How to Win Your Creative Battles and Be a Victor in the War of Art
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, The War of Art
Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art has been on my “must read” list for longer than I can remember. I’m not sure what took me so long to just buy the damn book and read it (Resistance, anyone?), but if, like me, you’ve been on the fence with this one, don’t wait. Just jump. Quick.
Far from the heavy tome I feared it would be, The War of Art is a little gem of a book. It’s short enough to be consumed in one long or a few not-so-long sittings, and divided into tiny, bite-sized “chapters” of no more than a couple of pages, and often as short as a couple of sentences.
In other words, totally non-intimidating.
It’s the kind of book you’ll want to keep within arm’s reach in your creative workspace, to flip open to a random page when you need a little boost. A little reminder of how freaking important your creative work is, and that you’re not alone, or crazy, for having maybe the teensiest bit of a hard time getting to said work.
That last phrase? Totally sarcastic.
The truth is, if you’re like 99.999% of us, you frequently have an excruciatingly painful feels-like-you’re-pushing-a-three-ton-boulder-up-a-hill hard time getting to said work.
Or getting said work to a state of done-ness.
And The War of Art? This deceptively brief, easy to approach little 165-page gift is a powerful tool to add to your arsenal (to borrow Pressfield’s war metaphor) against the stealthiest, sliest and most pernicious enemy to your creative life: Resistance.
The Truth About Resistance
Resistance, in its many shapes, is the focus of Book One, the first of three sections of The War of Art. Pressfield lifts the veil, exposing the ways Resistance keeps us from the work we’re meant to do, including some you may never have thought about.
Fear? Procrastination? It’s pretty easy to spot those manifestations of Resistance. But how about support and healing? How about the choice of a mate? These – and many other surprises – can be sneaky forms of Resistance too.
And have you ever thought about Resistance and love? Has it ever occurred to you that the more Resistance you feel, the more important your “unmanifested art / project / enterprise” is to you? Which means, of course, that when you feel the most Resistance, that’s precisely when you must fight the hardest against it.
You must play for keeps.
Which brings me to Book Two.
Turning Pro
In Book Two, Pressfield offers his thinking and instructions on how best to combat Resistance: by “Turning Pro.”
“Pro” in this sense doesn’t have anything to do with producing income (though it certainly can include that). It means taking yourself and your dreams seriously.
It means dedicating your life to your art / your project / your enterprise.
It means accepting that it is hard and painful to keep at it… and doing it anyway.
“The artist must be like [a] Marine,” says Pressfield:
He has to know how to be miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any other soldier or swabbie or jet jockey. Because this is war, baby. And war is hell.
Turning Pro means showing up, no matter what, just like you do to collect your paycheck at your 9-5.
It means a lot of other stuff, too, which Book Two beautifully enumerates.
Pressman has made Turning Pro into an art in and of itself. He shares stories from his own life, when Resistance had him broken and beaten down, and in glimmering vignettes describes how a shift in consciousness – from “amateur” to “pro” – was what finally turned things around.
A guy who goes from broken, can’t-get-his-work-done-to-save-his-life, to international best-selling author is someone worth paying attention to.
The Higher Realm
If the militaristic message of Book Two sounds daunting, deep breath – we’re now on to Book Three, where Pressman looks at Inspiration, the Muses, the Authentic Self, and the allies and angels that keep us pressing on against Resistance.
When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete.
Whether you believe in angels or read Book Three as pure metaphor, I can’t see how any reader could not be moved by it.
Do your work, is the essence of Pressman’s message, because you must. The last page sums it up eloquently:
If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony 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….
Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.
Amen.
If you’re ready to take your own creative life more seriously, and would like to use the power of a small group of like-minded, creative comrades-in-arms to push yourself forward, I’ve got one spot left in my upcoming daytime Creative Ignition Circle, which starts this Wednesday. What could YOU accomplish toward your big, creative dreams in the next two months, if you had other people to brainstorm, encourage, and (perhaps most importantly) hold your feet to the fire? I invite and challenge you to take that next step to bust past Resistance and find out. Click here for more information and to join.
Saturday Showcase: Six Inspiring Subscribers
Every day, emails land in my box announcing the new subscribers to Living A Creative Life. Whenever I have time, if a new subscriber has an email address that looks like it’s attached to an actual website (as opposed to gmail.com or yahoo.com or sbcglobal.net or whatever), I like to click through to their site to see what they’re about.*
This little exercise has shown that my subscribers are amazingly creative and talented people, doing really cool stuff. It occurred to me the other day that all of these creatives should know about each other!
