The following are notes taken from Steven Pressfield’s book, Turning Pro.
A DEFINITION OF THE AMATEUR
The amateur is young and dumb. He’s innocent, he’s good-hearted, he’s well-intentioned. The amateur is brave. He’s inventive and resourceful. He’s willing to take a chance… The amateur harbors noble aspirations. He has dreams. He seeks liberation and enlightenment. And he’s willing, he hopes, to pay the price… The amateur is not evil or crazy. He’s not deluded. He’s not demented. The amateur is trying to learn.
THE AMATEUR IS TERRIFIED
Fear is the primary color of the amateur’s interior world. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of looking foolish, fear of under-achieving and fear of over-achieving, fear of poverty, fear of loneliness, fear of death… But mostly what we all feel as amateurs is being excluded from the tribe, i.e., the gang, the posse, mother and father, family, nation, race, religion… The amateur fears that if he turns pro and lives out his calling, he will have to live up to who he really is and what he is truly capable of.
THE PROFESSIONAL IS TERRIFIED, TOO
The professional, by the way, is just as terrified as the amateur. In fact the professional may be more terrified because he is more acutely conscious of himself and of his interior universe… The difference lies in the way the professional acts in the face of fear.
THE AMATEUR IS AN EGOTIST
The amateur identifies with his own ego… The amateur is a narcissist. He views the world hierarchically. He continuously rates himself in relation to others, becoming self-inflated if his fortunes rise, and desperately anxious if his star should fall… The amateur sees himself as the hero, not only of his own movie, but of the movies of others. He insists (in his mind, if nowhere else) that others share this view… The amateur competes with others and believes that he cannot rise unless a competitor falls.
THE AMATEUR LIVES BY THE OPINIONS OF OTHERS
Though the amateur’s identity is seated in his own ego, that ego is so weak that it cannot define itself based on its own self-evaluation. The amateur allows his worth and identity to be defined by others… The amateur craves third-party validation… The amateur is tyrannized by his imagined concept of what is expected of him… He is imprisoned by what he believes he ought to think, how he ought to look, what he ought to do, and who he ought to be.
THE AMATEUR PERMITS FEAR TO STOP HIM FROM ACTING
Paradoxically, the amateur’s self-inflation prevents him from acting. He takes himself and the consequences of his actions so seriously that he paralyzes himself… The amateur fears, above all else, becoming (and being seen and judged as) himself… Becoming himself means being different from others and thus, possibly, violating the expectations of the tribe, without whose acceptance and approval, he believes, he cannot survive… By these means, the amateur remains inauthentic. He remains someone other than who he really is.
THE AMATEUR IS EASILY DISTRACTED
The amateur fears solitude and silence because he needs to avoid, at all costs, the voice inside his head that would point him toward his calling and his destiny. So he seeks distraction… The amateur prizes shallowness and shuns depth. The culture of Twitter and Facebook is paradise for the amateur.
THE AMATEUR SEEKS INSTANT GRATIFICATION
There was a popular bumper sticker a few years ago: Too much ain’t enough… Too much ain’t enough, and too soon is too late… The amateur, the addict and the obsessive all want what they want now. The corollary is that, when they get it, it doesn’t work. The restlessness doesn’t abate, the pain doesn’t go away, the fear comes back as soon as the buzz wears off.
THE AMATEUR IS JEALOUS
Because the amateur is so powerfully identified with himself, he finds it extremely difficult to view the world through the eyes of others. The amateur is often unkind or insensitive to others, but he saves his most exquisite cruelty for himself… The amateur’s fear eclipses his compassion for others and for himself.
THE AMATEUR LACKS COMPASSION FOR HIMSELF
In his heart, the amateur knows he’s hiding. He knows he was meant for better things. He knows he has turned away from his higher nature… If the amateur had empathy for himself, he could look in the mirror and not hate what he sees… Achieving this compassion is the first powerful step toward moving from being an amateur to being a pro.
THE AMATEUR SEEKS PERMISSION
The amateur believes that, before he can act, he must receive permission from some Omnipotent Other – a lover or spouse, a parent, a boss, a figure of authority.
THE AMATEUR LIVES FOR THE FUTURE
The amateur and the addict focus exclusively on the product and the payoff. Their concern is what’s in it for them, and how soon and how cheaply they can get it.
THE AMATEUR LIVES IN THE PAST
Because the amateur owns nothing of spirit in the present, he either looks forward to a hopeful future or backward to an idyllic past… The payoff of living in the past or the future is you never have to do your work in the present.
THE AMATEUR WILL BE READY TOMORROW
The sure sign of an amateur is he has a million plans and they all start tomorrow.
THE AMATEUR GIVES HIS POWER AWAY TO OTHERS
Have you ever followed a guru or a mentor? I have. I’ve given my power away to lovers and spouses. I’ve sat by the phone. I’ve waited for permission. I’ve turned in work and awaited, trembling, the judgment of others… I’ve given away my power subtly, with a glance that was perceptible to no one. And I’ve given it away overtly and shamelessly, for all the world to see… Exile, failure, and banishment can be good things sometimes, because they force us to act from our own center and not from someone else’s… I applaud your story of how you hit bottom, because at the bottom there’s no one there but yourself.
THE AMATEUR IS ASLEEP
The force that can save the amateur is awareness, particularly self-awareness. But the amateur understands, however dimly, that if he truly achieved this knowledge, he would be compelled to act upon it… To act upon this self-awareness would mean defining himself, i.e., differentiating himself from the tribe and thus making himself vulnerable to rejection, expulsion, and all the other fears that self-definition elicits… Fear of self-definition is what keeps an amateur an amateur and what keeps and addict an addict.