The objective of the book 'Do the
work' by Steven Pressfield is to help a budding creator on the journey of his
creation.
This book is a part of Domino Project. It is a platform of self published books with the objective of getting people to read which will create a 'Domino Effect'. The cover of this book has the drawing 'Man with a hoe' by Vincent Van Gogh. This drawing was a part of his lifelong pursuit to 'give happiness by creating beauty', an objective that Domino Project shares.
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This small book of about 100 odd pages packs a punch. It is a creator's companion. It covers all aspects of the creation process. The insights provided in the book makes you question your assumptions. It acts as a mirror to any creative person. Being currently in the process of writing my book, I found myself saying 'Hey, this is happening to me too'
The word 'Creation' as used in this book should not be conflated with 'Creativity'. Creation is the art of creating anything new. It can be writing your book, directing your movie or starting a business, or even writing this blog post.
The only condition? The creation should be close to your heart.
There are three forces arrayed against any act of creation. These are Resistance, Rational Thought and Friends and Family (Really!). We can call these three as the 'Enemies of creative work'.
The first one is Resistance. Any act of creation will face resistance. That is the rule of the nature.
What is resistance? How does it manifest? What are its characteristics? How do we identify it? How do we overcome it?
Resistance is the force that pulls the creator away from his creative work. It could manifest as fear, self-doubt, procrastination, addiction, distraction, timidity, ego and narcissism, self-loathing and perfectionism. All acts will not elicit resistance. Only creative acts do.
These acts could be:
- Pursuit of any calling in creative arts
- Creating any new business
- Any health regimen
- Any action to drop a bad habit
- And others
Any act that
rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health or
integrity will elicit resistance. Any act that derives from our higher nature
instead of our lower will elicit resistance.
What are the characteristics of Resistance?
Resistance is invisible. But it can be felt. We experience it as a negative energy field. We experience it as that 'wanting to sleep for five more minutes before I hit the gym' or 'wanting to post one more tweet before I start my writing'....
Resistance is insidious. It will tell you anything to keep you from doing your creative work. It tells me for example, 'ditch the swimming today. Water will be very cold', and even worse, 'what is there to write about? All your ideas are prosaic and bland'
Resistance is impersonal. It doesn’t know who you are and doesn’t care. It is just a force of nature. It doesn't care for you or your creative act.
Resistance is infallible. It will always work on that action that is close to one's heart. We can use this to our advantage. By identifying those activities that we face the maximum resistance to, we can identify those that are important to us.
Resistance is universal. Every creative act faces resistance.
Resistance never sleeps. Every time we perform an act of creation, we will face resistance, no matter how old or experienced we are. Fear doesn’t go away.
Resistance plays for keeps. Its objective is to 'Stop' us from the act of creation. Not delay, stop. Its target is the epicenter of our being: our genius, our soul, the unique and priceless gift we were put on this earth to give and that no one else has but us.
Next to resistance, rational thought is the creator's worst enemy. It comes from the ego. We don't want to work from our conscious thoughts, our ego. Best acts of creation arise from the Self, that is, from instinct and intuition, from the unconscious. The deeper the source we work from, the better our stuff will be—and the more transformative it will be for us and for those we share it with.
The third enemy of a creator is Friends and Family The problem is that they know us as we are. The act of creation also creates a new you. F&F do not know this new you, heck, even you don't know this new you. They are the enemy of this unmanifested you, this unborn self, this future being.
But, do not despair. In our creative journey we also have some Allies. These are Stupidity Stubbornness, Blind faith, Passion, Assistance (the opposite of Resistance) and Friends & family (there are always exceptions.
Stupidity and bullheadedness is the greatest friend of a creator. Ignorance and arrogance are the artist and entrepreneur’s indispensable allies. She must be clueless enough to have no idea how difficult her enterprise is going to be—and cocky enough to believe she can pull it off anyway.
I can relate to it. Back in 1998, without any knowledge of IT, and just by going through the user manual, I installed Oracle Apps 11i in our Server. I was one of the very few people to achieve this feat. I had not known the challenges that I could face. I just knew that I was intelligent and that I could do it. Later I came to know that what I did was a huge achievement.
So I know the benefits of being stupid. I have been there.
Second friend of creator is stubbornness. It’s less lofty than “tenacity” or “perseverance. When we’re stubborn, there’s no quit in us. We’re mean. We’re mulish. We’re ornery. We will sink our junkyard-dog teeth into Resistance’s ass and not let go,
Blind Faith is a creator's great friend. It is different from confidence. Like petrol does to oil stains, blind faith wipes away any self doubt. You know that you will succeed in the end.
Passion another friend of the creator. You may think that you have lost it or you have not found it. But it will present itself every time one starts an act of creation. Fear and self doubt saps passion. When we conquer our fears, we discover a boundless, bottomless, inexhaustible well of passion.
Assistance. It is the opposite of resistance.
Friends and Family is another friend. The history of creation is replete with families that supported the creator's endeavours with wholehearted enthusiasm. Only two things will remain with us across the river: our inhering genius and the hearts we love. All acts of creation are aimed at honouring these two things.
Now that we have identified the enemies and friends of creative work, the next questions is When is the best time to start the work?
We should START NOW. We should start before we are ready. Our enemy is not lack of preparation; it’s not the difficulty of the project or the state of the marketplace or the emptiness of our bank account. The enemy is resistance. Until one is committed one has the option to draw back, to be hesitant and to delay action. The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.
Begin it now. Remember Goethe's couplets, “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”
A creator might want to do some research before committing to the creative work. Author says that research can become resistance. He recommends reading only three books before we commit to the creative work. It is better to let the ideas percolate and let the unconscious do its work. Work on instinct. Instinct leads to inspiration.
