Do the Work: Overcome Resistance and Get Out of Your Own Way Paperback – March 13, 2015

I read The War of Art (Steven's previous book on this subject) last year, and I loved it. Recently I picked up the audiobook and listened it through, and I loved it the second time, too. I have the occasional small disagreement with Pressfield's worldview, but never enough to take issue with his approach -- and The War of Art has been an enormously positive influence on my mindset and my work (over and over). I was excited when I saw that Do the Work was coming down the line, and my feelings on it are almost entirely positive.An interesting note: As of this writing, all the 1-star reviews for Do the Work are about someone having received this book without ordering it. Some may have hit the pre-order button when the ebook was free and then forgotten; some may in fact have received it as a glitch on Amazon's part. But those negative reviews still have to do with the delivery system, not the actual content of the book. This seems a bad basis for a book review. So my review is about the content. ^_^I am surprised to have found that it's NOT necessary to read The War of Art before reading Do the Work. Pressfield periodically reflects back to The War of Art for important preceding information (which he repeats, rather than just referencing), and a new reader will enjoy this book just as much if she reads it first instead of second. (I love this, because of course it makes it easier for me to recommend the book to others.) And even as someone who'd read The War of Art originally, the repeated bits (surprisingly!) didn't annoy me; they only served to reinforce the material, which was a nice effect.Do the Work is like a workbook -- like a seasoned veteran holding your hand through trial and tribulation. Read it from cover to cover, but then pick up any project and let it guide you from beginning to the end. Through Resistance's clutches and out the other side!Pressfield says in the beginning that Do the Work is created in the parlance of writing, but I'm not sure that warning was needed -- he gives dozens of non-writing-related examples throughout the entire book. He may have started with writing, but from my perspective, the book has very little bias towards writing projects.A few of my favorite parts throughout: The section on creative panic. His in-depth description of the (imagined) creative crash of Herman Melville on the way to completing Moby Dick. (This made me giggle.) And Pressfield's bit of graduation speech at the end? Quite an excellent experience!If I have any issue with Do the Work, it's that Pressfield begins by describing the artist's territory as fundamentally adversarial. Later on, it becomes more clear why he might be doing this -- Navy SEALs are put through as much hell as possible early on, to see if they will give up the fight before actual lives are at stake. Is it possible that he is putting the reader in this position, too? Art often IS war. The down and dirty, in-the-trenches, professionals-only quality of The War of Art is why I fell in love with Pressfield a year ago. As Do the Work progressed, I found him just as willing to describe the surprising benefits and creative power of ASSISTANCE as he was to describe the fundamental malignancy and evil of RESISTANCE. So in the end, I was cool with it. It served a purpose.There is no sugar-coating here. There's LOTS of powerful mojo. Artists are well-served by the warrior mindset, and in the end, Pressfield is creating warriors with this book.

If I could only own one book on or about writing, it would be Steven Pressfield's fabulous The War of Art, which personifies a negative anti-creative force he names "Resistance" and gives writers, artists, and others some singularly-helpful tools to overcome the roadblocks that stand between us and the completion of our work. Whenever I find myself paralyzed by self-doubt or mired in distractions, I pull this slim volume off the shelf and-- voila! -- I'm soon back to writing, hell for leather.So it was that I leapt at the chance to pick up a review copy of Pressfield's latest can of creativity whoop-ass, the even slimmer Do the Work!, which was released on April 20, 2011, from Seth Godin's The Domino Project and Amazon, and is being underwritten by GE, allowing free downloads via Amazon's Kindle platform.Or you can pay $7.99 for the hardcover volume, which I suspect you'll want to do after reading the digital copy anyhow. Why? Because this deceptively-slim set of instructions for avoiding procrastination, getting down to work, blasting through the wall to reach the finish line, letting the work go, and learning from disaster, is an absolute gift for any writer who's ever had trouble getting started or bogged down and lost faith (i.e., all of us).I love that he talks about "staying stupid," avoiding the impulse to talk ourselves right out of acting (or submitting the fruits of our labor) with endless mental chatter:"A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. It's only you and I with our big brains and our tiny hearts who doubt and overthink and hesitate."Pressfied, who is also the author of The Legend of Bagger Vance and a number of other novels, doesn't come across as some perfect guru who's never entertained a doubt in his life. Instead, he lays out example after example of how Resistance has kicked his can over the years and how this powerful force is constantly evolving. In this volume, he also expands his theory to talk about the equally powerful force of Assistance, which he uses to describe all those serendipitous helpful people and tools your efforts can and will attract once you begin doing the work you're meant to do. (This rings so true!)When I first received my review copy, I was a bit put off by it's thinness and the amount of type-size overemphasis, as if the reader could not be trusted to pick out the important passages. I was also a bit bothered by what I saw as a lot of rehashing of concepts first laid out in The War of Art, which remains my all-time favorite book for writers. But for anyone who can't get enough of Pressfield's wisdom (raising my hand here) or who wants a simple, deceptively-wise set of tools to get them moving toward their creative goals, Do the Work is definitely a must-buy, on its own or as a companion volume.--Courtesy, Boxing the Octopus, […]