Big Magic is author Elizabeth Gilbert’s guide to leading a more fulfilled life by making creativity, in any guise that suits you, a part of your daily existence. The book offers both spiritual wisdom on how to work with the magical forces of creativity, as well as suggestions on how to create effectively and productively. Gilbert draws on her successful career as a writer, best known for her 2006 memoir Eat Pray Love, and her advice is aimed toward anyone who has a creative bent.
In the book, Gilbert outlines her unique definitions around creativity, including the concept of “Big Magic” (or, as we’ll call it for clarity, Creative Sorcery). She elaborates on how to work effectively with Creative Sorcery before describing how to embark on a creative journey and keep your creative momentum up over the long term.
Gilbert defines creativity as the search for and excavation of universe-endowed gifts that are within us, hidden from our view. Our gifts are the talents, interests, and desires that make us us. You can have a gift for anything—stargazing, website design, or mushroom hunting, for instance—not just a traditionally artistic pursuit, like painting, writing, or performing.
Notice that Gilbert does not define creativity as a professional pursuit or even as the main goal or mission of one’s life. It’s simply a commitment to exploring your depths and bringing to light the powers that exist within you.
Other Definitions of Creativity
Gilbert’s conception of creativity for this book is unique, perhaps because seasoned creators develop idiosyncratic definitions of this concept. If Gilbert’s definition doesn’t fully resonate with you, fellow writer Amy Tan has her own definition, which she presented in a popular TED Talk. Tan feels her creativity is the product of her upbringing, the big questions that preoccupy and interest her, and her quest to derive meaning from the world.
Steve Jobs’s definition of creativity was different still: He said that creativity was just a matter of forming novel connections. For Jobs, magic and mysticism figured far less into creativity than for Tan and Gilbert. As a creator, you may wish to come up with a definition of creativity that most resonates in your life.
According to Gilbert, the central reason to develop your creativity is to come in touch with Creative Sorcery. In Gilbert’s view, Creative Sorcery is a mystical or spiritual force of creativity. This force is bigger than us and cannot be explained scientifically or proven empirically. It is an eternal cosmic entity that creatives must have faith in.
For Gilbert, coming into contact with Creative Sorcery is a transcendent experience. Touching Creative Sorcery lets you be moved by and interact with something greater than yourself. This communion with a higher creative energy constitutes the chief goal of Gilbert’s life.
Other Forms of Spiritual Enlightenment
Gilbert’s vision of touching Creative Sorcery has a lot in common with the search for spiritual enlightenment which humans all around the world and in all faith traditions seek out, either to stimulate creativity or to experience more general spiritual relief. Sufi Muslims, for example, perform a whirling dance to escape the confines of their egos, commune with God, and become spiritually perfect.
Outside of faith, some use mind-altering drugs to come into contact with something bigger than themselves and even to enhance their creativity. Research has shown that psychoactive substances don’t activate creativity, but do make drug-takers more sensitive and open to stimuli, which can indirectly lead to greater creativity.
Gilbert states that Creative Sorcery is trying at all times to contact humans to help them bring their creativity into the world. One way Creative Sorcery communicates with humans is through ideas. Gilbert envisions ideas as living entities, capable of self-sustained activity. Ideas move around space, seeking humans who will take them on and give them life.
According to Gilbert, humans do not give rise to ideas: Ideas exist independently of us. This means that ideas are free to come and go as they please. You may find yourself visited by an idea and then deserted by it.
The Neurological Explanation for Ideas
Gilbert’s description of what ideas are and how they operate comes from a magical perspective. Science, meanwhile, has a different explanation.
According to researchers at the University of Haifa, creative ideas come into existence when two separate and possibly opposing brain networks are activated. These networks are the “associative” region and the “conservative” region. The associative region seems to be linked to originality, while the conservative region may be associated with adhering to social norms and rules. Thus, it seems that when both originality and an awareness of social regulations come together, the best ideas are produced.
