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“Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear” by Elizabeth Gilbert is an inspiring exploration of creativity’s nature and its powerful role in our lives. In this thought-provoking book, Gilbert invites readers to embrace their creativity with curiosity and courage, encouraging us to view our creative impulses as vital aspects of our humanity. Drawing on her own experiences and insights, she provides practical advice and philosophical reflections that challenge the notion of perfection and the paralyzing fear that often accompanies the creative process.
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Book Review
I didn’t have many expectations when I started reading this book, especially since I hadn’t read anything by Elizabeth Gilbert. I just heard it being recommended a few times and thought I’d give it a try. And how glad I am that I did!
Within the first couple of pages, I fell in love with the writing style and the message. Elizabeth Gilbert manages to challenge the reader’s thoughts on creativity in such a casual and friendly way that it feels like having an inspiring conversation with a friend during a cozy afternoon.
Big Magic fundamentally changed my idea of what it means to be creative and how I will approach creative endeavors in the future.
And no, you don’t need to be artsy to read this book. I have certainly never seen myself as an artist of any kind. However, all humans create in one way or another, even if it is just the creation of social media posts. So give the book a try!
Lessons That Big Magic Taught Me
1. Don’t fight your fears, accept them and move forward
“This is why we have to be careful of how we handle our fear—because I’ve noticed that when people try to kill off their fear, they often end up inadvertently murdering their creativity in the process.”
“It seems to me that the less I fight my fear, the less it fights back. If I can relax, fear relaxes, too. In fact, I cordially invite fear to come along with me everywhere I go.”
2. Treat ideas like sentiment sprites
“Whatever your response, though, do be sympathetic to the poor idea. Remember: All it wants is to be realized. It’s trying its best. It seriously has to knock on every door it can.”
“You can receive your ideas with respect and curiosity, not with drama or dread.”
If you treat the ideas that you do get as worthless and discard them without a thought, why do you expect to get more ideas? Would you like to spend time with someone with a history of treating your predecessors badly? I highly doubt it. So the next time you are looking for a huge business idea that will make you millions (the next AirBnB, Amazon, or Netflix), don’t discard the smaller ideas (another printable or ebook). These smaller ideas might be the test if you can be trusted with a bigger idea. After all, if you can’t publish a successful ebook, why would you be able to launch something bigger? See it as a free practice, and be grateful that you have gotten this opportunity.
3. Let go of unsuitable ideas with the knowledge that new ones are out there
“I understood that the best you can hope for in such a situation is to let your old idea go and catch the next idea that comes around. And the best way for that to happen is to move on swiftly, with humility and grace. Don’t fall into a funk about the one that got away. Don’t beat yourself up. Don’t rage at the gods above. All that is nothing but distraction, and the last thing you need is further distraction. Grieve if you must, but grieve efficiently. Better to just say good-bye to the lost idea with dignity and continue onward. Find something else to work on—anything, immediately—and get at it. Keep busy.”
“I believe that inspiration will always try its best to work with you—but if you are not ready or available, it may indeed choose to leave you and to search for a different human collaborator.”
Sometimes, you have a brilliant idea that gets you all excited, but you are already stretched too thin. To pursue this new idea (this new shiny object), you’d need to either ditch what you are working on completely or reduce the effort and time you invest into those tasks. And that would just guarantee that you’ll produce subpar work, which would be doing yourself and your ideas a disservice. Instead, you need to let go of your FOMO and that new idea. Yes, not acting on the idea can mean that someone else will. But maybe it really is meant for you, and it will stick around for a long time. Either way, you won’t have to worry about getting new ideas if you treat the ones you already have right. And that means dedicating the time and effort they deserve to them and not clinging to the ones who can’t be given what they deserve.
4. Just create, no matter how unimpressive and messy it might seem, just create
“I wish somebody had given Ralph Ellison the same sort of advice. Just write anything and put it out there with reckless abandon. And F. Scott Fitzgerald, too. And any other creator, famous or obscure, who ever vanished beneath the shadow of their own real or imagined reputation. I wish somebody had told them all to go fill up a bunch of pages with blah-blah-blah and just publish it, for heaven’s sake, and ignore the outcome.”
“If anything, I have come to believe that my genius spends a lot of time waiting around for me—waiting to see if I’m truly serious about this line of work. I feel sometimes like my genius sits in the corner and watches me at my desk, day after day, week after week, month after month, just to be sure I really mean it, just to be sure I’m really giving this creative endeavor my wholehearted effort. When my genius is convinced that I’m not just messing around here, he may show up and offer assistance.”
“Through the mere act of creating something—anything—you might inadvertently produce work that is magnificent, eternal, or important (as Marcus Aurelius did, after all, with his Meditations).”
Creating anything, no matter how bad the quality might be, is already putting you ahead of the great majority of people on this planet. Most people are mere consumers, some are creators, but very few create regularly, and even fewer dare to make their creations public. Instead of waiting around for this brilliant idea to hit you, just use what you have to create what you can now. Start that blog, YouTube channel, or social media account and publish something. It might make you feel horribly awkward, and it might just be that nobody will ever see it but publish it regardless. With every publication, you will grow a bit better at it; before you know it, you can call yourself a creator.
