Understanding Resistance and Writers Block

In The War of Art, Steven Pressfield coins the term ‘resistance’ to describe that inevitable, inbuilt drag that adheres to important but non-urgent tasks.

We’ve all experienced it: a leaden aversion to doing whatever it is we know we should be doing to benefit ourselves, our work, our art, our communities.

Pressfield describes resistance as a negative, universal force that springs into being whenever we are called to a positive creative or spiritual practice.

It is an immutable and cosmic energy field that arises to repel us from the important work we need to do. It manifests in procrastination, addiction and distraction.

The trick to dealing with resistance is to expect it, to prepare for it and to have specific strategies to deal with it.

I really like this quote from William Gibson, talking about writers block becoming the accustomed place from which to work:

A “Creator’s block” sounds like something afflicting a divinity, but writer’s block is my default setting. Its opposite is miraculous.

The process of learning to write fiction, for me, was one of learning to almost continually be doing it through the block, in spite of the block, the block becoming the accustomed place from which to work.

Our traditional cultural models of creativity tend to involve the wrong sort of heroism, for me. “It sprang whole and perfect from my brow” as opposed to “I saw it mispelled, in mauve Krylon, on the side of a dumpster, and it haunted me”.

Source: https://boingboing.net/2010/04/11/william-gibson-answe.html

Pressfield’s great insight, however, is that it’s not only writers who suffer from resistance. Anyone who attempts to bring something positive into the world, to change themselves for the better, will feel it.

And it’s inherent to the process, not some niggling external force that can be wished away or only shows up some days and not others. It’s there, one way or another, all the time.

How do you deal with resistance in your work?

References

Pressfield, Steven 2011, The War of Art, Black Irish Entertainment.