Learn How to Unlock Limitless Creativity & Overcome Resistance | Steven Pressfield

What artists need, or any kind of creative people, is self-discipline. If you have self-discipline, nothing can stop you.

Whether you're an aspiring writer, a budding entrepreneur, or simply someone who feels that creative itch but can't seem to scratch it, this episode is definitely for you.

You want to live a very simple life so that you can put your real energy and your craziness into the work itself.

We all know that feeling, the hesitation before starting a project, the fear of failure, or the endless cycle of Procrastination. But what if I told you there's a way to break through?

I have a mantra to overcome that. What I tell myself is, start before you're ready.

Do you have a daily practice or a routine that has had a significant impact on your own creativity?

Thinking of things this way saved my life.

How do they balance routine and spontaneity?

When you're in your 20s and your early 30s, that's a great time to try everything.

Welcome back, Kwik Brains. I am your host and your brain coach, Jim Kwik. Today we'll be exploring the challenges and the triumphs of the creative journey and how to tackle the universal struggle of resistance that holds us back from pursuing our passions and dreams. Joining us today is the iconic Steven Pressfield. He is the bestselling author of a number of books, including 2 of my absolute favorites, which we've mentioned many times on this podcast and on stage. The War of Art and Turning Pro amongst others, and the newly released The Daily Pressfield. And this is just amazing. Well, I'm enjoying this book so much. Steven has made it his mission to help creatives and entrepreneurs overcome resistance, that internal battle that keeps us from realizing our potential. So get ready for some tough love, some practical advice, and the motivation that you need to finally start that project that you've been putting off. Welcome to the show, Steven.

Hey, Jim, thank you very much. Thanks for having me. I'm delighted to be here.

So good. When I told our team that you're coming on, they were so very excited. Our team has read your books, and, you know, our team is, they're avid readers, and I know a lot of our community is gonna enjoy this new book. What is resistance?

I know that, uh, for years as a, as a struggling writer, I found that every time I sat down in front of this thing—

The keyboard.

I felt this force, this negative force radiating off the keyboard or typewriter keyboard, trying to sort of push me back and keep me, keep me away from doing what I wanted to do. And I thought I was the only one who ever felt this, but I, uh, And that force took several forms. One form was it tried to distract me or make me procrastinate. It would try to say, well, let's go to the beach today. Or I know this is a great idea that you want to sit down and write something, but maybe let's start tomorrow. Or the other form it would take would be a voice in my head that would sabotage me and undermine my belief in myself and my belief in whatever the project was. You know, the voice would say things to me like, Who do you think you are to attack this particular subject? It's already been done a million times, way better than you'll ever do it, et cetera, et cetera. Or it would attack the subject itself and kind of say to myself, nobody's going to be interested in this idea that you have. It's a really dumb idea, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So for years, this force defeated me and made me procrastinate, made me give in to distraction. It's all of those things. And finally, when I sort of, in my own head, I just gave it a name. I called it Resistance with a capital R because it resists us. You know, it's trying to push us away. And just giving it a name, I began to see that it really wasn't my voice in my head saying these things, saying you're unworthy, your idea is dumb. It was this sort of universal force that tries to stop us from doing anything anytime we try to Kind of elevate our level of achievement or aspiration. And once I thought of it that way, I was able to dismiss it at the start and just sit down and do my work. So that's the short version of what resistance is to me. But I will say one thing to anybody that is aspiring to any kind of creative act, to write a book, to make a movie, to do a dance, to be a comedian. If you can't come to grips with this force, you'll never get anywhere. This will defeat you every time. Before you learn the craft, before you study to do what it is, you have to somehow wrap your mind around getting over this force, overcoming it, this force of resistance, of internal self-sabotage.

Is it true that resistance is highest at the start of something? And if so, why do we feel like we need to have everything nailed down from just before we begin? I guess what I'm asking is, what roles do perfectionism play in the overall picture?

