of its own because it gains all its energy from our fear of it.
The more important a task is to our soul’s evolution, the more we will feel the power of Resistance. This is because it only obstructs movement from a lower sphere to a higher one.
Resistance’s goal is to kill off our desire, and it will keep trying until the bitter end. In fact, Resistance will be at its most dangerous when the finish line is in sight. That’s when it will launch one final assault with everything it has – in a fight to the death!
Resistance has many forms: ill health, alcoholism, drug addiction, social media addiction, sex addiction, proneness to accidents, depression, anxiety and even grandiose fantasies. All of these and more will keep us from achieving our higher goals.
Pressfield suggests that Resistance doesn’t want us to know that it is merely fear; so it creates reasons including rational justifications for us not to follow our goals. He points out that Resistance can be beaten, otherwise there would be no great pieces of art or clever innovation in our world.
Part Two
The second part of The War of Art is about how to overcome fear and defeat Resistance by being a professional.
An amateur is obsessed with his success and terrified by his failure to the point that it paralyses him. Resistance will encourage an amateur to dive into an overambitious project with an unrealistic timetable, so the project will burn and crash!
The professional is happy to delay gratification and will give Resistance the utmost respect because he knows it can strike at any time of the day. This is similar to a recovering alcoholic who hasn’t drunk in a while; they know the urge for a drink can come at any time.
The amateur believes he must overcome his fear before he can begin; whereas, the professional knows that once he begins, his fear will recede, and he’ll be fine.
The goal of the professional is not victory, rather it is to handle himself during the process of creation. This is because he knows success will come when it is ready.
If the professional takes rejection personally, this will reinforce Resistance. He knows that editors and critics are not the enemy – the real enemy is inside his head.
This book is full of useful tips on overcoming Resistance especially when you work alone. For example, Pressfield describes how he has a Monday morning staff meeting with all the different aspects of himself. He then types up the meeting notes and distributes them to himself!
He says there is no mystery to turning pro, you just make up your mind to view yourself as a pro and then just do it.
Part Three
The last part of The War of Art is about what happens once you are beyond resistance. This is where he introduces the Muse, a mythic female character whose job is to inspire artists.
One practical piece of advice he does give is going for a walk in nature when you’ve finished writing for the day. I often do this, as it gives my mind a chance to empty; and this clears a space for another quieter voice to contribute to or comment on my day’s writing.
Having discussed how Resistance is fear, Pressfield goes on to address the mother of all fears: the fear we will succeed. I totally agree with his point, as great success terrifies me! He goes on to say that success can cause us to lose friends, but we will make new truer friends as a result.
He points out that our job is not to shape ourselves into some better version of ourselves. Rather it is to find out who we already are and become it, and I couldn’t agree more!
He also says a hack anticipates what the audience wants and tries to deliver it. But this means selling out his Muse, the part of him where his truest and best work comes from.
It’s better to find what’s growing inside of you and, like a baby, allow it to come out for its own sake, rather than trying to work out how it might benefit you.
And lastly, he says a pro is humble because he knows that he is not the source of the creative work passing through him; he is merely an instrument of the god he serves.
This is how to win the war of art!
You might also be interested to read my post about 12 great time-travel movies that discusses which model of time each one is using and how that affects its timeline.
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