This neurological explanation for ideation is at odds with Gilbert’s belief that humans don’t give rise to ideas and that they “visit” us; instead, it seems they’re formed, and stay, within us.
Now that you understand what Gilbert’s visions of creativity, Creative Sorcery, and ideas are, you can start creating, she says. But before you jump into a project, there may be some mindset adjustments to make to ensure your process is as smooth and joyous as possible:
One of the first things you must do as you begin your creative journey, says Gilbert, is find a way to manage your fear. She believes fear is omnipresent when we are trying to be creative. This is because fear’s main purpose is to protect us in situations of uncertainty, and, unfortunately, the creative process is full of uncertainty.
(Shortform note: There is a specific condition called “fear of the unknown,” or FOTU, which seems to be the type of fear Gilbert talks about here. The anxiety generated by fear of the unknown may be the scientific explanation for why we pull away from creative projects: When we’re burdened by worry about how a project might turn out, the easiest choice is often just to drop the project. FOTU may underpin all human anxiety and neuroticism—mental events that can make it impossible to simply function in daily life.)
To deal with your fear gracefully, Gilbert recommends making space alongside your creativity for your fear, so that they can comfortably coexist. Treat fear as a friend.
(Shortform note: Gilbert recommends making space for your fear, but doesn’t offer specific suggestions on how to do this. One option may be to practice mindfulness. Mindfulness allows you to accept what is going on in your mind and body rather than struggle with it. It’s a way to achieve a clarity of vision that allows you to accept your fears and let them be.)
As you approach a project, Gilbert also stresses that your enjoyment of the creative journey should be your only focus. Let go of any goals or desired outcomes and prioritize the process.
According to Gilbert, if you create to receive external validation or to achieve something particular, you make your creativity contingent upon forces outside of your control. You’re much more likely to give up your pursuit, then, if you don’t achieve your goals.
Approaching All of Life as a Journey
Gilbert’s notion that we should only enjoy the creative process and not hope for even some small form of external validation or achievement can seem unrealistic. Even the most high-minded creator surely longs for some praise or acknowledgment of their work, right?
Yet cultural commentators agree with Gilbert: Focus on the journey of life, not on the attainment of external displays of success and value. Columnist David Brooks argues that striving to accrue societally-endorsed markers of achievement—job titles, degrees from prestigious universities, accolades—only leaves you with a feeling of emptiness when they’ve all been obtained. Brooks instead suggests you embark on a lifelong quest for connection and meaning.
Gilbert also specifically advises against being creative to earn a living. Practically speaking, she says, creative work can rarely pay bills. Relying on your creative pursuits to keep you afloat may leave you in dire financial straits, which may force you to give up your creative work altogether.
(Shortform note: The (incorrect, according to Gilbert) belief that our creativity should support us financially has only come about relatively recently. For most of history, creators—especially artists—had jobs that had nothing to do with their creative work. Some held jobs that were entirely unrelated to their creative work (like repair jobs), some used creative skills for commercial purposes (a writer might have worked for an advertising agency), and others still worked in fields that they could mine for their creative work (like working for the NYC subway). There is thus a historical precedent for creators supporting themselves other than through their creative work.)
Finally, when your first idea visits you, work with it, insists Gilbert. Don’t fret over the idea, fight with it, or put it off (which are all common responses). Think of your idea as a human creative partner, and treat it with dignity and respect.
Gilbert says that in practice, this might mean getting more rest, so you’re more alert, and setting aside uninterrupted time to work with the idea, so you’re more productive. It also might mean building a healthy mindset toward your process: appreciating the journey, rather than worrying about the outcome, and allowing yourself moments of satisfaction when something has turned out well.
Other Ways to Cooperate With Your Ideas
Gilbert advises you to cooperate more effectively with your ideas by resting, increasing your productivity, and building a healthy mindset. But these suggestions may not be realistic for everyone. For instance, people with busy careers or children may not have the time to rest more or become more productive. Further, changing your mindset isn’t a quick fix; it can take time and hard work.
