One Powerful Idea from The War of Art

I recently re-read Steven Pressfield’s “The War of Art”. I thoroughly enjoyed it, as much, if not more, than my first reading. It’s quite a quick read, totaling only 165 pages and I got through it in a few subway rides and half of my lunches at work.

Throughout the first half of the book Pressfield presents the different areas in life in which we encounter the “Resistance”. Interestingly, he personifies all of the different things that stop us from doing what we know deep down that we should be doing. Procrastination, fear of failure, fear of other’s opinions and fear of realizing our potential among many other common blockers to meaningful work.

He compares and contrasts the two identities of the amateur and the pro. Explaining that if you want to take any of your endeavors seriously, professional or otherwise, that you should take a professional mindset to anything you want to do successfully. “The professional plays for keeps” he says.

As someone who is always trying to do more, tries to really knuckle down and work hard, eliminating distractions and puts a high value on my focus - this book really resonates with me. I am someone who constantly benchmarks my performance against that of my previous self, striving for progress, not perfection.

In the last 15 or so pages of the book, Pressfield articulates an idea that really stuck out to me in this reading. He examines in detail the difference between doing something for Territory or Hierarchy. In plain terms, the difference between doing things for ourselves versus doing things for our places in a hierarchical society.

This is a really powerful idea, and gives rise to a process for examining your actions. He argues that it is the artist, the craftsman or master who works for territory. One who is motivated by their own interests and what they think is right. The opposite side of this is doing what is popular, or perceived as popular by the other members of your hierarchy.

A more tangible way of presenting this information would be to think of the people in your network who are making an impact in their space and really excel at anything they are interested in. They are the artists, the craftsman or master. They are working for territory. They are working for themselves as opposed to working to climb a hierarchy. They pursue progress in things that are meaningful to them.

Whereas those who are working to climb a hierarchy are generally doing things for the wrong reasons and will never achieve the same levels of performance or progress. They won’t work as hard when no one is looking. They are coasting. They are just looking to get by. We all know many of these types of people. There isn’t necessarily anything wrong with this by the way of doing things but they can often create frustration or confusion when working in tandem with the artists working for territory.

Think about the things you have done in the last 7 days. How many of your actions were done to pursue mastery in the things that you do, and how many of your actions were in effort to climb the hierarchical structure you find yourself in? If more than half of your actions were for others and not yourself, you need to re-examine what you’re doing. Your actions, and your life, are being controlled by a hierarchy that will not last forever.

What are you planning to do tomorrow? And more importantly, how many of those things would you do if you were the last person left on the earth? We should all be striving to do the things we find interesting and compelling. Obviously, in reality, we all have obligations and have to do things we don’t really want to do some of the time, but if these make up the majority of your life you need to make a change.

So what do you want to do? If most of your actions are in effort to seek the short term approval of others as opposed to fulfilling your own genuine interests and intuition, how can you ever expect to feel fulfilled or satisfied with what you are doing? We are almost a month into 2019. If the last month has passed you by, nothing has changed and you still feel dissatisfied, it is time to take action and get to work.

To end with a quote from Pressfield “I trusted what I wanted, not what I thought would work. I did what I myself thought was interesting, and left its reception to the gods. The artist can’t do his work hierarchically, he has to work territorially”.

Are you working to become an artist?