[Jewelry making - Article 00144] - Re: [Orchid] Why is it so hard?

[Jerry Torrens]

========[ Invite a Friend - http://www.ganoksin.com/invite.htm  ]========

    This little might add some more insight on this significant subject. 
    Jerry 

    The War of Art: 
    Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
    By Steven Pressfield
 
<edit>

    Price: $12.95

    http://www.ganoksin.com/jewelry-books/us/product/0446691437.htm
    Media: Paperback
    Manufacturer : Warner Books
    Release data : 01 April, 2003

</edit>

    Review by Joe Tye  AT  www.amazon.com 

          Know the enemy, know yourself, wrote Sun Tzu in his classic
          The Art of War, and your victory will be certain. For anyone
          who is stuck at a level below their God-given potential, who
          can't seem to get on track to do the things they need to do in
          order to achieve their most authentic goals, knowing the enemy
          and knowing yourself are one and the same. 

          Steve Pressfield's magnificent little book The War of Art is
          about being more creative - but more important, it's also about
          fulfilling your potential as a human being. To do this, he
          says, you must overcome Resistance (the "R" is capitalized be
          Pressfield to represent the fact that it is a very real entity
          - as real to your authentic Self as Charles Manson or Genghis
          Khan were to their victims). 

          The whole aim of Resistance, says Pressfield (who is the
          bestselling author of The Legend of Bagger Vance and Gates of
          Fire), is to prevent you from doing the work you are called to
          do. Resistance wants you to take it easy, to be ordinary and
          mediocre, to take the low road. Resistance is the reason so
          many people place a basket over the brilliant candle that
          shines within them. The fight against Resistance is, Pressfield
          says, a war to the death. 

          Pressfield disputes the standard motivational cliche that you
          can have, do, or be anything if you follow the right formula
          and just work hard enough. Rather, he says: "We are not born
          with unlimited choices... Our job in this lifetime is not to
          shape ourselves into some ideal that we imagine we ought to be,
          but to find out who we already are and become it." 

          There are two occasions when Resistance will be the most
          relentless, and they are related. The first is when something
          really matters to you. "Rule of thumb: The more important a
          call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance
          we will feel toward pursuing it." If your lifelong goal is to
          be a writer, a rejection letter from a publisher will hurt a
          whole lot more than if you submitted your manuscript on a dare.
          
          The second occasion that Resistance is most dangerous is
          related to what Pressfield calls "the mother of all fears,"
          namely the fear that you will actually succeed. Resistance
          builds as you get closer to the finish line. "At this point,
          Resistance knows we're about to beat it. It hits the panic
          button. It marshals one last assault and slams us with
          everything it's got." There is a real paradox here: the closer
          you get to reaching that proverbial tipping point, where things
          are really starting to click, the more likely you are to engage
          in the self-sabotaging behavior that is the calling card of
          Resistance. 

          Pressfield offers a prescription for defeating Resistance. You
          must, he says, become "a pro." But he does not mean that in the
          sense of earning a living at the work, in the sense of being a
          member of a certain profession, or in the sense of being looked
          up to by your peers. Rather, he simply means showing up every
          day with your lunch pail and getting to work. Much of the book
          has to do with how you make this transformation so that you can
          do the work that you are called to do. 

          I have made a small poster with this quote from Steve's book
          and placed it prominently above my computer: "There never was a
          moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to
          alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on
          Resistance. This second, we can sit down and do our work." My
          own next book has been on the back-burner for far too long,
          victim to Resistance. But now I have a weapon: Every time
          Resistance stands between me and doing my work, I pull Steve's
          book from out of my bookshelf and beat Resistance over the
          head. Then in that very second, I sit down and do my work. And
          it's working.

____________________________________________________________________
T h e   O r c h i d   L i s t
Open Electronic Forum for Jewelry Manufacturing Methods and Procedures
____________________________________________________________________
Orchid FAQ:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/orchid/faq.htm
Orchid Archives:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/orchid/archive
Orchid Galleries:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/orchid/gallery.htm
Invite a Friend:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/invite.htm
____________________________________________________________________
Tips From The Jeweler's Bench - Article Archive
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/borisat/tip_sear.htm
The Jeweler's Selected Bibliography List
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/jewelry-books
Buy Orchid Jewelry:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/shop
____________________________________________________________________
-Unsubscribe:
-Email: orchid-request AT ganoksin.com Body=unsubscribe subject=blank
____________________________________________________________________