the blank screen the empty page the
unfilmed video
whenever we sit down to start writing or
creating anything we're often paralyzed
by a force
stopping us from starting stopping us
from typing that first word
writing that first page or filming that
first video now the most common question
i get asked on the internet is ali how
are you so cool
but the second most common question is
ali how do you beat procrastination and
the answer is in this book
the war of art by stephen pressfield he
says that most of us have two lives the
life we live
and the unlived life within us and
between the two is this thing called
the resistance and that is the secret to
overcoming procrastination and this is
actually a surprisingly
life-changing insight and i first read
this in 2017 and it actually completely
changed the way that i approach
life and meaningful productivity and it
kind of helped me stop being a chronic
procrastinator
and so in this video we're going to talk
about three key points from the book
that have helped me personally beat
procrastination and hopefully they can
help do the same for you point number
one
know thy enemy so the first question we
need to address is what is
resistance resistance is the negative
force that's actively working against us
to stop us from doing the things we want
to do it doesn't stop us from watching
netflix or from playing video games
instead it stops us from doing anything
that we know in our hearts is going to
level up our lives like resistance isn't
really that feeling that we get when we
can't be bothered to clean the desk or
can't be bothered to i don't know watch
the dishes that is resistance with a
small r but resistance with a big r
is the the resistance the you know that
force that's holding us back
from doing creative or entrepreneurial
things or things that require any level
of risk
taking or putting ourselves out there
and whenever we try and do any of this
stuff we always have to go up against
this hill of procrastination that's a
constant battle and there's a nice quote
from the book where he says
we don't tell ourselves i'm never going
to write my symphony
instead we say i am going to write my
symphony i'm just going to start
tomorrow i've heard this a million times
with people being like you know what i
want to start a youtube channel at some
point i'm going to start a podcast but
you know the timing's not quite right oh
you know i haven't quite got the gear i
haven't quite got the kudos why would
anyone care what i have to say this is
all resistance it's all that
procrastination that's building within
us but what really fuels resistance is
fear
resistance is activated by fear and gain
strength whenever we give in to that
fear
creating a cycle that we fall into and
which leads to resistance becoming even
stronger as our fear becomes even
greater but as he says in the book
fear is actually a very good thing
because when we feel scared about doing
something
it usually means we should just do the
thing he writes remember one rule of
thumb the more scared we are of a work
or calling the more sure we can be that
we have to do it and in a way resistance
is that compass that points towards the
thing in a life that's actually most
important for us to do
like i never feel any resistance towards
sitting down and playing world of
warcraft
but i do feel resistance towards sitting
down and writing my book and that tells
me that sitting down to write my book is
currently the most important thing i
need to be working on and the key rule
of thumb here as steven pressfield
writes is the more resistance you
experience
the more important your unmanifested art
or project or enterprise is to you
and since i first read this in 2017 i've
actually started using this as a model
for
in a way a model for decision making
like if i feel scared about doing
something
then more often than not i will try my
very best to actually do the thing
and so far in my life i have never
regretted doing something
that i'm scared of but i've always
regretted not doing something that i was
scared of so now that we've done step
one which is know our enemy and we've
defined resistance and figured out what
it actually is it's that source that
makes us procrastinate
we need to figure out some ways of
dealing with it and the first one is key
point number two in this video which is
become a professional in the book
pressfield introduces the idea of the
professional versus the amateur
an amateur takes action whenever
inspiration strikes or when they're in
the right mood
they're not committed and the goals are
focused on fun money and status
a professional shapes their life so that
the work is a priority
they're determined and committed to
succeed by following their inner drive
and creative spirit now our boy steve
says that the only way we can deal with
resistance is if we become a
professional with our work rather than
an amateur and i think i think it's
interesting how
he doesn't define professional as being
someone who makes money from the thing
because you can want to make money from
a thing but still treat it like a
complete amateur but instead a
professional is someone who does it for
the sake of doing the work and takes
pride in the work itself and there's a
few other traits that professionals have
when it comes to doing their job like if
you're a professional then you will show
up every day to your job no matter what
you wouldn't just not go to work because
you don't feel like it if you're a
professional you work through adversity
