The Bruce Lee Guide to Doing the Work

In the last sev­eral months I’ve talked a lot about doubts and fears — my per­sonal chal­lenges and those of my clients. I’ve talked about where those fears come from and what to do about them.

But you know what? They’re never going to stop. And here’s the thing: You don’t want them to stop. I believe they come from your deep­est desires. The thing is, if you didn’t have that con­trast — between what you don’t want and what you do want — and all the “stuff” asso­ci­ated with it, you’d prob­a­bly be dead.

My goal is not to get rid of this stuff. You see, I want to be like Bruce Lee who coun­sels, “Use your oppo­nents strength against him.” I want you to see your fear and regard it as a wor­thy com­peti­tor, and use every face-off between the two of you to get stronger and better.

What I call fears or doubts or “stuff,“Steven Press­field –author of the mas­ter­piece The War of Art–calls Resis­tance. When it comes to doing our great work, Steven Press­field (in his book, Do the Work) states that the “enemy” is not our fears or our doubts or any other excuse we could pos­si­bly come up with.

Instead, it’s Resis­tance. Inter­est­ingly, he says that Resis­tance is not us, but rather thoughts like “you can’t/shouldn’t/won’t do what you need to do” –thoughts you must not believe.

You see, very often we respond to Resis­tance by say­ing, “Yes, true. I’m not ready. I’m not qual­i­fied.” But here’s how Press­field says you should respond, “Start before you’re ready.”

Press­field wants you to com­mit, not pre­pare to com­mit. As you may have guessed, I’m a sucker for any metaphor that revolves around preg­nancy, labor and birth. Press­field seems to like them, too, with a vengeance-he starts at conception.

The cre­ative act is prim­i­tive. Its prin­ci­ples are of birth and gen­e­sis. Con­cep­tion occurs at a pri­mal level… the hos­pi­tal room may be spot­less and ster­ile, but birth itself will always take place amid chaos, pain, and blood.

I hear some of you say­ing, Com­mit, right. Got it. How do I pre­pare to com­mit again?

You don’t pre­pare. You com­mit. Sound scary? Not really: Steven rec­om­mends get­ting out a legal sheet of paper and draft­ing an out­line for your idea. Break the sheet into three parts: begin­ning, mid­dle and end. Don’t go into par­tic­u­lars, don’t over­think, just write. At the con­cep­tion stage, you work by instinct.

Then do that first item in the “begin­ning” sec­tion. There. You’ve begun.

Resis­tance, or the Inner Critic (as I like to call it), will come out. That’s a given. I’ve already taught you my process for deal­ing with it, but here’s Pressfield’s.

Act, don’t reflect. Momen­tum is every­thing. If there’s a magic for­mula it’s this: Cre­ate, launch, test often, fail fast. Just. Don’t. Stop. Unless you’re per­form­ing brain surgery or pilot­ing a plane, you’re allowed to mess up.

There’s a time for reflec­tion, of course, but it’s after you have pro­duced some­thing. You can­not act and reflect at the same time.

And here’s another thing: Do not wait for the Muse to arrive. It is very unlikely that you will be kick­ing around, wait­ing for inspi­ra­tion, and find that the Muse taps you on the shoul­der and says, “Hey, I’m ready to give you a great idea now.” No: first you sit down and show up and then your Muse will.

And here’s what I really want you to know: The #1 anti­dote to Resis­tance is know­ing your WHY.

I mean, you’re star­ing at a legal pad sheet full of Your Bril­liant Plan. You could start and then stop. You could just ball it up and throw it away. You could file it some­where that you won’t look into again for ten years. But not if you answer one ques­tion: Why are you doing this?

When you can really get clear about your why, when you take the time to think about who will be affected-perhaps in a pro­found way –by your great work, Resis­tance melts away. Because then it’s no longer about you-it’s about get­ting your great work into the hands of those who need it.

So why do you want to bring this thing into the world? It has to be because you love it so much you’ll do any­thing it takes to make it hap­pen. But make no mis­take: it will be painful and chal­leng­ing. Here’s what’s more: when it seems the hard­est, when you doubt your­self the most, that’s when you know you’re almost there.

Every mother who has given birth (with­out med­ical assis­tance), has reached the same point in labor. (If Press­field is going to use birth metaphors, then I will as well. I think I’m enti­tled.) This phase of the birth process is called Transition.

Tran­si­tion can be the hard­est stage of labor, not because the pain is greater than at other times, but because after hav­ing labored for so many hours, a woman is tired-and because the actual birth still seems so far away, she has yet to get the charge of energy that comes from know­ing the birth is immi­nent. Dur­ing tran­si­tion, a woman will often say that she just can’t do it anymore.

Yes, tran­si­tion pushes you to your lim­its, but women still do it. How could they not? There’s a new life com­ing out of them, a new chance to have an impact on the world. And when you reach tran­si­tion in your life, you will-if armed with the knowl­edge of where you are and what you need to do, and why you’re doing it-you will meet the challenge.

And at the end you will have given birth to that which you love the most — not a baby — but your great work. And you made it pos­si­ble because you were will­ing to start, labor hard (even under tremen­dous duress), and never, ever, give up.

So what do you think? Why are you doing your great work? Do you have jujitsu moves for deal­ing with Resis­tance? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

by Stacey Curnow

Stacey is a pur­pose and suc­cess coach who helps you give birth to your BIG dreams. To find your pur­pose and pas­sion, check out her FREE eBook, The Pur­pose and Pas­sion Guide­book.

Stacey Curnow

View all posts by Stacey Curnow