Writing Wednesdays
Do It Anyway
By Steven Pressfield | Published: May 26, 2010
This is an important post. I say that because this piece addresses (after procrastination, which is the #1 champ), the single greatest excuse/reason/cop-out that prevents aspiring writers, artists and entrepreneurs from taking action to pursue their dreams.
That excuse is, “First I have to _____________.”
“___________” can be anything from “finish my research” to “pay the rent” to “get rid of my slacker boyfriend.” I’m not saying such excuses can’t be real or serious. “Stop drinking,” “get out of rehab,” “recover from suicide attempt.” They can be absolutely valid and true. But they’re still Resistance. They’re still bullshit.
Here’s the counter-mantra: “Do it anyway.”
Am I being overly hard-core to assert this? No. I’m being kind.
The surest antidote to the state of misery and paralysis that we find ourselves in when we’re under the spell of “First I have to _________” is to sit down and do our work anyway.
Tales from the trenches
This past year hasn’t been the worst of my life—but it’s right up there. I’ll skip the personal details because of the pain it might cause to people dear to me, but suffice it to say that my head, my heart and my butt have been swimming for their lives this past year. My artistic self-confidence, which has been bedrock for me for years, took a major hit about six months ago. I’m still not out of the woods. At the same time, outside commitments (most of which, to be honest, are voluntary and positive), family emergencies and other imperatives have whacked the hell out of my working time.
But here’s the weird part: my work has never been better. I’ve got three projects going, and they’re all hitting on eight cylinders. Yeah, it’s slow. Yes, it’s hard. But the stuff is good.
It’s saving my life. Certainly it has preserved my sanity.
In other words . . .
In other words: Do it anyway.
We don’t have to do anything else first. We don’t need to cure our neuroses, conquer our fears, overcome our bad habits. We don’t have to be sane; we don’t have to be solvent. We can be totally screwed up. None of these real-world troubles has anything to do with our creative selves.
The part of our psyches that we write from, or paint from, or conceive new entrepreneurial or philanthropic ventures from . . . that part exists in a wholly different dimension from the part of us that is mucking up our personal lives. There’s no connection. The twain don’t meet. No matter how balled-up we may be in our outer world, our internal fortress of solitude remains waterproof, soundproof, bulletproof.
A bank account in the Caymans
Songs and software concepts, new plays and novels and business ventures . . . they all derive from some mysterious source that isn’t us. And they have their own trajectories and power sources, independent of us. War and Peace and Beethoven’s Sixth, in my view, had their genesis on another sphere and kept germinating under their own power, despite Tolstoy’s troubles with his thirteen kids and Ludwig van’s loss of hearing.
The process, as I see it, is kind of like a womb with the baby growing inside—or like the “cloud” where we save our computer files. It’s safe. It’s in the Cayman’s somewhere.
We’re insulting this mysterious process (and ourselves) when we say we’ll get to work, “but first we have to _________.” And we’re cutting ourselves off from our own deepest sources of creativity.
Stay alert. Any time you catch yourself saying, “First I have to ______________,” know that that statement is 100-proof, Prime Resistance. No matter how real the reason or how plausible the excuse, it’s still bogus.
Save yourself the torture. Turn to the work. Do it anyway.
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Thank you Steven. As happens so often, you put things into words in a way that very few people can.
Super cool, Steven!;-)
I have been “reading you” for quite a while,but today I simply have to leave a comment.
I am totally with you on “do it anyway” and when I look back at past 10 months of my life, I can say that only “do it anyway” attitude allowed me to accomplish things which I would not even dreamed off, during my “good” times. When you jump into “shipping your art” in full speed, you simply don’t have time to spare on mourning about personal dramas and tough times and then you realize how blessed you are despite all downturns along the way.
cheers from Slovakia,
i.
Your previous post about the marathon really hit home with me. I have now been on my treadmill everyday for the past 13 days just doing it – small-scale, don’t have to run a marathon but have to lose weight and take control. When I start my walk, I have a print-out of last week’s post in my hands. I read it every day and use it to keep myself wanting to do it. It’s working a charm. My new mantra is : “magic produced by effort sustained over time”. “Do it anyway” seems like a perfect mate and an ideal fall-back should I wake up one of these days trying to convince myself that I haven’t got the time, inclination, etc to step onto the treadmill. I’m in full-blown war against my Resistance/Terminator and a huge part of this is down to you sharing your insights through this blog and you book. Thanks Steven!! Keep it up from Belgium!
