Quotes About Discipline

Remember, the Muse favors working stiffs. She hates prima donnas. To the gods the supreme sin is not rape or murder, but pride. To think of yourself as a mercenary, a gun for hire, implants the proper humility.

the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery. While those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them.

overthink. Don't overprepare. Don't let research become Resistance. Don't spend six months compiling a thousand-page tome detailing the emotional matrix and family history of every character in your book. Outline it fast. Now. On instinct. Discipline yourself to boil down your story/new business/philanthropic

The professional is acutely aware of the intangibles that go into inspiration. Out of respect for them, she lets them work. She grants them their sphere while she concentrates on hers.

It's not the writing part that's hard, it's the sitting down to write. What's keeps us from sitting down, is resistance.

There's a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don't, and the secret is this: It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write. What

Its aim is to reconcile you to "the way it is," to make you exactly like everyone else, to render you amenable to societal order and discipline.

Do research early or late. Don't stop working. Never do research in prime working time. Research can be fun. It can be seductive. That's its danger. We need it, we love it. But we must never forget that research can become Resistance.

the Muse favors working stiffs. She hates prima donnas.

There's no mystery to turning pro. It's a decision brought about by an act of will. We make up our mind to view ourselves as pros and we do it. Simple as that.

So she concentrates on technique. The professional masters how, and leaves what and why to the gods.

The professional cannot allow the actions of others to define his reality. Tomorrow morning the critic will be gone, but the writer will still be there facing the blank page. Nothing matters but that he keep working. Short of a family crisis or the outbreak of World War III, the professional shows up, ready to serve the gods.

But another lesson Watashi taught has stuck with me to this day. Watashi always pronounced the word "feel" as if it had quotation marks around it. In other words, he scorned the word absolutely. In Watashi's lexicon, feel and feelings had no meaning in war. They had no meaning in competition. They had no meaning in life.

This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don't. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete.

Why have I stressed professionalism so heavily in the preceding chapters? Because the most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.   Why is this so important?   Because when we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen. A process is set into motion by which, inevitably and infallibly, heaven comes to our aid. Unseen forces enlist in our cause; serendipity reinforces our purpose.

The writer is an infantryman. He knows that progress is measured in yards of dirt extracted from the enemy one day, one hour, one minute at a time and paid for in blood. The artist wears combat boots. He looks in the mirror and sees GI Joe. Remember, the Muse favors working stiffs. She hates prima donnas. To the gods the supreme sin is not rape or murder, but pride. To think of yourself as a mercenary, a gun for hire, implants the proper humility. It purges pride and preciousness.

A professional schools herself to stand apart from her performance, even as she gives herself to it heart and soul. The Bhagavad-Gita tells us we have a right only to our labor, not to the fruits of our labor. All the warrior can give is his life; all the athlete can do is leave everything on the field.

If you cave in today you're 2x as likely to cave tomorrow. If you so much say hello, you're finished. Don't even pick up the phone.

All I know how to do is work.

Turning pro is like kicking a drug habit or stopping drinking. It's a decision, a decision to which we must re-commit every day. Each day, the professional understands, he will wake up facing the same demons, the same Resistance, the same self-sabotage…The difference is that now he will not yield to those temptations. He will have mastered them, and he will continue to master them.

Work—day-in, day-out exertion and concentration—produces progress and order. That's a law of the universe.

The professional shuts up. She doesn't talk about it. She does her work.

Steven Pressfield

He who whets his steel, whets his courage.