Steven Pressfield - Put Your Ass (Where Your Heart Wants to Be)

Also by Steven Pressfield

FICTION

The Legend of Bagger Vance

Gates of Fire

Tides of War

Last of the Amazons

The Virtues of War

The Afghan Campaign

Killing Rommel

The Profession

The Knowledge

36 Righteous Men

A Man at Arms

NONFICTION

The War of Art

Turning Pro

Do the Work

The Warrior Ethos

The Authentic Swing

The Lions Gate

An American Jew

Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t

The Artists Journey

FOR

Who is this book for? What sort of person is a book called Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be for?

Its for writers and artists and actors and Instagram chefs and podcasters and filmmakers and choreographers and videogame creators and every kind of entrepreneurwhether your game is startups or nonprofits or your new Thai fusion restaurant.

In other words, its for everyone who is on their own in business or the arts. And for everyone who wants to be on their own, who dreams of being on their own.

We all know how hard it is to write a book, make a movie, or create a new business. Powerful forces line up against usobstacles to entry, rivals, competitors, finances, funding, the difficulty of the craft itself.

But the most formidable antagonist of all resides inside each of our own skulls. Im talking about that negative force I call Resistance with a capital R.

What is Resistance? Its our own tendencyyours and mine and everyonesto yield to procrastination, self-doubt, fear, impatience, self-inflation, self-denigration, distraction, laziness, arrogance, complacency, and perfectionism. Its our inability to focus, our incapacity to press on through adversity. Its our terror of finishing and exposing our work to the judgment of the marketplace. Its fear of failure. Its fear of success. Fear of humiliation. Fear of destitution. Its our inability to defer gratification, to acquire and act with self-discipline, self-validation, and self-reinforcement.

Resistance is our tendency to self-sabotage, fail to start, and fail to finish. In its most extreme forms, Resistance expresses itself as vice and even crimeabuse of ourselves or others, cruelty, addiction to substances, diva-ism, compulsive self-dramatization, self-aggrandizement and self-diminishment.

How do we defeat this monster that lives inside all of us and never tires, never loses strength, never takes a day off, and is endlessly ruthless and protean and subtle and clever and diabolical in the ways it can set snares for us and bring our most noble and brilliant aspirations to nothing? How do we get past this force called Resistance and set ourselves on the path to achieve our dreams?

The title of this book, as we said, is Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be.

That, in nine words, is my answer. Its the simplest and most direct way to get up in the morning and do our work... and to lie down at night feeling at peace with ourselves, knowing for this one day at least we have defeated our demons and moved twenty-four hours closer to living the True Self and Best Self we were born to be.

Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be may sound glib and superficial at first, but believe me, its implications are profound and its applications universal. Well start, in this book, with the purely physical interpretationass, meaning body, our flesh-and-blood presence. But as the chapters unfold, well take the subject deeper and deeper, into the psychological, the emotional, the metaphorical, and even the spiritual dimensions of this principle.

Lets begin.

Book One

PUT YOUR ASS WHERE YOUR HEART WANTS TO BE

Chapter 1

Lets start with the most obvious interpretation of this axiom. (Well go deeper in succeeding chapters.)

What do we mean by ass? In the first-level interpretation, the word means body. Our physical presence. When we say, Put your ass where your heart wants to be, we mean station your physical body in the spot where your dream-work will and must happen.

Want to write? Sit down at the keyboard.

Wanna paint? Step up before the easel.

Dance? Get your butt into the rehearsal studio.

Dumb and obvious as it sounds, tremendous power lies in this simple physical action.

When I sit down to write in the morning, I literally have no expectations for myself or for the days work. My only goal is to put in three or four hours with my fingers punching the keys. I dont judge myself on quality. I dont hold myself accountable for quantity. The only questions I ask are, Did I show up? Did I try my best?

If Ive done that, then Ive put my butt where my heart wants to be. I cant ask anything of myself more than that.

Chapter 2

What keeps us from writing or dancing or painting? If the process is as straightforward as we just described it, whats the big hang-up? Why doesnt everyone do it?

In one four-letter word: FEAR.

Yes, were terrified to begin our eight-hundred-page Elizabethan family saga. When we sit over our morning coffee thinking about it, our palms sweat. Our heart palpitates in dread.

Get up! Go to your office! Dont stop to schmooze with your spouse or the dude in the next cubicle. Sit down! Open your file. Place your fingers on the keyboard.

Tremendous power lies in the simple, physical act of stationing our body at the epicenter of our dream.

There is magic in putting our ass where our heart wants to be.

Chapter 3

Okay, weve accepted the idea of sitting down at the piano, of planting ourselves in the editing suite, of taking the D train to our dance studio.

Now lets take the principle a step further.

Leave the town or city where you live and move to the hub of the creative or entrepreneurial world where your dreams are most likely to come true.

Let me repeat that.

Pack up your total establishmentspouse, kids, dog, couch, treadmilland move to the metropolis thats the epicenter of your career or creative dream.

Yes, I know we can all work remotely. Zoom will put our face before potential friends, mentors, and collaborators without us leaving the comfort of our home.

But it aint the same as being there.

Someone may ask, I want to work in country music. Do I have to move to Nashville? Or My dream is to act in movies. Do I have to pack up for LA?

Yes and yes.

Chapter 4

Hemingway moved to Paris. Arnold Schwarzenegger left Austria for Golds Gym in Venice, California. Bob Dylan moved to Greenwich Village. Joni Mitchell left Saskatoon for Laurel Canyon.

Why did they move? First: resources. In 68 there were no gyms like Golds anywhere. If you wanted to be the best, like Arnold, you had to go where the resources were.

Want to make a feature film? Go where the cameras are.

Wanna be a ballet dancer? Yes, you can find good classes in Bozeman or Bogalusa. But the Joffrey and the ABT and the Met and the New York Ballet Company (and all the studios and schools that feed them) are in New York. The Royal Ballet is in London; the Ballets Russes is in Paris.