So, to that end, I’m starting a new feature:
Inspiring Subscriber Showcase
As I collect cool and interesting links from new subscribers (or loyal subscribers who’ve been around for awhile, too – hint, hint), I’ll post them here. Not necessarily every week, but when I have a good handful of cool links to share, I’ll put them up.
So, without further ado, let me introduce you (in no particular order) to today’s fabulous finds!
Cecilia Power – Macrame Art Extraordinaire
Think you know macrame? That hippy, trippy hanging plant-holder craft from the 70s? I thought so too, until I saw Cecilia Power’s amazing work over at cilipower.wordpress.com. Cecilia turns knots into modern works of art.
The piece at the left is just one example – click the link above to see more.
Cecilia also writes lovely emails (did I mention I love getting email from subscribers?)
I just wanted you to know I have been reading everything you have been throwing my way… I have been checking out quite a few artists and it has been an inspiring endeavor. All in all between you and them, I’m all afire, (chuckle) and feeling hopeful.
THAT is exactly what I like to hear!
Chris Morrison – Fine Art Landscape Photography
Chris Morrison’s site, www.chrismorrison.com.au, showcases his stunning photography, including award-winning photos and a line of wide-format landscapes (like Vintgar Gorge above) that will take your breath away.
Ruth Churchman – Creating Ruth and the Felty Folk
I met Ruth when she joined my Thriving Artists Project last December. Since then, she’s created a delightful new blog, creatingruth.wordpress.com, in which she shares her beautiful crafts, and documents what goes on with the Felty Folk who live near her in Scotland and have all kinds of adventures. (That’s Dod and Neeva in the pic above, with a mushroom for dinner, and a beech nut for beech nut spread.)
Ruth does a great job of documenting projects she’s worked on, and I must confess a gigantic crush on all of the Felty Folk she’s introduced me to on her blog.
Anita Davies – Decorative Art & Jewelry
Brand new on my subscriber list this week is the talented Anita Davies, who showcases her exquisite artworks made from handmade polymer clay tiles over at raw-elements.co.uk.
Nicole Crist – Moving Life Blog
Another Thriving Artists Project member (or TAPer, as we call ourselves on the site), is the amazing Nicole Crist. Now, if you’ve read much on this blog, you know I’m a self-confessed multi-passionate. What you may not know, though, is that I once spent a year studying aerial arts at a circus school.
Alas, my time as an aerialist was short, but Nicole is the real thing – a professional “aerialista”! You can see her high-flying moves over at www.AltitudeAerials.com.
Nicole’s also a very inspiring writer, focusing on living fit, confident and creative. I highly recommend her newsletter, Moving LiveZine. Find her writing, and subscribe to her newsletter, at Moving Life Blog.
Sally Penley – Calligraphy Whiz
As a letter-lover and calligrapher/calligraphy teacher, I naturally have a soft spot in my heart for fellow calligraphers. Especially when they’re as friendly and talented as Sally Penley!
Sally’s work is top notch and varied, but with a distinct style all her own. Browse (and buy!) over at sallypenley.com. She recently emailed me pics of a glorious little alphabet book she’d created (see below), and offered to send me a list of alphabetized words to scavenge for my not-quite-daily ArtSparks. Love it!
Are my subscribers the best, or what?
That wraps up today’s dispatch. Enjoy, have a great weekend, and go get creating!
PS – Want to be included here in a future subscriber showcase? All subscribers are welcome to apply. If you’re not already a subscriber, you can sign up using the form at the upper right, then send me a link to your cool, creative stuff.
*Tip: If you’re interested in being taken seriously for your creative thing, an email address with your own domain can really help your image. Plus it makes it easier for folks like me to actually find you (and link to you) online! Just sayin’…
Turning Envy into Strength with a Role Model Constellation (plus soup) | Weekly Review #54
So how’m I doing in my quest to re-invent my life, follow my evolving Blisses and create the life I really, really want?
Talk about creative abundance: on Monday I interviewed artist and shaman Laura Hollick, of Soul Art Studio, for the Thriving Artists Project, and added yet another shining star to my growing constellation of impressive role models.
In fact, Laura found me, rather than the other way around. She stumbled across the Thriving Artists Project website, saw that we are doing the same thing in our own unique ways, and reached out to say hello. We made a date, shared stories on Skype a few days later, and I knew I had to interview her for TAP!
(That interview did not disappoint – Laura’s story of going from poverty and “starving artist” thinking, to a job as a letter carrier, and ultimately to wild success as an artist and shaman, a 3,000 square foot studio, a worldwide following and a thriving income is gripping and inspiring. TAP members, watch for it soon!)
