In the book, Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be, Steven Pressfield shares his inspiration and techniques to help us make the life-altering transformation.

These are some of my favorite takeaways from reading the book.

Steve talks about the word “ass” in the physical sense, but it also has a metaphorical meaning. “Ass” means commitment.

As in, “His ass is on the line.” Or “If she screws this up, it’ll be her ass.”

Putting our ass “where our heart wants to be” means we will “commit emotionally, psychologically, spiritually to our dreams.”

While relocating to a new physical location might be essential for working on our dreams, it is even more critical that we put our asses in the proper place metaphorically.

When we commit, we signal to those established professionals who might hire, mentor, or promote us, a newly arrived aspirant. The newcomer has demonstrated commitment. He is here. He has left there.

All that matter is that we have taken action. We are here to do the work, and we have left other baggage behind while we are here.

Commitment is not a one-time deal. We want to demonstrate commitment over time. We also want to show commitment in the face of adversity.

There are questions we can ask ourselves:

“How much do we want it?”

“What sacrifices are we willing to make to see this project succeed?”

“Have we ‘moved’ – lock, stock, and barrel – to our inner Paris?”

Sometimes it takes another person to believe in us. When we got lost or started to flounder, that person seized our ass and dragged it back to where our heart wanted to be.

We need to treasure those people in our lives.

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