Perfectionism is definitely a form of resistance. It's a way that this force, which is a diabolical, intelligent force, That works against us. But there are very predictable points in any kind of a project when resistance will strike. And one of them is before we start. Another one is at the very end when we're like that close from finishing. That's another time when resistance will really spike. But some people spend their lives, their entire creative lives being defeated by resistance at the very start where they never begin a project. And again, once you sort of, as you're standing on the threshold of a project you're about to start, that voice in our head will say things like, oh my God, this thing is going to take 3 years. Can you take that time and do this? I mean, what about your family? What about all the other stuff, et cetera, et cetera? It's going to be so hard. It's going to be, you know, the tedium is going to overwhelm us, et cetera, et cetera. That it stops us because we believe again, as I said, that this is our voice, the voice we hear in our head objectively saying these things. In fact, it's not. It's this negative force of resistance. And what needs to be done by the person trying to start something is to just dismiss it, to say, and just plunge in. I have a mantra to overcome that. And What I tell myself is start before you're ready.

Yeah.

In other words, another form that resistance loves to take is doing research, quote unquote, doing research, because we feel like before we begin, well, we got to study all this stuff. We got to get our notes in order to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's completely wrong in my opinion. And the answer is to start before you're ready, plunge in, start working. Do the research as you go along. Research becomes resistance many, many times. Again, it's this diabolical voice trying to seduce you and make you think, well, you are working because you're doing research, you're going to the library. But in fact, as you're studying, you're not writing, you're not doing the job.

Or starting that business or whatever.

Or starting whatever it is.

Start before you're ready.

Start before you're ready.

And this is a wonderful reminder to everyone that every pro was once an amateur, right? Every expert was once a beginner.

Yeah.

And, um, you know, little by little, a little becomes a lot. There, there's a line in the book that says, writers do not write to express themselves, they write to discover themselves. And I just want to really, I'll say that again, everyone listening, writers do not write to express themselves, they write to discover themselves. Where would you say ideas come from? Do we have to go out and find them, or do they find us?

Or— It's a huge question. Where do ideas come from? Right? We are, um, in the shower and we get an idea, right? Or we're driving on the freeway or we're on a subway in New York City, you know, and suddenly an idea just pops into our head. Where does it come from? I mean, I'm a believer in other dimensions of reality. You know, if, if you've— and higher dimensions of reality. I'm specifically a believer in the Greek concept, the Greek goddesses, the Muses. whose job it was to inspire artists. And we all— anybody that's an artist asks themselves, like I was reading about that Bob Dylan once said that he doesn't remember writing any of his songs. They just sort of come to him one way or another, you know, and he becomes absorbed in them. And I feel the same way that We have to admit that wherever ideas come from, it's not coming from us.

Right.

I'm not thinking something up. It comes to me from somewhere else. And I believe that each one of us is assigned these various ideas by the goddess from another dimension of reality. And that, like, the ideas that you would have, Jim, are completely different from what I would have. I could never do what you do. You could never do what I do. And Bruce Springsteen could never write the songs that Beyoncé would write and vice versa.

Yeah.

So I think, I don't know if you're familiar with Rick Rubin.

Sure.

He's the great sort of the godfather of hip hop that has helped produce so many records that we all know and works with bands and helps to facilitate them do their work. And, um, He's a believer that whatever the creative force is, which is the opposite of resistance, equal and opposite to resistance, it's like a trade wind that is constantly blowing. It's not like we have to wait for ideas. They're constantly coming to us, but we're not usually tuned in. It's like a radio. We're not quite tuned in. Or the idea comes, an idea comes to us and we immediately reject it. Like we're in the shower and we have an idea to write a book. Oh, let's write a book about Napoleon, blah, blah, blah. Right? And we immediately say, oh, that's a bogus idea. It's been done a million times. The voice of resistance. Right? Whereas I think a creative person who has taught himself, like you say, that's gone from being an amateur to being a pro, taught himself or herself to be alert to these ideas and sort of catch them. Like Rosanne Cash says, that a songwriter should have a catcher's mitt constantly because the ideas are coming in and you got to grab them before they go to somebody else.

