Pressfield Resistance Quotes & Sayings

Similarly the call to growth can be conceptualized as personal (a daimon or genius, an angel or a muse) or as impersonal, like the tides or the transiting of Venus. Either way works, as long as we're comfortable with it. Or if extra-dimensionality doesn't sit well with you in any form, think of it as "talent," programmed into our genes by evolution. The point, for the thesis I'm seeking to put forward, is that there are forces we can call our allies. As Resistance works to keep us from becoming who we were born to be, equal and opposite powers are counterpoised against it. These are our allies and angels. — Steven Pressfield

Resistance is a repelling force. It's negative. Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work. — Steven Pressfield

Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. — Steven Pressfield

We do not overidentify with our jobs. We may take pride in our work, we may stay late and come in on weekends, but we recognize that we are not our job descriptions. The amateur, on the other hand, overidentifies with his avocation, his artistic aspiration. He defines himself by it. He is a musician, a painter, a playwright. Resistance loves this. Resistance knows that the amateur composer will never write his symphony because he is overly invested in its success and overterrified of its failure. The amateur takes it so seriously it paralyzes him. — Steven Pressfield

If Resistance couldn't be beaten, there would be no Fifth Symphony, no Romeo and Juliet, no Golden Gate Bridge. Defeating Resistance is like giving birth. It seems absolutely impossible until you remember that women have been pulling it off successfully, with support and without, for fifty million years. — Steven Pressfield

Resistance by definition is self-sabotage. — Steven Pressfield

The professional knows that Resistance is like a telemarketer; if you so much as say hello, you're finished. — Steven Pressfield

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. — Steven Pressfield

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

We need to ascend beyond our own petty Resistance, our own negative self-judgment and self-sabotage, our own "I'm not worthy" mind-set. — Steven Pressfield

Resistance obstructs movement only from a lower sphere to a higher. It kicks in when we seek to pursue a calling in the arts, launch an innovative enterprise, or evolve to a high station morally, ethically, or spiritually. — Steven Pressfield

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. — Steven Pressfield

It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write.
What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance. — Steven Pressfield

When Michael Crichton approached the end of a novel (so I've read), he used to start getting up earlier and earlier in the morning. He was desperate to keep his mojo going. He'd get up at six, then five, then three-thirty and two-thirty, till he was driving his wife insane. Finally he had to move out of the house. He checked into a hotel (the Kona Village, which ain't so bad) and worked around the clock till he'd finished the book. Michael Crichton was a pro. He knew that Resistance was strongest at the finish. He — Steven Pressfield

Lat at nigh have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized being you were mean to be? Are you a writer who doesn't write, a painter who doesn't pain, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what Resistance is. — Steven Pressfield

Resistance outwits the amateur with the oldest trick in the book: It uses his own enthusiasm against him. Resistance gets us to plunge into a project with an overambitious and unrealistic timetable for its completion. It knows we can't sustain that level of intensity. We will hit the wall. We will crash.
The professional, on the other hand, understands delayed gratification. He is the ant, not the grasshopper; the tortoise, not the hare ... The professional arms himself with patience, not only to give the stars time to align in his career, but to keep himself from flaming out in each individual work. He knows that any job, whether it's a novel or kitchen remodel, takes twice as long as he thinks and costs twice as much. He accepts that. He recognizes it as reality. — Steven Pressfield

Resistance is implacable, intractable, indefatigable. — Steven Pressfield

Resistance is always lying and always full of shit. — Steven Pressfield

Sometimes on Wednesday I'll read something that I wrote on Tuesday and I'll think, "This is crap. I hate it and I hate myself." Then I'll re-read the identical passage on Thursday. To my astonishment, it has become brilliant overnight. Ignore false negatives. Ignore false positives. Both are Resistance. Keep working. — Steven Pressfield

Remember, Resistance wants us to cede sovereignty to others. It wants us to stake our self-worth, our identity, our reason-for-being, on the response of others to our work. Resistance knows we can't take this. No one can. — Steven Pressfield

Resistance, his all-encompassing term for what Freud called the Death Wish - that destructive force inside human nature that rises whenever we consider a tough, long-term course of action that might do for us or others something that's actually good. — Steven Pressfield

The professional loves it so much he dedicates his life to it. He commits full-time. That's what I mean when I say turning pro. Resistance hates it when we turn pro. — Steven Pressfield