Love this and couldn’t agree more!
I can so relate, as I had one of those years too.
After a beautiful day in August on the Danube, a bike wreck led me to surgery in a foreign land and a paralyzed right dominant arm.
10 months later and I’m still healing, but what is so funny about it is that soon after I did it, I got a call out-of-the blue for a profile in the New York Times and then literary agents talked me into writing a book about our family world tour.
Timing in life can be hysterical, although breaking a humerus is not humorous.
The most simple things like eating, putting on clothes, showering or brushing my teeth became huge chores and the pain kept me from sleeping for many months, yet we continued on with our world tour. I hear your, “Yeah, it’s slow. Yes, it’s hard. ”
I never imagined I’d be writing a book, let alone doing it with one left hand. Yet, by being willing to some how “do it any way” so much has been learned and gained in the process…for everyone in our family.
“Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.”-Joseph Campbell
Yes, indeed, do it anyway & do it now! Thank you for the soulful reminder.
This is a wonderful post, and soultravelers3 a wonderful response post. I’ve been following you on twitter, and had no idea. Sometimes cutting through the muck and making it simple- also makes it a little easier.
What a great post. Thank you. For obvious reasons, I feel like expressing sympathy for the hard time you’ve been enduring, but for equally obvious reasons, I’m tripped up in that by the very point you’re making here. I am indeed sorry that life has been so rough, but then again — and as you indicate — it’s circumstances like these that underscore and highlight the truth of that impregnable inner source of creativity.
Regarding the “do it anyway” approach, I have two thoughts: 1) Yes. 2) But only when it’s time. I agree wholeheartedly that the “But first…” mentality is always and invariably a cop-out born of resistance. But in my own life as a writer and musician, I’ve become progressively more sensitive over the years to the fairly galactic importance of recognizing and honoring the very real silences that come up, when I simply have to quit working and sink into what can feel like mute impotence. Sometimes these have even been occasioned by serious life-level crap like the stuff you’re talking about. It’s a precariously thin dividing line between resistance and active waiting on the muse.
WOW. What a powerful post. I recently heard someone say Procrastination is caused by doubt. That statement and this one have got me spinning, rethinking and … getting to work. Thanks for sharing a really powerful idea.
Your book, The War Of Art, has been the best book I have ever read. It has kept me working. Just the other day I thought to myself “Oh, I have to drive to this store and pick up this stuff so I can experiment with it to see if it will work”, after I got back home and saw I had completely wasted my time, it hit me….resistance! Have a big project so I watching hard for it to show again. I especially treasure my copy of your book because you took the time to sign it.
Thank you for your writing.
This reminds me of Art Williams’ Just Do It speech from 1977.
Hate to be the voice of dissent but this is what I think: There are times to do and times to be in life. Perhaps a golfing metaphor would have been more appropriate than the running one presented last week … feel the force don’t force the feel (in order to find the right/appropriate flow, etc) (ie., effort alone does not a golf swing make). In other words, in my experience, it is the right combination of effort and effortlessness that brings about the appropriate process, applied to any endeavour.
Willing oneself “to do”, like running a marathon is along the lines of the Great American Dream, and often becomes a focus on the outcome at any expense. Very enticing to the ego, until the injuries take hold. This from one who once was a serious runner, but now listens to her body and runs now only when the force takes hold. To do otherwise would be to put a serious strain on the body especially during times of stress.
Finally, I would add, sometimes it is simply to love another that is most important in life, and that comes ultimately from a core of being not doing. But writing will always be there at the side for me, even when the going gets tough.
Well said, Tricia. Need I say that I agree? (See my comment above.) But I also take to heart what Steven said in this post.
Thanks Steven.
It’s good to hear you have trounced through your dark times with the help of your work. I know that someday I will go through some incredibly trying times as my father is now almost 80.
“Just do it!” helps us drop our excuses on get on with moving ahead.
I love all of your posts, but I think this is your most powerful to date. You are amazing. And I agree that art comes from another place. That’s why it’s important to stay humble and always give thanks to that “cloud” place. I never feel my work comes from me but simply though me because I sat my butt down and was there to catch the words when they came.
Heartfelt thanks, Steven, for another inspirational post.