Talking about the 9 Muses, I wrote the chapter in Limitless on memory in Greece, and it's the largest chapter in my book. And there's actually a goddess of memory, Mnemonides, who her children are the 9 Muses of science, literature, and art. And it's, I find that fascinating. Now, you mentioned, when we're talking about talent and effort, is there an approximate ratio of, I mean, you can't, I don't know if you could quantify this, but if in your estimation, in your research and as it's expressing itself, the ratio between talent and effort or talent and work when it comes to creativity or success, is it Something that's—

I'm definitely, it's a great question, Jim. I'm definitely a believer that work is the overwhelming thing. Now, I don't know if that's true because a lot of other people have said, well, you gotta have talent. I certainly think that if you want to play basketball in the NBA, you know, you have to have, you gotta be 6'6 and you gotta, you gotta have great physical talent or something like that. But for being a writer or an artist or something like that, a lot of times hard work Is the answer. Like, I can say that it took me, I was like 52 years old before I had my first novel published. And so I had been working for like 30 years and people, people say that, that I'm a talent now, but they used to say I was a bum and I was a bum in the sense that I had not learned the stuff that I needed to learn. And I hadn't kind of progressed along the path. And you do, you progress that way through hard work, right? With anything else, you kind of learn your craft. You learn the various tricks and skills and stuff like that to, uh, to, uh, access your own talent and to, and to bring it forth. So you do, at least as a writer, you absolutely can get better. And I know you can get better as a musician. I know you can get better as a dancer. You can get better as a comedian. Hard work to me. I used to have an agent who said, talent is BS. She said, I've seen a million writers with talent. It makes the— I would rather have a writer that will work hard and grind and get better and better as they go along than somebody with great talent that flames out and has no self-discipline and can't put it together and make it work on the page.

So I'm definitely a believer in We're in the same school of thought for that. I talk about LIES, and LIES is an acronym, a limited idea entertained. And one of the lies is I feel that genius is born. When I— it's been my experience the past 30 years in my field that genius is not so much born, it's built. And when we're talking about daily practices, I'm just out of curiosity, Do you have a daily practice or a routine, whether it's discussed in the book or not, that has had a significant impact on your own creativity, your own output?

Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, just about every serious writer or artist that I know has a very strict routine. Resistance is so Omnipresent and so diabolical that if I were to say, okay, I'll just wing it, you know, Tuesday I might do this, Thursday I'll do that. Resistance is gonna have me going to the beach every day, you know, or sleeping, you know, whatever. So I do need a structure. And I, and, and I, and I find also that you can be creative, most creative within a kind of a fixed structure. A lot of times people think, oh, if you're gonna be creative, you should be drinking, you should be, you know, that sort of, Not true. I think you want to live a very simple life so that you can put your real energy and your craziness into the work itself.

So when we're talking about resistance, how does the daily— because I imagine a lot of people could identify with that resistance for starting that business or starting writing that book or that song. It could be their keyboard or it could be a piano. You know, keys. It could be anything, right?

Yeah.

How does Daily Pressfield address the concept of resistance? You know, and, and what additional strategy could our listeners be offered to overcome this resistance? You have too much to read, but too little time. Studies have shown that your ability to read is directly correlated to your level of success in life. But when was the last time you took a class on how to read? I want to introduce you to the Kwik Reading Free Masterclass. In this free training, I'll show you how to instantly increase your reading speed by 25 to 50% or more. Plus, you'll boost your understanding, your comprehension, your focus and concentration along the way. Don't miss out on this life-changing opportunity. Click the button or go to jimkwik.com/speed to access this free training now.

Everybody does it differently. Everybody finds a way to get around it. Some people like me, I'm kind of a willpower kind of a guy, and I'll just sort of like crack the whip over myself and do that kind of thing. But another way That I found to do this is to think of my workday as a practice. Like we would have like a yoga practice or a martial arts practice or any kind of a thing like that, like a meditation practice. Like if we had a meditation practice, it would be something that we would do every day, you know, no matter what, right? Priority number one. And we would try to do it at the same time. And we would try to do it with, with always with an intention. And like if, if let's say we had a martial arts practice, we enter the dojo and the first thing we do, we take off our shoes, right? Put our hands together like this and we bow to the sensei, our teacher, and to the, and to the room itself because the room becomes a kind of a sacred space. And we also say to ourselves, we're going to leave our ego outside and we're going to leave our troubles outside. Whatever else is— whatever BS is bothering us, that's gone. We're only here to study martial arts, right? To give ourselves over. And it becomes— so that's kind of what— that's what I try to do. I feel like, um, let's say I'm working on a specific book. I really don't feel like, uh, Oh, I'm going to the end because I want a specific outcome. I want the book to get a— become a bestseller, blah, blah, blah. I'm not thinking that at all. I'm thinking that as soon as this book is over, I'm going to start another one or some other project, some other creative thing that will come to me. And that it's a lifelong commitment, just like in a meditation practice. We don't say, well, I'm only going to do this until, you know, August 16th and then I'll achieve enlightenment. Right?

