The War of Art 

Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Creative Inner Battles 
Steven Pressfield 
 

Book Overview from the Publisher 

A  succinct,  engaging,  and practical guide for succeeding in any creative sphere, ​The War of Art​is nothing 
less than Sun-Tzu for the soul. 

What keeps so many of us from doing what we long to do? 

Why  is  there  a  naysayer  within?  How  can  we  avoid  the  roadblocks  of  any  creative  endeavor—be  it 
starting up a dream business venture, writing a novel, or painting a masterpiece? 

Bestselling  novelist  Steven  Pressfield  identifies  the  enemy  that  every  one  of  us  must  face,  outlines  a 
battle plan to conquer this internal foe, then pinpoints just how to achieve the greatest success. 

The  War of Art emphasizes the resolve needed to recognize and overcome the obstacles of ambition and 
then effectively shows how to reach the highest level of creative discipline. 

Think of it as tough love . . . for yourself. 

Whether  an  artist,  writer  or  business  person,  this  simple,  personal,  and  no-nonsense  book  will  inspire 
you to seize the potential of your life. 
 
 

KEY POINTS COVERED IN THIS SUMMARY: 

1. Resistance -​ Basic ideas about resistance 
2. Key characteristics of resistance -​ Spot resistance and fight it 
3. Become a sovereign man -​ Key characteristics of a sovereign 
person 
4. Embrace the cards you have been dealt -​ How to become a 
professional  
5. How to kill resistance ​- How to overcome resistance in order to 
become a pro 

   

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1) Resistance: What You Need to Know 
 
When  you  are  going  after your biggest dreams or your long-term vision, you will find that there 
is something that's pulling you back.  
 
There's this little voice inside of you that says:  
● You can't do it.  
● You are not good enough.  
● You shouldn't do it right now.  
● It asks you to procrastinate. 
● It asks you to stop that endeavor. 
● It asks you to take the short-term reward instead of doing something for the long term.  
 
It's almost as if we're living 2 lives:  
1. The true life that we're living right now  
2. The bigger life that we yearn for  
 
There's a space in between those 2 lives: ​Resistance​.  
● It’s keeping us from getting to that greater life, to that next level in our lives.  
● It’s constantly stopping us strong, like gravity.  
● The  force  of  resistance  tells  us  to  just  stay  where  we  are  right  now,  and  that  is  very 
dangerous.  
 

2) Key Characteristics of Resistance 

 
● It  is  universal.  Everyone  will  encounter  resistance.  Everyone  is  going  through  it,  but 
some people are conquering it and we need to be one of them.  
○ Henry  Fonda​,  one  of  the  great  performers  and  actors,  used  to  throw  up  before 
going  on  stage  even  till  the  age  of  70.  He  was  nervous.  But  even  though  the 
resistance was showing up, he was conquering it.  
○ Bruce  Springsteen,  one  of  the greatest musicians in the world, says that the only 
time  he  knows  it’s  really  time  to  perform  is  when  he  starts  to  feel  his  palms 
getting  sweaty,  tightness  in  his  throat,  and  butterflies  in  his  stomach.  That’s 
when he goes on the stage.   
 
So everyone has resistance. No one is too special to go beyond it.  
 
● Resistance is endless.​ It will be there every single day, at every single moment.  

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We  have  to  fight  this  resistance,  this  inner  critic.  We've  got  to  bring  our  sword  and 
shield  to  the  fight  every  single  day  and  fight  this  battle  because  it  never  gets  over. 
We're never done fighting the force of resistance.  
 
● We  cannot  placate  it.  ​No  matter  what  happens,  we  have  to  go  and  fight  and  kill  it. 
There's  nothing  else  we can do. Resistance is insidious like that because if we do not kill 
it, if we do not overcome it, it will come and get us. 
 
There's a war every single moment every day between resistance and us.  
 