Resistance is directly proportional to love. If you're feeling massive Resistance, the good news is that it means there's tremendous love there too. — Steven Pressfield

What does Resistance feel like? First, unhappiness. We feel like hell. A low-grade misery pervades everything. We're bored, we're restless. We can't get no satisfaction. There's guilt but we can't put our finger on the source. We want to go back to bed; we want to get up and party. We feel unloved and unlovable. We're disgusted. We hate our lives. We hate ourselves. — Steven Pressfield

Every sun casts a shadow, and genius's shadow is Resistance. — Steven Pressfield

Resistance really takes the shape, for me, in voices in my head telling me why I can't do something or why I should put it off for another day, procrastinate for another day. — Steven Pressfield

How many pages have I produced? I don't care. Are they any good? I don't even think about it. All that matters is I've put in my time and hit it with all I've got. All that counts is that, for this day, for this session, I have overcome Resistance. — Steven Pressfield

Do we have to stare death in the face to make us stand up and confront Resistance? — Steven Pressfield

Look in your own heart. Unless I'm crazy, right now a still small voice is piping up, telling you as it has ten thousand times, the calling that is yours and yours alone. You know it. No one has to tell you. And unless I'm crazy, you're no closer to taking action on it than you were yesterday or will be tomorrow. You think Resistance isn't real? Resistance will bury you. — Steven Pressfield

This is how Resistance disfigures love. The stew it creates is rich, it's colorful; Tennessee Williams could work it up into a trilogy. But is it love? If we're the supporting partner, shouldn't we face our own failure to pursue our unlived life, rather than hitchhike on our spouse's coattails? And if we're the supported partner, shouldn't we step out from the glow of our loved one's adoration and instead encourage him to let his own light shine? — Steven Pressfield

Resistance is greatest just before the finish line. — Steven Pressfield

Resistance has no conscience. — Steven Pressfield

Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet. — Steven Pressfield

Resistance's goal is not to would or disable. Resistance aims to kill. — Steven Pressfield

You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study ... Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I'll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas. — Steven Pressfield

Depression and anxiety may be real. But they can also be Resistance. When we drug ourselves to blot out our soul's call, we are being good Americans and exemplary consumers. We're doing exactly what TV commercials and pop materialist culture have been brainwashing us to do from birth. Instead of applying self-knowledge, self-discipline, delayed gratification and hard work, we simply consume a product. Many pedestrians have been maimed or killed at the intersection of Resistance and Commerce. — Steven Pressfield

The enemy is Resistance. — Steven Pressfield

Resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be felt. — Steven Pressfield

If you want to send a manuscript, send it to an agent. And send a letter first, asking permission. Launch it into the real world of cold-blooded commercial response, not into the fantasyland of wishful thinking, cowardice and surrender to Resistance. — Steven Pressfield

The professional cannot take rejection personally because to do so reinforces Resistance. Editors are not the enemy; critics are not the enemy. Resistance is the enemy. The battle is inside our own heads. We cannot let external criticism, even if it's true, fortify our internal foe. That foe is strong enough already. — Steven Pressfield

Resistance knows that the amateur composer will never write his symphony because he is overly invested in its success and overterrified of its failure. — Steven Pressfield

Rationalization is Resistance's right-hand man. Its job is to keep us from feeling the shame we would feel if we truly faced what cowards we are for not doing our work. — Steven Pressfield

Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance. — Steven Pressfield

Resistance gets us to plunge into a project with an overambitious and unrealistic timetable for its completion. — Steven Pressfield

BOOK TWO COMBATING RESISTANCE — Steven Pressfield

The pro keeps coming on. He beats Resistance at its own game by being even more resolute and even more implacable than it is. — Steven Pressfield

We're wrong if we think we're the only ones struggling with Resistance. Everyone who has a body experiences Resistance. — Steven Pressfield

The more important a call to action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel about answering it. But to yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be. — Steven Pressfield

The more resistance you experience, the more important your unmanifested art/project/enterprise is to you - and the more gratification you will fell when you finally do it. — Steven Pressfield

If you're are paralyzed with fear it's a good sign. It shows you what you have to do. — Steven Pressfield

If you were meant to cure cancer or crack cold fusion and you don't do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children, you hurt me, you hurt the planet. You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite God Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter further along its path back to God. — Stephen Pressfield