Right.

And then I'll stop. We're gonna do this every day for the rest of our lives. And so that kind of thinking of writing or any creative endeavor as a practice, I think really grounds you. This is another thing that Rick Rubin says, to not be attached to the outcome, emotionally to the outcome of something, but to just do the work for its own sake. So that's one way that I get around resistance. I just say that, I'm a professional. I do this every day, and I'm not going to stop until they take me out feet first.

It sounds like it's almost like an identity. It's who you are.

Definitely.

And it becomes evidence that you are who you say you are.

And I'll say further to that, and maybe you can identify this, Jim, that thinking of things this way saved my life. I did not do it like this always. I was You know, I was, let's say my life was pretty screwed up for a long time. I couldn't kind of find my footing or go. Once I finally committed to this calling, then my life became good. You know, the demons aren't always are held at bay, but they certainly are let. more at bay than they used to be. And I know that if I were to stop, if I were to suddenly say, oh, you know, forget it, I'm not writing anymore, I'm just going to, you know, follow the whims of the day, I would go down the tubes pretty fast. So this is— it's a calling, it's a discipline, it's a practice for me. There's a difference between discipline and self-discipline.

Hmm.

Like if you and I are in the Marine Corps, we wake up in the morning and we got sergeants telling us exactly what to do. We know What uniform we're supposed to wear. We've got our whole day is planned out, right? It's a very disciplined day, right? We're going to the rifle range, then we're gonna go on a 12-mile hike, blah, blah, blah. We go to bed at exactly 8:30 at night, whatever. So that's discipline, but that's externally imposed on us. What you and I need and what an art— what artists need or any kind of creative people is self-discipline because there is no sergeant, there is no boss. You know, there is no mentor telling us what to do. So like what you said before about when you're clearing your mind and you're sort of planning the next day, in a way you're doing at that time what a sergeant would be doing for us in the Marine Corps, right?

Mm-hmm.

Tomorrow, this is what we're gonna do, right? And you're preparing yourself mentally to have a certain attitude, right? To have a certain level of aspiration for tomorrow. You're telling yourself, You're not going to fall below a certain level. You're not going to let yourself fall below a certain level. And all of those things are, like you say, cultivating this habit of self-reliance, self-discipline, and then beyond that, self-reinforcement, self-validation, right? At the end of the day, maybe this is what you do when you're clear. I certainly do this. At the end of the day, I will do— If I had an imaginary boss or an imaginary coach, that coach might come in here and tell me, "You did a great job today, Steve. You know, you started to falter halfway through, but you recovered." Da da da da. Right? In other words, self self-validation, self-reinforcement—that is, like you say, a way of cultivating self-discipline. If you have self-discipline, nothing can stop you. If you don't, all the talent in the world is worthless.

Self-discipline, just like self-respect, self-love, self-care, it all starts with self, right? It's— we can't get that from somebody else.

Yeah, we can learn it. We can model ourselves about after somebody, but ultimately, like that Stevie Nicks song, it all comes down to you.

You know, a lot of our— the creatives in our community, When they check their values, freedom is, for many of them, very high on the list of the values that they have. Many creatives struggle with finding a balance between structure or routine and a level of freedom or spontaneity. How do they balance routine and spontaneity?

That's a great question. I think, you know who Robert Greene is? Sure. Who wrote The 48 Laws of Power? And that's a One of the things he says that I absolutely agree with is like when you're in your 20s and your early 30s, that's a great time to try everything, to explore all kinds of things, even things that are not particularly wholesome, you know, to have all kinds of dis— you know, different experiences, work different jobs, live in different places where quote unquote freedom is a way of gathering experience. And what you're really doing is you're trying to find out who you really are. Right? What do I love? What do I not love? What works for me? What doesn't work for me? Some people love to travel. Oh, this is great. You know, other people, oh, this is boring. I don't want any of that. But I think at some point you get to a point where, like I would say, that kind of freedom, I don't have that freedom in my life and I don't want it.

Hmm.