Daniel Pink’s Drive offers alternative ways to effectively cooperate with ideas. Pink suggests that developing intrinsic motivation, the urge to do something because you want to, not because you might receive external validation, is the key to accomplishing high-quality creative work—in other words, cooperating with an idea.
Intrinsic motivation can form when you have autonomy over what you’re doing, the opportunity for mastery or improvement, and a solid purpose—a “why.” To cooperate with an idea, therefore, ensure that you control how you execute it, can learn and grow from the idea, and feel a strong sense of purpose in the pursuit of this idea.
Having embarked on a creative journey, you’re bound to encounter creative obstacles, asserts Gilbert. She describes ways you can cope with them gracefully:
First, Gilbert claims that no matter what creative pursuit you take on, there will always be attending annoyances. A circus performer, for instance, must contend with physical danger. A bird watcher must deal with the reasonable chance of not seeing any birds. A world traveler must cope with jet lag.
Instead of railing against or trying to avoid pain points, view them as equally integral to your job as the high points, says Gilbert. Developing an ability to cope with irritants and unpleasantness is as much a part of your job as a creator as actually creating.
Meditation Can Help Cope With Difficulties
Gilbert suggests viewing irritation as part of your job as a creator, but she doesn’t offer concrete suggestions on how to develop that perspective. This is where meditation may help: Some meditations help you see difficult thoughts and life experiences as waves in a broader sea of life. In meditation, you learn how to avoid clinging to these negative thoughts or feelings. Instead, you let them pass through your mind without staying there and becoming a mental burden.
Meditation also teaches you that you can’t stop negative thoughts or feelings from happening. You can’t prevent anger or irritation from arising when a creative project isn’t going your way, for instance. But you can change how you relate to those thoughts and whether or not you allow them to affect your attitude or your engagement with your work.
According to Gilbert, one of the greatest mental obstacles to creativity is perfectionism. She believes that no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to attain perfection: There will always be a way someone can find your work lacking. It’s therefore pointless to strive for perfection and better just to create something imperfect and put it into the world.
To Gilbert, perfectionism is a nefarious psychological ailment because it appears to be a good thing: You seem to simply be holding yourself to a high standard. But in reality, perfectionism is a manifestation of the fear of not being worthy. You don’t believe that you deserve to exist as you are and therefore put the onus on your work to earn you that right by being perfect.
If you let it, says Gilbert, perfectionism can stop a project dead in its tracks or prevent you from even starting it for fear it won’t be perfect, and that is the worst possible way to honor an idea.
Brené Brown’s Take on Perfectionism
Brené Brown discusses perfectionism at length in her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, diving more deeply than Gilbert into the psychological underpinning of perfectionism.
Brown states, like Gilbert, that perfectionism is founded on the belief that you aren’t inherently good enough. But Brown goes on to claim that perfectionism isn’t just a way to earn your right to exist, it’s also a way to control how others perceive you. Perfectionists don’t want to be seen as different or aberrant, so they work extra hard to project normalcy and perfection. This kicks off a vicious cycle: Because you will never succeed in appearing perfect all the time, you blame and shame yourself for not conforming. This shame leads you to try even harder to be perfect, which you, again, cannot succeed at. Perfectionism thus negatively impacts your life in every way.
Brown agrees with Gilbert that ultimately, striving for perfection is pointless, and she recommends that you be compassionate with yourself to fight perfectionism. Don’t try to hide your imperfections or punish yourself for having them. Instead, embrace them through, for instance, positive self-talk.
Gilbert writes that a final mental challenge many creators face is the input and feelings of others about their work. Others will inevitably form opinions of and try to categorize your work, but you must not let those opinions or labels affect how or what you create. The need to categorize and label is an inherent human trait. You cannot change that and you cannot fight off every label or opinion others try to assign to you, writes Gilbert. All you can do is to make what you want to make. Everything that comes after is out of your hands.
