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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I agree, but how do you insulate your “genius” or creative genesis from the torrent of crap we’re surrounded by?
I get that this is good in theory, but it seems almost implausible to think that it’s possible (natural even?) to fight through and find our best work in the midst of such strident opposition.
Your book The War of Art is literally saving my life right now, Steven. I can’t tell you how much it’s helping me. Once when I was in a really dark place I emailed you and you sent me a very compassionate email in response. I’ll never forget that. Well, let me get off here and go back to writing. Thank you, Steven!
Thanks man for the inspiring post. Excuses, excuses. There’s plenty of them and they can be both valid and completely a load of shit. I appreciate the clarity of thought to describe them as both. Time to get to work…
I have to say, for me, absorbing myself in the other world of my writing is a good ‘escape’ from all the other stuff that goes on in my life (other than the procrastination problem). At the moment I am on that finale chapter and you know how scary that is! But, I’m trying to take a deep breath and forge on.
Matt & Tricia, this post is for people like me. I need Steve’s help.
I have been “working” on a theological book for five years, mostly in my head. Generally, I am a pretty-good writer, love to communicate and have lot’s to say. I tried typing out the ideas for this book. But my internal editor, a perfectionist and afraid of failure fat dude, kept my typing to a minimum. I have probably typed the equivalent of two books but deleted most of the words. I am stuck! I want to turn pro. I really do. I need Steve’s help.
I decided to get a Masters Degree in Theology, thinking that one should not speak on theological matters without proper credentials. This is logical, right? Now my time is taken up reading heavy books, writing academic papers, and attending classes; not to mention life. At 47 a mother of three has lots of “life” going on. When I have a few moments to devote to the book, I wonder if I should even be writing at all. I need Steve’s help.
There is something from somewhere that is hollering at me to write. I have asked so many questions: why me? what am I supposed to say? who cares anyway? did I hear you right? The answers come back quickly and never change: WRITE! I need Steve’s help.
I have read The War of Art, Bird by Bird, a Million Miles in a Thousand Years and countless others hoping one of them would kick my butt. Steve is kicking my fat editor’s butt.
Thank you Steve.
Important correction: “Steven” not Steve. So sorry.
I love this post! I love it I love it I love it.
This is so inspiring! For three years I published an e-magazine (Multilingual Living Magazine). I couldn’t afford to get it into print but loved the whole process. Finally I hit burn out after my mother died of cancer. The whole thing felt a little meaningless. However, I have always believed that some of us were just meant to write and if it is in our blood, well, try as we might we just can’t get rid of it by not doing it.
I missed the writing and contact with other multilingual families so much that I finally got my act together to start the website I had wanted to create 5 years before: MultilingualLiving.com. I can’t even describe how wonderful it feels to be writing again and to be connecting with other people in cyberspace. I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it something financially viable (Multilingual Living Magazine was a ton of work and didn’t make enough for me to live off of) but at this point I know that I have to “Do It Anyway” – just as you say.
Chalk up another new reader. Saw this via Twitter, and was blown away. Too. Bloody. Right. I often over-plan and not often enough just duck in and get my hands dirty. Each approach has its time and place, but more and more I’m working on just getting stuck in to something, without trying to think (and overthink) everything first.
A timely read for me. Just this week I realized that, as isolated as I am at the moment, the only two things I need to stay sane are still available to me: writing and working out.
Brilliant post!! thanks for your honesty and ‘cut to the chase’ style of reminding us all to ‘just do it’