Like a magnetized needle floating on a surface of oil, Resistance will unfailingly point to true North - meaning that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing.
We can use this. We can use it as a compass. We can navigate by Resistance, letting it guide us to that calling or action that we must follow before all others. — Steven Pressfield

Have you seen interviews with the young John Lennon or Bob Dylan, when the reporter tries to ask about their personal selves? The boys deflect these queries with withering sarcasm. Why? Because Lennon and Dylan know that the part of them that writes the songs is not "them," not the personal self that is of such surpassing fascination to their boneheaded interrogators. Lennon and Dylan also know that the part of themselves that does the writing is too sacred, too precious, too fragile to be redacted into sound bites for the titillation of would-be idolators (who are themselves caught up in their own Resistance). — Steven Pressfield

No matter how great a writer, artist, or entrepreneur, he is a mortal, he is fallible. He is not proof against Resistance. He will drop the ball; he will crash. That's why they call it rewriting. — Steven Pressfield

Resistance in my experience always kicks in when you're trying to move from a lower level to a higher level or to identify with a braver part of yourself or your higher nature. So it's that negative repelling force. It's kind of the dragon that we have to slay every day if we're artists or entrepreneurs. — Steven Pressfield

We feed it [Resistance] with power by our fear of it. Master that fear and we conquer Resistance. — Steven Pressfield

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

Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it. — Steven Pressfield

The epidemic So many people are frozen in the face of uncertainty and paralyzed at the thought of shipping work that matters that one might think that the fear is hardwired into us. It is. Scientists can identify precisely where your lizard brain lives. This is your prehistoric early brain, the same brain that's in the lizard or the deer. Filled with fear, intent on reproduction. Steven Pressfield gives the voice of the lizard brain a name: he calls it the resistance. And the resistance is talking to you as you read this, urging you to compromise, to not be an troublemaker, to avoid rash moves. For many of us, the resistance is always chattering away, frequently sabotaging our best opportunities and ruining our best chance to do great work. Naming it helps you befriend it, and befriending it helps you ignore it. — Seth Godin

Anything worthwhile is opposed. Steven Pressfield (War of Art) calls this the Resistance. — Michael Hyatt

Don't prepare, do. Don't let Resistance sucker you into wasting months on background, foundation, planning. All that can come later. — Steven Pressfield

The more you love your art/ calling/ enterprise, the more important its accomplishment to the evolution of your soul, the more you will fear it and the more Resistance you will experience facing it. — Steven Pressfield

Research can become Resistance. We want to work, not prepare to work. — Steven Pressfield

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. — Steven Pressfield

As powerful as is our soul's call, so potent are the forces of Resistance arrayed against it. We're not alone if we've been mowed down by Resistance; millions of good men and women have bitten the dust before us. — Steven Pressfield

Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. — Steven Pressfield

The next few chapters are going to be about those invisible psychic forces that support and sustain us in our journey toward ourselves. I plan on using terms like muses and angels. Does that make you uncomfortable? If it does, you have my permission to think of angels in the abstract. Consider these forces as being impersonal as gravity. Maybe they are. It's not hard to believe, is it, that a force exists in every grain and seed to make it grow? Or that in every kitten or colt is an instinct that impels it to run and play and learn. Just as Resistance can be thought of as — Steven Pressfield

If you find yourself criticizing other people, you're probably doing it out of Resistance. When we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived out our own.
Individuals who are realized in their own lives almost never criticize others. if they speak at all, it is to offer encouragement. Watch yourself. Of all the manifestations of Resistance, most only harm ourselves. Criticism and cruelty harm others as well. — Stephen Pressfield

Resistance is not a peripheral opponent. Resistance arises from within. It is self-generated and self-perpetuated. resistance is the enemy within. — Steven Pressfield

The professional gives an ear to criticism, seeking to learn and grow. But she never forgets that Resistance is using criticism against her on a far more diabolical level. Resistance enlists criticism to reinforce the fifth column of fear already at work inside the artist's head, seeking to break her will and crack her dedication. The professional does not fall for this. Her resolution, before all others, remains: No matter what, I will never let Resistance beat me. — Steven Pressfield

any act that derives from our higher nature instead of our lower. Any of these acts will elicit Resistance. — Steven Pressfield

On the field of The Self stand a knight and a dragon. You are the knight. Resistance is the dragon. — Steven Pressfield

In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term grown, health, or integrity. Or, expressed another way, any act that derives from our high nature instead of our lower. Any of these will elicit Resistance. — Steven Pressfield