#376: The WAR of Art.

Overcoming procrastination requires putting yourself physically where you need to perform your creative work. Steven Pressfield's book "Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be" offers practical wisdom on defeating the resistance that keeps us from our gifts.

• Self-sabotage and distraction often prevent us from doing important creative work
• Steven Pressfield's books frame procrastination as "resistance" against our divine gifts
• Not using your gifts is essentially rejecting your purpose and dimming your light
• The first 20 minutes of creative work are often unfocused before productivity kicks in
• Fighting procrastination is a daily battle that requires consistent commitment
• Physical location matters—being in your creative space helps trigger focus
• Tracking completed tasks creates a "physical imprint" that reinforces good habits

Check out Steven Pressfield's books, especially "The War of Art" - it's beautiful, amazing, and will help you understand the deeper meaning of resistance to your creative work.

Chapters

• 0:00 Self-Sabotage and Procrastination
• 0:50 Steven Pressfield's Books on Resistance
• 1:40 Gifts and God's Will
• 3:10 The Daily Battle Against Procrastination
• 4:45 Making Your Light Shine Bright
• 5:35 Book Recommendations and Closing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

You know, I don't really know if it's just me, but I feel like when I need to sit down and do something, I always try to like self-sabotage myself and try to like find things to do in replace of that thing that I need to do, right, so maybe I'll get on Instagram or I'll go on YouTube or I'll look on Prime and see if there's anything that I need to buy. But point is is there's a great book which would help everybody myself included, and I keep it out right at this desk that I have that I work on my comedy, and the book is by a great author, steven Pressfield, and the book is called Put your Ass when your Heart Wants to Be and, in a nutshell, it's just basically saying that the best way to avoid all those problems and to kill procrastination is to physically be where you need to perform that task. So if it's the gym, be at the gym. For me, I have to be at this desk that I do all of my creative writing, and I'm getting ready to do that right now and, ironically enough, this is kind of like a double-edged sword I'm working on updating a podcast episode because I am behind, but this is also where I do these podcasts now. I used to do them while I was driving but the audio was off. But anyway, not digressing too much. It's a great author, steven Pressfield.

Speaker 1: 1:20

He has several great books about procrastination and the one that's probably known the most is called the War of Art and, it is amazing, it's one of my top books ever and it basically looks at procrastination as though it's it is evil. Right, because if you have a gift me, such as comedy, okay, say, for example, right, if you have a gift, and whenever you're not doing that gift, if you're polluting that time with something else that you could be using it for, you're essentially not doing God's will. Right, you're, essentially, if you're not practicing and getting better and doing that gift that you were given, even if it's just for fun. Right, he looks at procrastination and he calls it the resistance. He calls it resistance because only the guy downstairs, right, would not want you to do that gift that the Lord has given you with. It could be singing, dancing, writing all sorts of stuff, right. But it's a phenomenal book and it gives tons of examples of not just procrastination. But I've bought several of his and none of them are they're all advancing Like one isn't like a duplicate copy of the next.

Speaker 1: 2:46

It's like different levels of procrastination, but I keep this one book out on my desk Put your ass where your heart wants to be because it reminds me, when I need to sit down, that it's time to go to work. You know what I mean. And by me kind of blocking out all those distractions, it really helps me to slow down, to focus. Now, I don't really know what it is, but I feel like it's even like 20 minutes. I feel it's like 20 minutes until I can actually start to focus and think and get that. You know, get those creative juices going or revising or editing or something like that. Um and uh, yeah, I feel myself constantly being pulled off task and then at the end of the day I feel like garbage. I feel like actual trash, because I had eight hours to do something and I procrastinated with all sorts of other stuff for seven and a half. Then I get 20 minutes into it and then finally I have 10 minutes of actual good work. You know, cause the first 20 minutes are kind of like a crap shoot. You know, it's just, it's not that great, um, but uh, yeah, I just thought it was something that I wanted to address. It was topic specific and I've wanted to do this uh episode for a while. Um and uh.

Speaker 1: 4:05

Unfortunately, it's literally a battle that you have to fight every single day. You've got to kill procrastination and if you have a gift, something that you're working for, or maybe even a goal or something like that, all right. The guy downstairs as I refer am referring to him again right, evil doesn't want you to succeed, it doesn't want you to be happy, it doesn't want you to be able to not just be successful, but if you do have a gift, or you believe you have a gift, right To make that a better gift, to make that a bigger platform. So people learn about you. You know, if that was like a light inside you, you know God would want that light to shine as big and bright and as beyond as he could, right, but again, do downstairs. He would want that light to be snuffed. He would like it to not be, you know, shining out, so to speak, like a lighthouse.

Speaker 1: 5:05

So, anyway, all my podcast episodes sometimes they're deep, sometimes they're not, but hopefully they're always informative, you know, and there's something that you can get from it, because, as always, as I always mentioned. At the very least, this is a physical imprint in time and space, to where I can actually not just remember what I'm doing but make a physical imprint on my memory, instilling a good habit, you know, like writing things down not just before you do it, but making a checkbox after you did it. So, that being mentioned, I hope everybody has a beautiful rest of your day. Please check out that book. It's amazing, it's phenomenal. He has several of them, and if you want to really get started on his series, get started with the war of art. It's beautiful, I love it. It's, it's amazing. All right, guys, I'm binge. Well done, check me out, peace.