Book Summary: The War Of Art
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield offers tips for overcoming your inner fears and doubts. The War Of Art can help you to defeat the forces that are pushing back against your creative goals with advice and inspiration from a man who has been where you are.
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Quotes:
If you find yourself asking yourself, “Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?” Chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.
The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.
Book Summary Notes: The War Of Art
- The mental gymnastics you perform each day when you decide that maybe you should do some particular thing like; write a novel, build a website or study something but then again maybe I’ll start tomorrow. That’s not forward planning. What your experiencing is the resistance that is stoping you from beginning. That negative force that can crush creative aspirations and keep you from moving forward on your dreams.
- This mental resistance is not special to you, everyone has and experiences it. It will keep you from realising your dreams if you let it.
- Any new habits or deviations from our normal days are affected by this resistance, it’s one of the reasons new habits are so hard to establish. You must want the change enough to keep going even in the face of this resistance.
- “Most of us have two lives. The life we live and the unloved life within us. Between the two, stands resistance.”
- In the end fear and resistance can serve you in positive ways as well. The fear and resistance only accompany things or activities we truly care about, it can be a useful measure to use to gauge different activities.
- Many actors choose roles based on what scares them the most. It’s also often the roles which will allow them to grow and hone their craft the most as well.
- One way of fighting resistance is to adopt the professional mindset towards your dream and treat it like a job that requires time each and everyday. Just like in your job not everyday will be a home run, but consistency and small steps make a powerful combination. A professional faces resistance with organisation and patience.
- Focus on the process instead of the end goal, keep taking those small steps.
