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The War of Art is a book solely dedicated to helping you ‘break through the blocks and win your inner creative battles. In short, the book is about one thing- "Resistance".
That’s the term Steven Pressfield gives to a feeling that all of us are familiar with, live with and often are confused by.
- The pursual of any calling.
- The creation of any creative work from painting to writing.
- The launching of any enterprise, non-profit or organisation.
- Starting a diet or health program.
- Any attempt for spiritual advancement.
- Education of all kinds.
- Any commitment of the heart e.g. getting married, overcoming a rocky patch in a relationship. having kids etc.
- Any activity whose aim is tighter abdominals (haha.)
This resistance can manifest itself in many ways.
For some of us, it’s a crippling fear, for others it’s procrastination for others it’s self-sabotage. Later in the book Pressfield writes:
“We don’t tell ourselves, “I’m never going to write my symphony.” Instead we say, “I am going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start tomorrow.”
But it’s not all doom and gloom, rather The War of Art is focused on how to overcome resistance and fight back so you can achieve whatever it is your purposed to achieve.
One of my favourite parts of The War of Art is when Pressfield explains how we can use resistance to our benefit.
It’s a concept I had heard before but really appreciate.
Resistance is a compass.
We can actually use resistance as an indicator that we are going the right way. For example, it’s much easier to simply sit down after a long day and watch Netflix as opposed to sitting down to create something.
Often it can be for a good reason – because we are tired – but I believe there can be other factors at play here to stop us from achieving our purpose.
On a larger scale, most of our routine lives in the day to day are pretty normal, but step out and try to do something worthwhile that will actually benefit other people and you will find that things in your life can start to play up.
This is how you can use resistance against itself. If you face opposition it’s usually a good sign that you are going in the right direction, if something is extremely hard and takes every ounce of strength and motivation you’ve got then you can pretty much be sure that it’s something powerful and something worth doing.
In the War of Art, Steven Pressfield comes at the topic from a pretty neutral bias, he doesn’t fall down heavily on one side of scientific, spiritual, psychological or emotional but rather he discusses each point using a nice variety of all angles.
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