(Shortform note: The impulse to label and categorize people, concepts, and things is innate to humans, as Gilbert suggests. What’s more, when you’re assigned a trait, others will come to see you as having more of that trait than you did before the assignation. Similarly, you will become less associated with a different trait. For instance, if you’re categorized as “avant-garde,” you’ll be seen as more avant-garde than you were before, and also less, for example, “classical.” Gilbert is therefore right to caution against letting others’ labels define you. If you let labels determine how you see yourself, you cede your right to create what you want to those labels—labels which will only become more restrictive over time.)
Now that you can create effectively and overcome barriers, Gilbert recommends setting up a fulfilling, ongoing creative practice. She describes several ways to do this:
The first way to stay creative indefinitely is to be willing to hunt for creative time, says Gilbert. Throughout history, creators have never had enough time to be creative. To cope with this dearth of resources, Gilbert advises thinking outside the box about when you can squeeze in an hour or half-hour for your work. You can accomplish a lot in “between times:” during lunch, before bed, on your commute.
(Shortform note: Gilbert’s advice to hunt for snippets of creative time isn’t the only approach out there to effective time management. In The 5 AM Club Robin Sharma proposes an alternative approach to maximizing your potential each day: Sharma suggests you firmly claim the hour between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. for yourself. This is what he calls the “Victory Hour,” a time before others have risen and when your responsibilities have not yet come crashing down on you. Sharma suggests specific activities to do in your Victory Hour (exercise, reflect, and grow), but you could seize the Victory Hour for your creative work.)
To stay creative over months and years, Gilbert also advocates a policy of gentle inquisitiveness about everything. This lets you contact Creative Sorcery and reignite your creative flame at times when your inspiration inevitably falters.
As stated in Chapter 2, Creative Sorcery is at all times leaving clues to assist you in your creative work. Gilbert believes that when you adopt a policy of inquisitiveness, you’re more likely to notice and follow these clues. When followed, they can eventually lead you to a new creative pursuit.
How Inquisitiveness Fuels Creativity
Gilbert argues that by being inquisitive, you notice more clues Creative Sorcery leaves you. But you could also view this phenomenon from a rational standpoint. If you’re inquisitive—in other words, pay attention to the world around you—you’re more likely to notice interesting things that can inspire you. Paying attention also leads to improved memory function, meaning you remember details that can come into play in your creative work. Furthermore, you build your capacity for patience when you pay attention, which in turn fosters contemplativeness, an attitude that’s helpful in creative work.
Therefore, Creative Sorcery doesn’t have to be seen as a guide that leads you to inspiration. Just by noticing, you can inspire yourself.
As a long-term creator, writes Gilbert, learn how to reframe all your work, and in particular your creative misses, as “interesting.” All creative output, no matter how beloved or reviled, can be seen through a certain lens as “interesting” and educative.
Gilbert notes that a mindset that frames everything as “interesting” encourages you to wonder what can be improved. A “good vs. bad” mindset, conversely, doesn’t encourage growth. It instead encourages giving up if you produce “bad” work.
Cult Films: The Ultimate “Interesting” Creative Work
Gilbert stresses the importance of framing your work as “interesting,” rather than as “good” or “bad.” For examples of this reframing in our culture, we can look to cult films. Cult films often were not well received initially but garnered a following in subsequent years because there is something in them that piques audiences’ interest. Plan 9 From Outer Space and The Rocky Horror Picture Show are iconic examples of such films: The Rocky Horror Picture Show in particular piqued the interest of LGBT communities at a time when gay rights were becoming an important political and cultural topic.
Seeing all creative work as “interesting” rather than “good” or “bad” is thus not an impossibly high-minded perspective to take. It’s a view we as a society take all the time toward the creations of others.
Gilbert’s final recommendation for being creative in the long term is to never view your creativity or your creative output as sacred. Nothing you make is ever final or perfect or a “crowning achievement,” writes Gilbert. You may well create something far superior in the future, or you may never create anything quite as good ever again. It doesn’t matter either way, as long as you continue to enjoy the process.
