A review of "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield

According to Steven Pressfield, creation is a matter of life and death. If you need a kick in the ass to finally write that manuscript, hit the gym, or paint that canvas, then this book is what you need. It’s 190 pages and easy to read. Below are what I considered to be the two main ideas in The War of Art

1️⃣ Understand what Resistance (aka distractions) looks like for you and then wage a war against it everyday.

Our creative enemy has a name and the name is Resistance. The laggardly feeling in the morning, the fear, the anxiety, the hours spent doom-scrolling, watching Netflix, retail-therapy, self-medication, self-intoxication, even preoccupations about sex... all of it is a form of resistance, because they combine to keep us from creating that day, that moment.

To fight our own resistance every single day is akin to going to war. Therefore, we must behave with military precision and stealth about refining our daily habits which should ultimately enable us to create by any means possible. We must be committed to the craft. Speaking of which—

2️⃣ Truly love the craft, but don't base your entire identity on it.

On the one hand, you have to truly love what you do because that’s the heart of the motivation that will conquer Resistance every day. The fear of doing and resistance to creating will never go away, but it’s with the “love of the game” that you’ll overcome those obstacles.

At the same time, success doesn’t come without its failures and failures are guaranteed for anyone trying to achieve something great, therefore, you must also be sufficiently detached from your craft. We must love our craft enough to wake up every morning and work at it, but not take it so seriously that failing at it destroys our identity. Revel in the fear, revel in the failure, and keep going.

Perhaps my one critique is that these themes were somewhat repetitive. Some of it does sound "airy-fairy", especially when Pressfield gets into describing muses and magic. Nevertheless, I have to admit that the entire bit on the magic of creation balances out the military language he uses at the beginning of the book to convey the level of discipline a creator must have.