I’m in the process of listening to an interview with Steven Pressfield by Tim Ferris on his podcast, The Tim Ferris Show.
If you’re not familiar with Steven Pressfield, he’s written some great books, including The War of Art, Do The Work, and Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t”.
One of his major themes is an idea called the Resistance. The idea is ultimately about the feeling of fear you get when you create something new, such as writing a book or other creative ventures.
It’s the little voice inside your head that says you’re not good enough, or it’s time to quit, or to procrastinate. Or many other forms of discouragement.
If you listen to that voice, it will ultimately doom you to live life as your “shadow” self; doing something similar to but not quite what you wish you could be doing.
Here’s some quotes from his book, The War of Art:
“Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. … If you take Resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get. Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.”
“Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do.
Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.
Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That’s why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there’d be no Resistance.”
“Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.”
If you haven’t read them, you must read The War of Art and his other books. Especially the ones I mentioned at the top of this article.
I also suggest listening to the Tim Ferris interview as they cover a lot of topics that any creative or entrepreneurial professional will resonate with.