● Resistance  is  always  trying  to  keep  us  small,  to  keep  us  safe  in  our  comfort  zone.  We 
are constantly fighting this battle and we are to win it.  

Fear vs. Courage

A  lot  of  times  people  think  that  courage  and  fear  are  opposites.  When  it  comes  to  these  two, 
there are 2 groups of people as to how they approach them. 
 
THE AMATEUR  THE PRO 

If they feel fear, there’s something wrong.   They become courageous. 

They wait until they fear less in order to take action.  They act in face of the fear. 

They wait until they have dominated fear, which never  They go and attack the situation anyway. 
happens.  

 
COURAGE 
 
● Being  courageous  doesn't  mean  that  you  do  not  have  fear,  or  that  you  have  no  more 
fear.  
● Courage  is  something  you  actually  have  to  do.  You  have  to  invoke  it  even in the face of 
challenge and fear.  
● There  is  nothing  like  a  fearless  warrior.  If  you're  a  fearless  warrior,  you  know  you’re 
probably going to die, so you become courageous in face of the fear. 
 

3) Become a Sovereign Person 

 
This  idea  is  about  how  to  become  a  pro  at  any  field  of  endeavor,  whether in entrepreneurship, 
your creative endeavors, your investments, your job, your health, and so on.  
 
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1. B
​ ecome a sovereign man.  
● A sovereign man is someone who uses the power within himself.  
● He does not give his power away to other people.  
● As a sovereign person, you associate your own words with yourself.  
○ You do not give that power of evaluating yourself to someone else.  
○ You do not let someone else dictate what your self worth is.  
○ You do not let others tell you if you are validated or not validated.  
○ You do not let others empower you or disempower you.  
○ You  say,  “This  is  who  I  am.  This  is  my  identity.  No  one  else  gets  to  define  my 
identity.  
 
A  sovereign  man  has  complete  power  over  his  own  domain.  He  is  not  being  affected  by 
someone else's decision on him.  
 
This  is  a  really  powerful  idea  because  the  only  time  we  become  a  pro  is  when  we've  taken 
complete responsibility for ourselves. We're not giving it away to anyone else. 
 

4) Embrace the Cards You’ve Been Dealt 

How to become a professional 

 
Embrace what you've been given and play the cards you've been dealt.  
 
A  professional  athlete,  for  example,  does  not  complain  about  a  bad  call.  Similarly,  as  a 
professional,  you  don’t  complain  about  any  adversity.  Whatever  comes  your  way,  you  have  to 
act in spite of it.  
 
A pro says “I take action in spite of what happens around me.”  
 
It goes back to ​The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People b ​ y Stephen Covey. 
 
Habit  #1  is  to  ​Be  Proactive.  -  ​This  means  you  do  not  act  according  to  the  circumstances  but 
rather according to your values. You do not let the adversity define your situation or stop you.  
 
An  amateur,  on  the  other  hand,  says,  “Oh,  I  can't do this because I don't have that advantage. I 
can't do this because I have been dealt this injustice. I can’t do this because I don't have this.” 
 
That's  not  being  a  pro.  If  you're  going  to  be  pro,  you're  going  to  play  the  cards  you've  been 
dealt rather than complain. 
 
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5) How to Kill Resistance 
 
How  do  you  overcome  that  inner voice that keeps trying to stop you? How do you overcome all 
those  things  that  are  preventing  you from taking action, that are making you procrastinate, that 
are keeping you down here rather than going after your dreams? 
 
The simple solution -- and probably also a difficult solution -- is to g ​ o pro​.  
 
Become a professional at whatever you are trying to do. 
 
Think  of  whatever  big dream you have in any area of life. And now, think of how you will do it if 
you were a professional athlete. 
 
