Steven Pressfield Blog
Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be
Can you commit unconditionally to your dream? Can you set your ego truly at the service of your highest calling, whether it’s artistic, entrepreneurial, or spiritual? This book shows you how to make that magic happen—how to change your life by making this soul-level shift.
The Artist’s Journey
Our “hero’s journey” is our youth, our quest, our search for our calling. Read The Artist’s Journey when you’ve entered the next stage of your creative odyssey—the truly productive years when the challenge is no longer to find your destiny, but to fulfill it.
The War of Art
Read this one first. It identifies the enemy—what I call Resistance with a capital “R,” i.e. fear, self-doubt, procrastination, perfectionism, all the forms of self-sabotage that stop us from doing our work and realizing our dreams. Start here. Everything else proceeds from this.
Turning Pro
“Amateurs have amateur habits. Pros have pro habits.” Read this book right after The War of Art. It gets deeply into the question, “Exactly how do we overcome Resistance?”
Do the Work
Read this third. It takes the principles of The War of Art and Turning Pro
The Authentic Swing
A short book about the writing of a first novel: for me, The Legend of Bagger Vance. Having failed with three earlier attempts at novels, here’s how I finally succeeded.
Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t
Read this one any time. It’s “lessons learned” from the trenches of the five different writing careers I’ve had—advertising, screenwriting, fiction, nonfiction and self-help. NWTRYS is tradecraft. An MFA in Writing in 197 pages.
DO THE WORK
Steve shows you the predictable Resistance points that every writer hits in a work-in-progress and then shows you how to deal with each one of these sticking points. This book shows you how to keep going with your work.
NOBODY WANTS TO READ YOUR SH*T
Steve shares his "lessons learned" from the trenches of the five different writing careers— advertising, screenwriting, fiction, nonfiction, and self-help. This is tradecraft. An MFA in Writing in 197 pages.
THE WAR OF ART
Read this one first.
It identifies the enemy—what I call Resistance with a capital “R,” i.e. fear, self-doubt, procrastination, perfectionism, all the forms of self-sabotage—that stop us from doing our work and realizing our dreams.
Start here.
Everything else proceeds from this.
TURNING PRO
Amateurs have amateur habits. Pros have pro habits. When we turn pro, we give up the comfortable life but we find our power. Steve answers the question, "How do we overcome Resistance?"
THE AUTHENTIC SWING
A short book about the writing of a first novel: for Steve, The Legend of Bagger Vance. Having failed with three earlier attempts at novels, here's how Steve finally succeeded.
DO THE WORK
Steve shows you the predictable Resistance points that every writer hits in a work-in-progress and then shows you how to deal with each one of these sticking points. This book shows you how to keep going with your work.