This is an excerpt from What Matters Now — Tough-mindedness, by Steven Pressfield.
We live in the age of distraction, of Twitter and multi-tasking and short attention spans. Even these micro-essays are part of it. Whereas what produces real work (and happiness for each of us, in my opinion) is depth, focus, concentration and commitment over time.
The antidote to these scattering influences is tough-mindedness, which I define as the ability to draw lines and boundaries within which we protect and preserve the mental and emotional space to do our work and to be true to our selves. Not to the point of insanity (we gotta keep a sense of humor about this stuff), but we also desperately need the ability to play real hardball with ourselves when we need it. Otherwise, we’ll all expire from sheer shallowness.
I’ve written about showing up in my "Writing Wednesday’s" series, drawing examples from Patricia Ryan Madson’s book Improv Wisdom. There’s tremendous power in putting your ass where your heart wants to be. Being there is just the first step. You must stay for more than a few minutes or one 140-character post.
Special Forces Major Jim Gant wrote the seminal report "One Tribe At A Time". He’s a husband and father, who was training for a one-year deployment to Iraq at the time, while also juggling the everyday issues we all face. No one asked him to write the paper. Conviction, passion and a dedication to hard work were on his side – that’s toughmindedness.
Steven Pressfield is the author of Gates of Fire and The War of Art. He blogs at "It’s the Tribes, Stupid."
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