A Brief Review of the Comparison Trap
Often when I look at someone who’s steps ahead of me in creating their vision and developing their business, as Laura is, I find myself caught in the Comparison Trap. Envy, that familiar green face, rears its ugly head, and I inevitably feel badly about myself for not making as much money/being as prolific/having as large a following/being as successful/[insert envied thing here] as the person I admire.
Since my entree to the Blogosphere just over a year ago, I’ve intentionally sought out role models to help direct me, putting myself in a prime position to be caught in the Comparison Trap, consumed with envy and bad feelings. When I set about to create the Thriving Artists Project, my opportunities for getting trapped increased even more, as I regularly found new thriving artists to interview.
Don’t get me wrong – doing the interviews has been an extremely effective way to get to know more about other thrivers, learn their secrets and new tricks to apply to my own business and life. It’s been a huge boon, and given me exactly what I’d hoped it would: inspiration and real-life role models.
But sometimes I’ve still found myself dragged down by the Comparison Trap.
“I should be doing things like [Blogger X].”
“No, wait, I want to be like [Artist Y]. That’s how I should do things.”
“Damn, I wish I were as successful as [Life Coach Z]. I need to be more like her.”
“Ooh.. I love how [Slasher Q] combines her blogging, art and coaching! She’s the one I want to emulate!”
Of course I emulate aspects of each of them – that’s why they’re role models – but much as I might envy a given person’s success and want to copy it for myself, one thing I’ve always known is that, in fact, I’m not copying someone else’s model, nor do I want to.
I am creating my own, unique model, and the more I can vibrate at my own energy and create a model that’s uniquely mine, the more I will attract the people who resonate with me.
Building My Constellation
So yes, I do want to emulate my role models. I just don’t want to try to be a carbon copy of any of them.
What I really want is to emulate bits and pieces of each of them. And it felt to me like some kind of concrete… thingy… might help with that.
So here’s what I did:
Tuesday morning, while writing in my journal, I decided to put all of my heroes into a sort of mind map, in order to see all of them in one place. In woo-woo terminology, every one of the people I admire is vibrating at a different energy. A unique color, let’s say. When I look at them one at a time, I automatically start vibrating to match that particular color. (In non-woo-woo terminology, I start thinking I need to do things their way, try to be more like them.)
But that color isn’t actually my color vibration, it’s theirs. And when I vibrate too intensely at that color (which happens a lot if I’m operating out of envy!), it’s all too easy for me to forget that there are other colors that make up my personal spectrum too.
All of this may sound very abstract (and yes, woo-woo – gotta love it), but here’s what I did to make it concrete: I wrote in the center of the page:
“People who are doing their own version of what I’m doing, very successfully, a few steps ahead of me, and whose energy I want to match.” (Or, in non-woo-woo terminology, people whose business models I admire and want to emulate.)
I drew a box around that statement, and in the space surrounding that box I proceeded to write the name of every role model I could think of.
The very act of creating this mind map – my Constellation of Role Models – shifted something for me. (There’s a reason human beings have created rituals since before recorded history: they’re powerful, and they work. Not necessarily in a The Secret I-think-certain-thoughts-and-the-world-changes-for-me kind of way, but in a my-inner-world-changes-for-me kind of way.)
Suddenly, with all of my role models on a single sheet of paper, I could see the entire constellation in one place. If I imagined that each of them was vibrating at their own color, for the first time I was able to see the whole spectrum.
And seeing the spectrum laid out on the page (even though I didn’t actually color them in – it’s an imagination thing, see?) allowed me to hum at my own vibration, while drawing energy and inspiration from each of them, no one of them dominating my vision.
Instead of comparing myself negatively, from a place of envy, something about seeing 21 different names on the page allowed me to feel inspired. Inspired in a multitude of different ways from this diverse group.
Here’s another metaphor (for those who relate better to food than astral bodies)
(Because one can never have too many metaphors. Plus I’m hungry.)
“I’m creating my very own brew,” I wrote in my journal. And the individuals floating around the perimeter of my Role Model Constellation mind map are ingredients that contribute different flavorings to the soup.
I haven’t decided whether they’re vegetables that go into the stock, or spices that go into the soup.
But that’s neither here no there. The point is, I figured out a way to turn the Comparison Trap into a source of strength. And that’s pretty cool, if I do say so myself.
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Who are your role models and heroes? Do they inspire you, make you envious, or both? If they make you envious, have you found a positive way to deal with that feeling?