and you're open to criticism because you
always want to improve
whereas if you're an amateur then you
feel like you know if you draw something
or make a video and someone gives you
bad feedback or you get a bad comment
you get like really kind of woe is me
and like it hurts your feelings and it
like ruins your life
because you're treating like an amateur
whereas if you treat it as a
professional you would be more inclined
to actually
grow from the feedback a professional as
well will understand that
fear is just part of the work like if
you're a doctor and that's your
profession
you know that you're going to be
stepping outside your comfort zone
whereas if you approach things with an
amateur perspective like starting a
youtube channel or whatever
as soon as the going gets tough then
you're gonna fold like a cheap suit as
they say and finally if you're a
professional with your work you
recognize that facing the resistance is
the daily battle when i'm working as a
doctor when i wake up in the mornings
and i think i don't really feel like
going to work
i do it anyway it's part of the daily
battle it's just what you have to do
when you're a doctor and
you know someone asks you to put an iv
or a cannula into a patient who you know
has difficult veins
that's resistance you're like oh i don't
want to do this but it's part of the
work it's part of the job this is what i
have to do and we want to be kind of
taking
that sort of attitude towards our other
like creative and entrepreneurial
stuff and obviously there is some level
in which you can take this too far like
being so focused on like treating your
hobbies as a professional
to the point where you're doing it for
eight hours a day is probably a little
bit excessive and there is certainly
something to be said for not
monetizing all of your hobbies or at
least not trying to make a living from
your hobbies because
like for me a hobby is fun when it makes
a bit of money uh like playing the
guitar if i could
get paid a bit of money to play the
guitar that would make it really really
fun
but if i was reliant on playing the
guitar for earning a living i'd be
starving on the street and it would also
make playing the guitar a lot less fun
so treating our creative and
entrepreneurial stuff as a professional
doesn't mean
it takes over our life it just means
that we're approaching it with a bit
more of a professional mindset
rather than the mindset of oh i'll do my
thing whenever i feel like it because
that doesn't really work if you're
treating something like a pro key point
number three is we need to banish
the ego now he said that once we've
become a professional the next thing we
need to do is recognize
the ongoing battle between the self and
the ego and the way i see this is that
our ego
is more focused on external events and
how other people see us whereas the self
is this inner calm that we have
which is about the way that we see
ourselves when we're led by our ego our
main priority is to maintain the status
of the i
in the world and we're just focused on
how external events affect
us and everything is very superficial
and surface level then we've got the
self which is made up of the individual
and collective unconscious areas of our
minds which includes our dreams
intuition visions and aspirations it
encompasses the deepest form of who we
are and when we sit down to create we're
attempting to channel the self
because it's through the self that we
can beat resistance now some of this
stuff is a little bit
for my liking like press field goes on
about like how creative endeavors are
like a new plane of existence and we're
all striving for that you know
plane of existence and resistance is
like the devil that gets in the way it
it can go a bit woowie at times it's
kind of similar to like the growth
mindset and fixed mindset stuff in a way
when we have a fixed mindset and we get
like negative feedback or something or
we do something that we know is not very
good
it really shakes us to the core because
it like damages our ego
whereas when we have a growth mindset to
something we recognize that
if we fail at something it's just part
of the process of improving over time
another way that i think of this is when
it comes to goal setting so
i found that for me i get a lot more
resistance i.e procrastination
when i've got goals that are based on
outcomes that are outside of my control
so for example if i'm making youtube
videos which is an easy example
one way of thinking about my goals for
youtube is to think about okay i want
this video to get
this many views or i want to hit this
many subscribers by the end of the year
that's a very outcome goal and it's very
outside of my control the only thing in
my control is making the videos
but if i have a goal that i want this
video to be really good then that's when
the perfectionism takes hold that's when
i feel the resistance that's when i
procrastinate so much to the point that
i don't even make the video
and i've seen this basically with every
student who's been through my part-time
youtuber academy anyone who's doing
youtube or starting youtube or
getting better at youtube or taking it
seriously if you start thinking that
this video needs to be good as defined
by what other people think of it
it makes it really hard to actually make
the video whereas what i prefer is to
have most of my goals being input goals
i.e they're entirely within my control
they're entirely based on
inputs that i control so i'm going to
make two videos a week for that for the