EXAMPLE: Kobe Bryant 
 
Kobe Bryant is an extreme pro, one of the hardest working athletes in the field of basketball.  
● He starts his workouts at 5 in the morning before anyone in the team even joins him. 
● Long  after  he  had  won  a bunch of championships, he was still doing the same thing. He 
starts early and finishes late.  
● He works really hard every single day. He's there every single day.  
● He  does  not  take  time  off.  Just because he's hurting doesn't mean it's time to take a day 
off.  
● He  is  aggressively  a  professional  athlete.  He  goes  after  the  sport  no  matter  what, 
attacking it every single day.  
 
Have  you  ever  seen  a  professional  athlete  play  a  sport  and  also  heard  him  say  that  they  don't 
like  that  sport?  Have  you  seen  someone  do  anything  great  in  any  field  of  endeavor  but  they 
don't love it? 
 
It’s not possible. 
 
So  part  of  becoming  a  pro  is  the  understanding  that  ​we  have  to  love  that  thing  that  we’re 
doing​.  We  have  to  want  it  so  bad. We have to love it so much that we’re going to do whatever 
it takes to make it happen.  
 
To become a pro at something -- 
● Do it every single day.  
● Go to work everyday.  
● Commit to it every single day.  
● Commit to it for the long haul.  

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Right  now,  one  of  my  commitments  of  going  pro  is  I  don't  eat  until  I  record  videos.  That's  my 
rule.  That's  my  idea  of  being  a  professional  and  a  world-class  at  this, and I'm not going to give 
in. 
  
Whatever  your  definition  of  success  is,  whatever  your  field  of  endeavor  is,  identify  what  you 
need to do in order to become a pro, and then do those things. 
 

Beat Procrastination 
 
One  of  the  easiest  ways  you  will  see resistance manifest in your life again and again is through 
procrastination.  
 
Procrastination is resistance at its worst.  
 
It's  out  to  get you. Whenever you're procrastinating on what's important for you, it is resistance 
at work.  
 
Here's the insidious thing about procrastination. The rationalization that we do to ourselves is:  
 
We never say, “I will never do this.” N ​ or any of things like these: 
● “I will never go to the gym.” 
● “I will never start a business.”  
● “I will never invest in real estate.”  
● “I will never try to lose weight.” 
● “I will never eat clean.” 
  
Rather, the way we procrastinate is we say: “​ I will do it later.”  
● “​I will start my own business later.” 
● “I will go workout later.” 
● “I will eat clean later.” 
● “I will start my real estate investments later.” 
 
In  that  moment,  what  you've  done  is  you've  just  rationalized  everything.  You  say  to  yourself: 
“It's okay to not take action right now.” 
 
But  what  you  have  insidiously  done  to  yourself  is  ​you  have  given  in  to  the  monster  of 
resistance, and you've started procrastinating.  
 
As  you're  rationalizing  your  bad  behavior  every  single  time,  you're  rationalizing  your 
procrastination and hence you don't feel the urge to take action r​ ight now​. 
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Rationalization  is  like  a cousin of resistance. When we are just about to embark on a journey on 
an  important  dream  or  vision  that we have, there's this rationalization we have inside of us that 
says:  
● “Right now might not be the perfect time to do this thing.”  
● “You don't need to do it.” 
● “You don't have enough funds to do it.” 
● “You don't have the resources to do it.” 
● “Why don't you take care of all these other things first before you attack this thing?” 
 
As  creatives,  as  artists,  as  entrepreneurs,  we're  always  going  to  have  inside  of  our  heads  that 
rationalization  as  to  why  we  shouldn't  do  something  right  now.  And  when  we  come  up  with 
these  rationalizations, they will sound very real. They will sound very logical and true, as though 
they make so much sense.  
 
As  a  result  of  that,  we start believing this rationalization inside of us, and once we believe what 
we hear, we give into it and we don't take action.  
 
This  rationalization  is  what’s  keeping  us  from  realizing  our  biggest  dreams  because  it's 
constantly telling us there's no need to do it r​ ight now.​ There is no need to figure it out just yet.  
 
It's rationalization working at its best, but it's insidious. It will get you.  
 
So go dominate it. 
 
 
 

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