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Weekly Review #47: The Power of Inspiration
So how’m I doing in my quest to re-invent my life, follow my evolving Blisses and create the life I really, really want?
One of the most beautiful things about creating the Thriving Artists Project is the serendipitous gifts I get from doing the interviews. Every interview I do seems to magically shine a light on an area in my own life I’ve been thinking about, wanting to work on… and frequently tip-toeing around.
My original reason for doing the interviews — for the entire project, actually — was to inspire myself to keep going after what I want. To follow my evolving Bliss(es), to get clearer about what the life I really, really want looks like, and to go for it.
Of course my hope was that the project would inspire others too, and yes, ideally enough to want to pay me for my efforts. But I make no bones about the fact that the initial impetus was to inspire me, pure and simple.
And what a resounding success that has been!
The power of inspiration
When I spoke with artist Michele Théberge on February 1, I was feeling frustrated that I wasn’t making art.
For a few months, tTAP was my art, and the fact that I wasn’t painting was okay. I’d made a conscious choice to spend my time working on tTAP and my new site, 365 Days of Genius. Now, though, I was itching to get back to painting, yet not quite able to give myself permission to take the time.
Then I interviewed Michele, and what did she spontaneously bring up? The importance of a regular practice, and how little time it actually takes to keep yourself connected to your creativity.
That one-hour conversation with Michele inspired me to take on my 15 Minutes a Day challenge, which has totally changed my life.
How?
I’ll tell you how. On Tuesday I leave for a 5-day retreat with the Friends of Calligraphy, which for 8 out of the past 9 years has been my one island of time during the year in which I actually play in the Creative Sandbox.
Every year I’ve had plans to set my life up so that I’m actually creating during the rest of the year, so that at the opening circle the next year I can say, “I made art for me this year!” And every year I’ve failed.
Until now!
Thanks to my discovery over the summer that what I really wanted out of my art-making time was not to create a new work project for myself, but rather just to mess around in the Creative Sandbox…
And thanks to Michele’s reminder that 15 minutes a day is all that’s really required to at least keep my toe in the creative stream…
At the opening circle on Wednesday night, I’ll get to report back that:
I’ve made more art in the past almost-four-weeks than in the previous several years combined!
This is huge, people!
And instead of the Retreat being my single chance during the year to try and reconnect with that creative stream, this year I get to just keep swimming with the current.
All of the above thanks to a kick-start from that TAP interview with Michele.
The power of inspiration
This week I had the great good fortune to be able to interview Goddess Leonie, of the Goddess Guidebook, and the jolt of inspiration was entirely different, but just as energizing.
What did I learn?
For one thing, I was inspired by the fact that Leonie makes art these days not so much to sell directly — as pictures to hang on the wall, say — but as an integral part of her e-courses and e-books. Her art is a huge part of what she does — just take a spin around her website and you’ll see her art all over it — but she provided me with a much-needed reminder that I get to use my art to inspire myself and make the other stuff that I do even more fun!
This may be rather obvious, I know, but I tend to get so easily caught up in creating “valuable content” for my members that apparently I needed the reminder that my visual creations can be part of that value.
The power of inspiration.
Perhaps it was also the interview with Leonie that inspired me to finally do something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, but have been afraid of trying: offering free Skype or phone consultations, both here on my blog, and in periodic random “first person to respond gets a free consult” tweets. (Follow me on Twitter and you could snag one of these spots for yourself.)
What took me so long to put myself out there? What was I afraid of?
- Not doing a good enough job
- Being flooded with too many takers to be able to handle it
- Not getting any takers — the proverbial “I threw a party and nobody came”
Well, not only did I bust through those fears and post the offer, but I surprised myself by mentioning that, hell, I’d even read your aura if you want, effectively “outing” myself as a psychic. (In a jokey-toned aside, but still.)
I’m not sure what came over me, but I like it.
The power of inspiration.
The upshot?
People did indeed come to the party, and the flood I was afraid of never materialized. (Kinda easy solution to that one: set a limit. Duh.)
The best part?
Doing the consults has boosted my confidence in my ability to help people, and helping people has made me really, really happy!
Note to self: another antidote to feeling sunk: connecting over the phone or in person and helping people!
The power of inspiration.
And perhaps the best part of my week?
My first consult was with someone who wanted to get back to creating after being totally blocked for close to two years. Since her 30 minutes with me she has been creating every day, is absolutely vibrating with ideas and can’t wait to get back to her project each day!
Granted, this was someone who was clearly ready to take this step and just needed a little push off the diving board. But the fact that I was able to offer her that help was a shining highlight for me.
The power of inspiration.
Don’t underestimate it.