Website of author and historian, Steven Pressfield.
The first kind of self-reinforcement is objective. This is when we sit down quietly with a cup of tea and explain to ourselves that our lizard-brain fears are not rational. Our husband will not abandon us if we begin writing poetry. The process of self-publishing is not beyond our intellectual capacity. The comet will not… The post Two Types of Self-Reinforcement first appeared on Steven…
Amateurs have amateur habits. Pros have professional habits. How does the pro acquire professional habits? By training. (The amateur by contrast either trains like an amateur or doesn’t train at all.) The passage below comes from Rosanne Cash’s wonderful 2011 memoir, Composed. From that moment I changed the way I approached songwriting, I changed how I… The post Training = Turning Pro first…
The sergeant waves you over and says, “Good job, Humperdinck. I’m putting you in for a promotion.” Or the head nurse calls you up before the meeting. “Jayne, explain to the group how the new system works.” That’s reinforcement. The problem for you and me is this kind of validation is dependent on others. It… The post Reinforcement and Self-Reinforcement first appeared on Steven Pressfield .
I break it down into three areas in my own work. Self-motivation. Self-discipline. Self-reinforcement. And I add three more: Self-preparation, meaning our interior rehearsals for various emergencies. Self-belief, meaning confidence born either of an objective assessment of our talent or a wholly subjective conception of the force of our dream. And self-command, which arises from… The post Three…
We said in the previous post that athletes train and soldiers train, and that you and I as artists and entrepreneurs have to train as well. But the athlete and the soldier have an advantage over us. They can work with a coach. They have a sergeant or a manager to instruct them and praise… The post Training = Self-Training first appeared on Steven Pressfield .
I hit the wall. Not the kind you bounce off — the kind you slide down. So I did something crazy. I pulled out my typewriter and banged away for an hour. Didn’t know what I was writing. Didn’t care. Afterward, washing dishes, I noticed I was whistling. That was it. No book deal. No… The post The Night That Changed Everything first appeared on Steven Pressfield .
I’m not the most talented writer in the room. Never have been. But I can grind. My first agent told me he’d seen a million talented people — and 99% of them fizzled out. The ones who made it weren’t the most gifted. They were the most relentless. It doesn’t matter what creative field you’re… The post Talent Is Bullshit first appeared on Steven Pressfield .
We’re finally doing it! This week, ten lucky winners will get the “two-pack” promo package containing A Man at Arms and The Arcadian, plus a fold-out scroll detailing the links between the two … and a hand-made pewter “X” pin, in honor of the Roman Tenth Legion that plays such a prominent role in both… The post Win The Arcadian, Part Three first appeared on Steven Pressfield .
There’s an axiom in every army in the world. “In an emergency you don’t rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training.” Soldiers train, athletes train. Why? Because they know that under game pressure or the surprise and dislocation of combat, the mind may enter a freeze or a fog. Training… The post The Willing Embrace of Training first appeared on Steven Pressfield .
I asked in last week’s post if our readers would be interested in a drawing (as in, me pulling ten winning tickets out of a hat) to win the “two-pack” promo piece that includes signed copies of THE ARCADIAN and its predecessor, A MAN AT ARMS, plus some other fun goodies. The answer was a… The post Win The Arcadian, Part Two first appeared on Steven Pressfield .