If somebody would ask me what the definition of what my job is, what my occupation, what my calling is, I would say I'm a servant of the muse. And what I mean by that is I'm trying to tap into that dimension of creativity that's above us, that I feel like I have a body of work that I've produced so far. And there's a continuing body of work.

Hmm.

And the goddess will assign it to me, and my job is to do it. And that's where my freedom lies, is within that within the banks of that river. When I was kind of, when I was young and kind of on the road, I used to, I lived in my van, my Chevy van for years and years.

Wow.

And when I was doing that, I put like hundreds of thousands of miles on this, you know, freedom, quote unquote. Now that I'm on my working life, I hardly drive to the grocery store. So that's where freedom fits for me. I wouldn't say that's the right thing for somebody that's 22 or 23, but, you know, by the time you're in your 40s or so, you should be, you should be, if you can, have found your calling, have found, you know, your voice and be working in that groove if you're an artist.

If people have read The War of Art, Turning Pro, and your other works, how does the daily press field fit in Is it building on prior work?

Well, I'm primarily actually a writer of fiction. I'm really not— I consider this, The War of Art and Turning Pro, to be sort of a sideline. You know, I've written a bunch of novels. Like, here's one of the more recent ones, A Man at Arms. And I'm working on— I've got another one after that that's done, and I'm working on another one after that.

Wow.

And so the Daily Press feels, my work is sort of in 2 silos, you know, one is the fiction, that's where my heart really lies. And the other one is in the sort of writing about the creative process, what we've been talking about all day here, you know, what the inner war that the artist or the writer has to fight. So I sort of bounce back and forth. Between the two. And the Daily Press Field is really, like I say, because of the format, the 365-day format, it's a great way to, I think, help somebody that's in the midst of their own struggles against their own demons, their own resistance, and kind of walk them through it as a kind of a mentor at their side, you know, for— so that's why just the 365-day format It's a way of pulling together stuff that was in The War of Art and in Turning Pro.

And it's bite-sized. So it's very easy to be consistent in terms of your morning routine. It only takes a couple of minutes. It gets your mind right. And so highly recommend. If you're watching this on YouTube, we put the extended version of this podcast on there. So please join our 1.6+ million subscribers there. see the extended version of our conversation with Steven Pressfield.

If you order it on Amazon, you'll get a sort of a, not the best version of it. Okay. But you can, like what we sent to you, Jim. Yeah. This is an entire sort of package, a gift package.

If people are watching this on video, this is an amazing—

and a bunch of other, you know, a journal that came with it and autographed and a whole thing. You can get that at my website, which is just my name, Steven Pressfield. You can't get it on Amazon. It's more expensive, but it's a much more quality thing than what Amazon puts out.

It looks like a piece of art on my bookshelf. So I appreciate it. It's very congruent. Not only is it topic matter that, but it also The context, it just, it just highly, highly recommend it, especially for gifts. I think this, this makes such a warm, thoughtful gift also as well. We'll put a link to Stephen's website, social media also as well, and all the other links at show notes as we always do at jimkwik.com/notes. So Stephen, thank you so much for being on the show.

Hey, thanks a lot, Jim. Thanks for having me. This was a great conversation. Thanks for your thoughtfulness and your preparation on this thing. And really great questions. Thank you. And if you wanna have me back at any time, I'm happy to do it down the road whenever.

Everyone remember, whether you're writing a novel, you're launching a startup, you're pursuing any creative endeavor, I believe the future belongs to the creators. You know, the path isn't always easy, but it, but it's, but it's, from my point of view, it's worth it. And as Steve reminded us today, creativity isn't just about self-expression. It's about self-discipline and self-discovery. So everybody, I'd love for you to post, take a screenshot wherever you're consuming this. You could tag Steve, you could tag myself, and tell us what's your next move. And, you know, are you gonna start before you're ready? Will you let resistance win, or will you take that first bold step towards your goals, your dreams? And There's a quote in Limitless that says, life is the letter C between B and D, where B is birth and D is death. Life, C, is, is choice. And every day we have a chance cuz we can make a new choice, and the choice is yours. You know, you're the, you're the greatest project you're ever gonna get to work on. So make sure you take time, you make time to create magic. And after the, today's conversation, I hope you'll feel even more inspired, more equipped to choose that action over fear. And as always, don't forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on YouTube online. This is your brain coach, Jim Kwik. Until next time, be limitless.