5. Burning all your boats causes unnecessary stress and failure
“Anyhow, the golden rule in my family is this: If you’re supporting yourself financially and you’re not bothering anyone else, then you’re free to do whatever you want with your life.”
“I held on to those other sources of income for so long because I never wanted to burden my writing with the responsibility of paying for my life. I knew better than to ask this of my writing, because over the years, I have watched so many other people murder their creativity by demanding that their art pay the bills.”
Many people recommend burning all your boats to stay motivated. After all, if there is no plan B, you’ll have to give absolutely everything to your plan A, or else life will get extremely uncomfortable for you. With that thought in mind, many people quit their 9-to-5 to pursue their passions. Sometimes, that works and turns into a huge success. Far too often, though, these people end up burning through their funds, feel continuously stressed and frustrated, and eventually crawl back to their old life (or what is left of it).
I don’t know about you, but I don’t like this gamble. I’d much rather have a pretty comfortable life, earning money through a 9-to-5 while building my side hustle until it can easily sustain me. Sure, this strategy requires more self-discipline because it is far too easy to just rest on your comfortable income. However, it also enables you to persevere for much longer than you’d be able to if you had no income besides your side hustle. After all, things rarely work out quite as quickly as we want them to, especially when building a successful business. Lastly, you are also not at risk of growing resentful of your passion if it doesn’t deliver the money you had expected of it.
6. Your Creations Don’t Have To Be Unique
“Aspiring writers will often tell me, “I have an idea, but I’m afraid it’s already been done.” Well, yes, it probably has already been done. Most things have already been done—but they have not yet been done by you.”
There are 8 billion people on this planet, and there is an increasing number of fast-working AI. Chances are high that anything you create has already been created before. So what? It’s not like you watch only one YouTube channel, subscribe to a social media account, or read only one book about vampires. I can’t even begin to tell you how many ‘Characters Read The Books’ fan fiction I have read, even though they are all extremely similar. Don’t let your creativity be held back by the thought of competition. Just put your work out there. Those who like it will like it regardless of the countless similar works. The worst that can happen is that nobody will notice it. Would that be disappointing? Sure. Will it be the end of the world? Hardly.
7. See Failures As A Challenge
“I decided to play the game of rejection letters as if it were a great cosmic tennis match: Somebody would send me a rejection, and I would knock it right back over the net, sending out another query that same afternoon. My policy was: You hit it to me, I’m going to hit it straight back out into the universe.”
Have you ever played Mario on Nintendo? I’m assuming you didn’t just breeze through the game but got stuck at certain levels and had to try them multiple times. Did you give up after it didn’t work the first time? Of course not. How boring would a game be if you could ace it in one go? Failures make it more exciting because you can feel successful once you overcome them.
Why treat life any differently?
8. There is nothing enviable about being a tortured artist
“Unfortunately, I’ve heard that line quoted countless times by creative people who were offering up an excuse as to why they won’t quit drinking, or why they won’t go see a therapist, or why they won’t consider treatment for their depression or anxiety, or why they won’t address their sexual misconduct or their intimacy problems, or why they basically refuse to seek personal healing and growth in any manner whatsoever—because they don’t want to lose their suffering, which they have somehow conflated and confused with their creativity.”
“A lighthearted process does not necessarily need to result in a lighthearted product.”
Just because people have made a huge success out of their worst experiences and inner demons does not mean they cannot be successful without those things. Quiet the opposite; using your creations to help people defeat their problems by showing them how you did it attracts much attention. The good news is that you will always have struggles in life. They might not be capital ‘S’ struggles (like getting sober, beating depression, dealing with bankruptcy), but there will always be struggles in daily life. Those are struggles that far more people can relate to than the big ones. Don’t stay a prisoner of your problems because you fear you will have nothing to fuel your creations otherwise. Personal growth is the biggest inspiration there is. After all, is that not something most of us want, whether we realize it consciously or not?
9. Be the trickster in the game that is life
“A good trickster knows that if he cheerfully tosses a ball out into the cosmos, that ball will be thrown back at him. It might be thrown back really hard, or it might be thrown back really crooked, or it might be thrown back in a cartoonish hail of missiles, or it might not be thrown back until the middle of next year—but that ball will eventually be thrown back. The trickster waits for the ball to return, catches it however it arrives, and then tosses it back out there into the void again, just to see what will happen. And he loves doing it, because the trickster (in all his cleverness) understands the one great cosmic truth that the martyr (in all his seriousness) can never grasp: It’s all just a game.”
There are many topics in life that need to be taken seriously: Your health, your realtionships, your finances and your education. Creativity is not one of those topics. Creativity should be approached with the mindset of a trickster. Have fun with it! Do the unexpected and expect the unexpected to happen to you! Be unpredictable and messy! As long as you keep creating, you are going to have blast at it.
In conclusion, “Big Magic” is not just a book about creativity; it’s an invitation to live a more expressive and fulfilled life. Elizabeth Gilbert’s warmth and wisdom resonate with anyone who has ever felt constrained by their fears or self-doubt. By embracing the lessons found within its pages—accepting fear, nurturing ideas, letting go of the unsuitable, and simply creating—readers are empowered to embark on their creative journeys. As we close this chapter, remember that every act of creation, no matter how small, is a step towards unlocking the magic within each of us. Embrace the process, cherish your ideas, and allow your creativity to flourish.