A creator must consider two things before he or she begins. One is to stay primitive. Do not look for beauty as you create. The creative act is primitive. Its principles are of birth and genesis. Any new creation is covered with dirt and clay. Don't worry. You WILL refine it and it will become a thing of beauty later. Don't worry if your first draft is ugly. They always are.
Second is to swing for the seats. Come up with big ideas. We should not let ourselves work small. Start playing from power. We can always dial it back later. If we don’t swing for the seats from the start, our work will always remain insignificant.
How do we begin?
We begin by dividing our creative work into three parts - beginning, middle and end. Start with the end. How do you see your story ending? How will you know that it has ended? For example, if one is planning to start a small business the ending could be 'I created a business with employee strength of 20 and a monthly turnover of 5 Lakhs'.
“But how do I know where I want to go?”
Author suggests to start with the question what is this project about? What is your start up about? for example. You may say 'By the end of the first year I want to have five customers with a satisfaction rating of 4/5'. That is the end state.
Work from the end state and then fill the middle and then finally the beginning.
For example, if I am writing the story of my friend Joseph, I will do it as follows.
End: How he is running a company employing 120 workers with a turnover of about 10 Crores a year.
Middle: His struggles to start and establish the company
Start: When he resigned from his job as a medical representative at the age of 39 with no prospects for future and a young family to look after.
Now that we have got our beginning, middle and end, the next step is to fill the gaps. This is where we should start our research. It is important not to allow research to impact our work. Do research early or late. Don’t stop working. Never do research in prime working time.
The first draft is the most challenging. They are always imperfect. Get that first draft quickly. Remember that ideas do not come linearly. Ideas come according to their own logic. We may get the end before we get the beginning. Be ready for this. Don’t resist it.
Follow the process of action followed by reflection. Never act and reflect at the same time. In writing, “action” means putting words on paper.“Reflection” means evaluating what we have on paper. For the first draft, go light on reflection and heavy on action. Keep working.
How do you reflect? The author says that at least twice a week, he pauses in the rush of work and have a meeting with himself. The agenda is to answer the following questions “What is this project about?”. "What is the theme?" and "Is every element serving the theme?". This lets him keep refining his understanding of the theme; keep narrowing it down. This is the most difficult part of any creative work and one that evokes the fiercest resistance
There is one point in time that every creator must be wary about. It comes somewhere into the middle of the project. We have invested our hopes and dreams into this project. We are looking at success and we freak out. 'You suck' voice howls loudly in our ears. We’re poised at the brink of a creative breakthrough and we can’t stand it.
If you have faced this situation, it is time to understand the Seven Principles of Resistance.
One, there is an enemy. There is an intelligent, active, malign force working against us. Step one is to recognize this. This recognition alone is enormously powerful.
Two, this enemy is implacable. This enemy is intelligent, protean, implacable, inextinguishable, and utterly ruthless and destructive. Its aim is not to obstruct or to hamper or to impede. Its aim is to destroy.
Three, this enemy is inside you. It is those peripheral opponents like fame and ego that hampers us from doing our best work.
Four, the enemy is inside you, but it is not You. You are not to blame for the voices of Resistance you hear in your head. It is not your fault. You are not bad. You do not 'suck'. Your work is divine.
Five, the “Real You” must duel the “Resistance You”
Six, resistance arises second. What comes first is the idea, the passion, the dream of the work we are so excited to create that it scares the hell out of us. Resistance is the response of the frightened, petty, small-time ego to the brave, generous, magnificent impulse of the creative self.
Seven, the opposite of resistance is assistance. It is the universal, immutable force of creative manifestation, whose role is to translate potential into being, to convert dreams into reality. Your work started with a dream. The love is the passion and enthusiasm that fill your heart when you envision your project’s completion. We can align ourselves with these universal forces of Assistance—this dream, this passion to make the unmanifest manifest—and ride them into battle against the resistance.
Resistance puts us through two tests. The first test is “How bad do you want it?". Are you passionate and totally committed to your idea? The second test is "Why do you want it?" If your answer to the second question is anything other than 'the beauty' or 'because I have no choice', you will fold under resistance. When you are in the creative zone, you should remove your ego, anger, hope, impatience, fear and sense of entitlement. The only items you get to keep are love for the work, will to finish, and passion to serve the ethical, creative Muse.
Somewhere towards the end of the project, we face the big crash. We are stuck, we are desperate, we panic, we can't see any further. The Big Crash is so predictable, across all fields of enterprise. The worst part of the Big Crash is that nothing can prepare us for it. It arises organically, spawned by some act of commission or omission that we ourselves took or countenanced back at the project’s inception.
The good news is that crashes are good. Crashes are hell, but in the end they’re good for us. A crash means we have failed. We gave it everything we had and we came up short. A crash means we have to grow. A crash means we are at the threshold of learning something, which means we’re getting better and are acquiring the wisdom of our craft.
When we face the crash, we go back to our allies: stupidity, stubbornness and blind faith
Finishing is the critical part of any project. If we can't finish, all our work is for nothing.Finishing is difficult because we fear our success. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that we fear the most. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are we not to be? We are the children of God. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
In mountain climbing there is a term called 'exposure'. When a climber is 'exposed', there is nothing but thin air below her. That is what happens to a creator when he ships. He is exposed. He has lost control over his creation. He cannot modify it. Once he ships, he can fail. He can be humiliated.
Remember, failure happens only if you try. When you are in the arena, you take a few blows. That is the nature of the game. Once we realize that fundamental fact, we have arrived as a pro. From the day we finally finished something, we will never have trouble finishing anything again.
Congratulations ! You did it. You have created something new. You have become a member of a select club of creators. You have produced something that was in your mind and gave it wings and you are happy to see it fly.
Now get working on your next creation.
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