Steven Pressfield Quotes

I don't generally listen to music while working, but sometimes music can help me get past minor writer's block.

It's a great excuse and luxury, having a job and blaming it for your inability to do your own art. When you don't have to work, you are left with the horror of facing your own lack of imagination and your own emptiness. A devastating possibility when finally time is your own.

I'm a full-time writer, which means I have the entire day to get my work done. But that can also be bad, because that means I have the entire day to get in my way.

When I'm working on comics, I have to give myself a million deadlines, or I'd never get anything done. Comics are just so hard to make - I find it very difficult to motivate myself.

If I'm at home on my own and the writing isn't going well, I clean my house. And there have been times in the past few years when my house has looked really clean.

Obstruction can be caused by so many factors - perfectionism, distraction, faltering confidence, external demands and pressures. At some point, of course, you've got to push through it all if you're to write, and if you don't, or can't, you're sunk.

While in the middle of writing a book, I have a hard time reading other books for pleasure.

I respect people that find writing easy, because I have focus problems. I'll spend five days eating cereal and YouTubing and two hours writing the article.

For me, the enemy is procrastination, and losing attention, you know? It's not the writing that's difficult, it's sitting down to write - if that makes any sense. I feel I can write pretty well, and I can write pretty effectively.

I go up to my office and sit down in front of my computer and turn on the internet and then I don't work - that's the end of work for the day.

The hardest part for me is to finish a track. I start new projects all the time.

It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write.

If you feel the urge to write, just lie down and read a book: it will pass.

The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit. We don't just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed. Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second we can turn the tables on Resistance. This second, we can sit down and do our work.

If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work.

An author who waits for the right 'mood' will soon find that 'moods' get fewer and fewer until they cease altogether.

Anything that draws attention to ourselves through pain-free or artificial means is a manifestation of Resistance.

A lot of getting a song done is booking the studio time. I'm the kind of person who will set time aside to do something and then do everything but that thing.

Its [Resistance] aim is to shove us away, distract us from doing our work.

I remember a point in [writing] the story where I said, "This isn't working, I should go and buy something at the supermarket or my wife will kill me." Then I said, "No, I'll go on."

Most people are fast to stop you before you get started but hesitate to get in the way if you're moving.

Don't prepare. Begin. Our enemy is not lack of preparation. The enemy is resistance, our chattering brain producing excuses. Start before you are ready.

Sneaking up on it sometimes helps: I've found I can be very productive for an hour before dinner, because there obviously isn't enough time to really do anything, so I can tell myself I'm just screwing around.

While I am on, I can discipline myself to that extent. When I am off, I can't discipline myself at all. On the other hand, when I am off, there are so many things I like doing, it doesn't really matter.

I was born lazy. I am no lazier now than I was forty years ago, but that is because I reached the limit forty years ago. You can't go beyond possibility.