Do The Work

Do The Work is Steven Pressfield’s follow-up to The War Of Art, where he gives you actionable tactics and strategies to overcome resistance, the force behind procrastination.

We always think that if we practice enough, we’ll get so good we’ll never have any problems with our work, ever again.

But that’s not true.

Henry Fonda was so obsessed with acting that he had to throw up before coming on stage, every single time – even when he was 75 years old and a world famous actor already.

If you truly care about your work, you’ll always be worried about your performance, and that’s a good thing, because it means you’re still trying to get better.

So don’t stop when you’re afraid and instead, move on in spite of fear. After all, this is the definition of courage.

Guess what the worst time is to edit a blog post? Right after you wrote it.

It’ll be impossible to objectively reflect on your work, because you just finished it, and are naturally proud of what you did – and you should be.

But that’s why it’s important to give yourself some temporal and physical distance, before judging your work.

I’ll even take it a step further and suggest this:

When in doubt, don’t reflect at all.

For example, I found it’s much easier to just write another blog post, instead of perfectly editing the last one. That’s why I usually just write, press publish and instantly write more.

Resistance is a nasty thing. The perfect example happened to me today. It’s January 1st, which means I stayed up late for New Year’s Eve yesterday. However, I had already had a sleep deficit from getting up at 5 am for the past 2 weeks, to write these summaries every day. Staying up until 2 am broke the camel’s back and I slept in, completely blowing my routine. Naturally, I had to overcome tons of resistance to write this today. But I love writing these, and I have created a summary every day for the past 15 days – so I can’t just give up now. Looking back at how far I’ve come already made me want to continue. So when you’re down and about to give up, look at what you’ve accomplished already, and let it drive you to doing even more. Then, ask yourself two questions: How badly do I really want this? Why do I want this? You better be totally committed to it and feel like you have no other choice but to do it – because that’s the kind of work worth pursuing. Note: I remind myself of these two things by listening to Eminem – Lose Yourself every…