This is all the doing of Old Mate Resistance. I need to vacuum the house/wash my hair/answer my WhatsApp messages/sort out my old clothes/get inspiration on YouTube/do more research/water the plants/go for a run/finally call my mum.

The stories that we tell ourselves about why we keep procrastinating and putting them off are many and varied: I don’t have time. Whether an artwork, an art journal, an exhibition proposal or something else entirely, we’ve all had ideas for our artistic endeavours which we have either failed to start, or otherwise started and soon lost interest in, put off, completely avoided, and ultimately ceased to bring to completion.

“…if we give it so much as a nanosecond, will start producing excuses, alibis, transparent self-justifications, and a million reasons why we can’t/shouldn’t/won’t do what we know we need to do.”.

“(Its) sole object is to stop us from becoming our best selves and from achieving our higher goals.”.

“Resistance is the response of the frightened, petty, small-time ego to the brave, generous, magnificent impulse of the creative self.”.

Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work.” To flesh it out quickly, here are a couple of things Steven says about Resistance: Your heart’s desire, that creative project, your calling, the next step. Resistance is a real, powerful and highly creative force which will basically do anything that it can to stop us “doing the work” – the work being whatever it is that you know, deep down, you want to be doing. Steven talks about Resistance with a capital R.

Did I mention this already? Resistance is here to stay…But it does get easierīefore we dive into the lessons, I have to introduce you to a key character in Do the Work: Resistance.

Stay stupid and get the first draft done ASAP.

But in order to pass on some of its wisdom before it’s in your hot little hands, here are 6 important lessons that I learnt from Do the Work – and how to apply them to your art making. And yes, I would highly recommend that you read it. Yes, it’s only a short book, but yes, it’s also that good. I was recently lent the book by a friend and rocketed through it in about two hours. It accompanies the reader from the beginning to the end of a project, spelling out the various stumbling blocks that get in our way and how to get over them. As well as Steven’s foundation in writing screenplays and works of historical fiction, he’s also published numerous works about the creative practice and process: including Do the Work.ĭo the Work is a 100 page book that lays out the nuts and bolts of getting creative work done: focusing on writing, but the same principles could be applied to any artform.

If you haven’t, he’s an author and Caylee Grey’s favourite guy (apart from her delightful husband and son, T and E). If you’re part of the Get Messy community, you have almost definitely heard of Steven Pressfield.

The world of art steven pressfield