Throughout his book “The War of Art”, Steven Pressfield mentions an invisible force called “Resistance”. Pressfield describes Resistance as a negative internal force that works against your productivity in any creative field. It does everything it can to conjure excuses and rationalisation to prevent you from getting your work done. One of the most common tools Resistance uses is delaying your work, generally known as procrastination. The process of procrastination is as simple as it gets; instead of engaging in your creative tasks now- you rationalise that you have a lot of time and you can do it later on.
But can you still procrastinate on something even without technically, well, ‘delaying’ it? Procrastination is an ‘all or nothing’ process; you are either doing something now, or you are not doing anything at all. You have an objective assessment of your own progress which is clearly visible to your conscious mind. When you delay a task for the next time, you still have to accept the fact that you did nothing today. In turn, at the end of the day it leaves us with a certain amount of guilt. But there are other obscure ways in which Resistance makes you procrastinate- ways which you might deem productive but are actually not. They can successfully remove that guilt out of the equation- leaving you with what I call, ‘an illusion of productivity’.
Motion and Action
To understand this, consider these two examples.
—An ambitious storyteller trying to learn the craft- not putting any effort in writing. When confronted, his answer would be, “I am trying to figure the story out first. When I am done, I will start writing.”
—Or a budding musician, engrossed in theory and discussions with fellow musicians, not putting the ample amount of time playing his instrument.
The next thing you know, both of them have not produced anything tangible in months. But they still ‘feel’ productive, because the guilt of not doing anything is not there, at least not openly in front of them. The examples that I gave above are called, motion without action- a concept picked up from the book- ‘Atomic Habits’.
“When you are in motion, you’re planning and strategising and learning.Those are all good things, but they don’t produce results. Action on the other hand is a type of behaviour that will deliver an outcome. Motion allows us to feel like we’re making progress without running the risk of failure.”
Atomic Habits. Author: James Clear
In the field of psychology, the discrepancy between motion and action can be paralleled with the concepts of active and passive learning; wherein, motion can be correlated to passive learning and action to active learning. In his 2014 research study, Noble laureate Carl E. Wieman emphasises the importance of active learning over passive learning; active learning allows our brain to create new neural connections through constant engagement and vigorously deciding between right and wrong decisions. Researches in the educational field show a decrease in failure rate from 34% to 22% when active learning methods are adopted amongst students as opposed to traditional lecture methods.
I am not saying that planning and strategising are bad by any means. They are essential as well as unavoidable- but preparing should not become a form of procrastination. No amount of learning can replace the actual act of solving a problem on your own. Not to mention those satisfying ‘Aha’ moments when you have been stuck on a particular problem for quite a while without any success. You go back to your learning material only to find the solution that you had skimmed over in your first recital. Absorbing information about style and techniques for any craft is important no doubt, but at the end of the day, it is when you actively partake and perform is when you truly understand what technique works and what doesn’t.
You will not find this in tasks where you have some definite output criteria that you have to fulfil within a fixed period of time. College examinations, assignments or office presentations have deadlines and the cost of missing those deadlines are very much real and effective; you will fail or lose your job. It is your creative projects that are susceptible to this process. It is here, where motion is stretched long enough to avoid action.
Fear of judgement and failure are what drives us to not take action- because if we do produce something concrete, it becomes open to criticism- by others or even worse, by our own selves. This is why we constantly find ourselves planning; this way our results remain in our head, safe from judgement. Mindfulness is really important here. You have to decide when you really need time to prepare, and when you are just excusing yourself from putting your work out. If there is a personal project that you keep putting off since you repeatedly catch yourself ‘learning’- you should start doing something now.
In this age of the internet, the knowledge available for any topic is ridiculously high. Counterproductively, it is easy to find yourself searching for the best piece of information without utilising any of it; and thus, in turn, creation takes a backseat for the sake of consumption.
It is important to understand that your creative projects are yours, and yours alone. No higher authority is going to put up your accountabilities, stakes and a deadline in front of you. The accountability is towards your future self, the stakes are your intrinsic values, and the deadline is death.
anshul kandpal 