rest of my life
is an input goal it's something that's
broadly within my control i'm going to
write the best book that i can or
and a book that i'm happy with is an
input goal it's a goal within my control
whereas i'm going to write a book and i
wanted to hit the new york times
bestseller list which is what i've been
thinking
about recently that's very much an
output goal and it's broadly outside of
my control
and i find that when it comes again to
writing my book anytime i even think of
that outcome goal
i feel the procrastination i feel the
resistance i feel the pain whereas when
i think you know what my job is
to just write the best book that i can
it becomes a lot easier to do and now
i've realized that
for basically whatever i do if i'm
struggling with procrastination
usually it's the resistance getting in
the way and usually it's because
i have some kind of outcome goal
associated with the thing
which for me personally is bad it works
for some people but i don't personally
like them now we've talked about three
ways of beating procrastination number
one name the enemy i.e the resistance
number two become a professional and
number three banish the ego
there's a lot more really good stuff
about this in the book the war of art
which as you can see is
quite small it doesn't take very long to
read and in fact it only takes two hours
to listen to or one hour if you're going
at double speed like i do and you can do
that on audible who are very kindly
sponsoring this video now whenever
audible sponsor my videos i always need
to pinch myself because
basically beyond any other brand i work
with it is the dream one because i've
been
evangelizing audible to all of my
friends and anyone who listened to me
for the last
i don't know god knows how long even
when i didn't have this youtube channel
and when they weren't sponsoring my
videos and in fact it's one of the
nicest feelings in the world when one of
my friends
sign up signs up for audible and starts
getting into audio books and tells me oh
my god i signed up to audible because of
your recommendation
and now i'm reading the mistborn series
and my mind is blown because it's just
so good so if you want to learn more
about beating procrastination then
definitely check out the war of art
audiobook but if you're looking for
fiction recommendations which is what i
personally prefer to listen to most of
the time on audible
i would 1000 recommend the mistborn
series by brandon sanderson this series
is narrated by a guy called michael
kramer who is like the best narrator in
the world in my opinion and he's
narrated the mistborn series and the
stormlight archive and the wheel of time
and these are like amazing fantasy
books that i've been listening to on
audible since like 2017 and i've
basically had michael's
michael kramer's voice in my head at all
times so if you're new to the world of
audiobooks 100 i'd recommend the mr born
series by brandon sanderson the first
book of that is the final empire
and i started listening to that in like
yeah 2017 and it's completely changed my
life because now brandon sanderson is my
favorite author
and i freaking love listening to fantasy
books on audible another really good one
to try is stardust by neil gaiman you
might have seen the film it's a pretty
good film
but the book is even better and it's a
really nice love story and it's just
like narrated very well by neil gaiman
himself to get started with a totally
free 30-day trial in which you can get
one free audiobook to listen to
please head over to audible.com forward
slash ali abdal and then you can sign up
for your 30-day trial
get your free audiobook i'd recommend
the final empire but brandon sanderson
or stardust by neil gaiman if you want
to go fiction or
the war of art if you like the topic in
this video and you want to learn more
about how to beat the resistance
honestly of the 100 plus apps that i
subscribe to i always say
even when they're not sponsoring my
videos i always say that audible is the
single subscription that i would hold on
to
above all else i would even cancel my
netflix subscription and my world of
warcraft subscription if i had to
in order to just subscribe to audible as
the only thing because the amount of
value it's added to my life in terms of
how little i pay for it each month is
just absolutely astronomical and
probably the most cost like
cost-effective thing that i own in my
life so if that sounds up your street
and you want to get into the world of
audiobooks and join me on this journey
of listening to audiobooks forever then
head over to audible.com forward slash
alibaba to get your 30-day free trial
and a free audio book anyway i want to
end with a quote from the book where he
says
never forget this very moment we can
change our lives
there never was a moment and never will
be when we are without the power to
alter our destiny
this second we can turn the tables on
resistance now this book had a pretty
profound effect on my life
and my creative and entrepreneurial
journey and if you like this video and
you want to check out my thoughts on
more books that have really impacted my
life then check out this short playlist
over here the first video in it is about
three books that changed my life and
then we've got a few other very short
videos summarizing some of the other
books that i loved
and have really helped me in life so
thank you so much for watching do hit
that subscribe button if you aren't
already and
i will see you next time good night