Steven Pressfield

Related recommendation: The War of Art https://stevenpressfield.com/books/the-war-of-art/

For those that have writer's block, I highly recommend listening or reading Steven Pressfield's talks about overcoming resistance. Here's one of hist blog posts titled Is Writing Fun https://stevenpressfield.com/2010/05/is-writing-fun/

AKA the war of art[0] and I'm sure there's many, many other books in the same vein. To dichotomize: those that show up every day anyway are likely doing something they love (even if the thing they're doing is showing up itself[1]). Those that don't likely perceive the way fwd as something they don't like. We can change that perception but it's hard. Likely, it's best to think in a continuum of interest and that we need to move the perception or act into a realm that is self-reinforcing. [0] https://stevenpressfield.com/books/the-war-of-art/ [1] This is an illness; a life without refuge.

Since I find these book recommended on HN a lot, I guess it's my turn to share them as well. The War of Art [1] and Do the Work [2] both are excellent books about making things and why it's hard. I found them motivating not only because of the solutions in the books but also just because someone describing the problems I have with creating, so clearly, is helpful to read. It's nice knowing you're not a crazy person and that these are problems a lot of people go through. They're also very short and easy to read. So give them a shot. [1] http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of-art/ [2] http://www.stevenpressfield.com/do-the-work/

Great book! If you like The War of Art, I'd also recommend the follow up book: Do The Work http://www.stevenpressfield.com/do-the-work/

For an apposite view: http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of-art/ The premise is The muse is at your writing desk. If you want to write a book, show up. Sit down. Write. Ideas will only come if you are working. Any thoughts ideas, rationalisations or fears that keep you from writing are the enemy. He collectively calls them "resistance". You will inevitably have days and weeks without a useful page. Show up still. I think following your motivation is great. If you are sitting around waiting for it, you need discipline. This is what this blog is about.

This is a great post, I particularly like this quote: "Motivation is the start, but if it’s not solidified into discipline, it usually fades away into regret pretty quickly once you realize you never acted on it." I think it's worth mentioning Stephen Presfield's concept of Resistance here from his book "Do the Work" [1]. I often find myself fired up with a new task, but lacking the follow though that discipline would give me. It's too easy when I want to do something that I don't know how to do (write some Haskell for example) for my little monkey brain to jump off to some interesting shiny thing (HN). Resistance explains this as a way of protecting yourself from the pain of struggling to understand and the risk of failure, by replacing it with something easy and non-challenging. [1] Read it: http://www.stevenpressfield.com/do-the-work/

I really liked this idea– I think by Robin Sharma [1], but by many thinkers, really– that your subconscious is way smarter than you (where you = your conscious, thinking self. The spotlight of your mind). It has more bandwidth than you. It processes a lot more information than you. Many, many great athletes, musicians, thinkers, etc– (there's a quote by Plato in Plato's Republic where he talks about how while you can create conditions for people to learn, the actual learning is a sort of madness) describe how their performance is something almost out of their control. They control the practice schedules, they do the hard training. The actual performance is something they surrender to. So in life, generally speaking, if you want to "live fully" (harnessing all your abilities, perceptions, judgements, 'power'), you need to get your subconscious involved. Dan and Chip Heath used an elephant-and-rider analogy [2]. You are the elephant rider. Your subconscious is the elephant. If you want to achieve great things, you have to enlist the elephant. To do that you need to get acquainted with it. Understand what it likes, dislikes, what it wants, etc. And a very humbling and inspiring realization (for me, at least) is that the subconscious is harder to bullshit. If you're spouting bullshit, it doesn't get involved. It shuts off and stays quiet. For you to get your subconscious involved (and now I'm thinking about Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk [3] about the muse, the genius,…

Have a look at this: https://stevenpressfield.com/books/the-war-of-art/

A much better lesson: https://stevenpressfield.com/2009/10/writing-wednesdays-2-the-most-imp… TL;DR no one wants to read your sh*t

What you're facing is resistance. The reason you code has changed, but you're not motivated by the new reason. Identify what matters to you in life, what you need to do to do it, and then do that. If programming is part of that, move through it. If it's not, do something else. But don't wait till you "feel like it". that's a crappy driver. Stephen king writes every day, no matter how he feels. That's what separates the amateur from the professional. A good book on this, is "the war of art" http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of-art/

"Show up and get to work" is a large part of Steven Pressfield's The War of Art [0] as well. 0. http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of-art/

The War of Art http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of-art/ Break through the blocks and win your inner creative battles. Many books mentioned here are good, this is the only I haven't seen referenced. But this one book really helped me deal with resistance and get stuff done. Seth Godin is a big fan and references it a lot in his material. Steven Pressfield also wrote 'The Legend of Bagger Vance' and Gates of Fire (Spartan 300 kind of book but way deeper).

I can't believe that this has been up 8 hours without any mention of Steven Pressfield's "The War of Art" (http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of-art/) This lays bare the root of procrastination. It is also provides forceful, direct ways for dealing with it. I don't know a single person who has read it and not taken something positive away. And it's a really quick read. I went through it in an evening.