(Shortform note: Avoiding seeing your work as sacred is a good habit that can trickle down into your practical creative decisions. The concept of “killing your darling” is an example of an everyday application of eschewing sacredness: When creating, we can feel that we have made a “darling,” a piece of a larger work that we feel is particularly clever. However, there may come a time when you have to eliminate, or kill, that darling in service of the greater work. For instance, when writing a novel, you may write a scene that you particularly love, but that ultimately doesn’t serve the wider plot. If you, as Gilbert suggests, refrain from seeing that piece as “sacred,” it will be much easier to cut it.)
Big Magic is a guide to leading a more fulfilled life by making creativity, in any guise that suits you, a part of your daily existence. Elizabeth Gilbert provides advice and thoughts on the creative process, which she sees as a way to access an unseen, transcendent force of creative energy. Gilbert also explores how to effectively incorporate creativity into your life in a way that is enjoyable and sustainable. She offers tools to make you a more resilient and committed creator, able to weather the storms of a creative life with grace and ease.
This book is not about how to attain a creative career or achieve success as a creative. It is, rather, a spiritual treatment of how creativity can enhance your life by making you more attuned and receptive to beauty and joy.
Elizabeth Gilbert is a bestselling author. Her first published work was a short story collection, Pilgrims (1997), which was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway award. She followed this with a novel, Stern Men (2000); and a work of nonfiction, The Last American Man (2002), which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. During her early career, she also worked as a journalist for Spin, GQ, and The New York Times magazine.
Gilbert became a household name when her best-selling memoir, Eat Pray Love, was published in 2006. In it, Gilbert recounts her post-divorce journey to Italy, India, and Indonesia to make sense of her life. Eat Pray Love sold over 10 million copies globally and was adapted into a film starring Julia Roberts in 2010. One critic later would describe the mania over Eat Pray Love as “Gilbert fever.” In 2008, TIME listed Gilbert as one of its 100 most influential people.
Some critics of Gilbert’s felt that Eat Pray Love marked a decline in her career. They saw her smash-hit memoir as being self-involved and insubstantial and a step down from her more serious journalistic work.
After Eat Pray Love, Gilbert published Committed in 2010, which chronicles her love affair-turned-marriage with a Brazilian man she met in Indonesia (about whom she first wrote in Eat Pray Love). In 2013, she published The Signature of All Things, a novel about a 19th-century female botanist’s around-the-world adventures. She followed this up with Big Magic in 2015, and, in 2019, City of Girls, a novel that follows a young woman arriving on the New York theater scene in the 1940s.
Connect with Elizabeth Gilbert:
Publisher: Penguin Books USA
Big Magic was published in 2015 by Penguin, an imprint of Penguin Random House. It was Gilbert’s fifth book overall but her first book that falls within the self-improvement and self-help category.
Gilbert based Big Magic on two TED Talks she gave in 2009 and 2014. In her first, entitled “Your elusive creative genius,” she presents some of her ideas around genius and the irrationality of the creative process. The second, “Success, failure and the drive to keep creating,” revolves around sticking with a creative pursuit through both success and failure.
On the broad spectrum of books on creativity, Big Magic falls closer to the end dealing with creativity’s links to spirituality and faith than to the end dealing with creative productivity and success. It thus has more in common with Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, which approaches creativity as a way to self-actualize, than with Ed Catmull’s Creativity Inc., which provides actionable advice on how to build a creative team.
Big Magic was a New York Times bestseller. While not as influential as Eat Pray Love, it helped position Gilbert as not just an author but also a self-help guru (particularly for women). In 2015, she appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to discuss Big Magic. She now appears on podcasts, in YouTube series, and even at spirituality and psychology conferences to discuss creativity and spirituality.
Gilbert continues to expand her creative identity and influence. In 2020, she founded the Onward Book Club on Instagram, in which she speaks with Black female writers about their books.
Big Magic received mixed reviews. Some readers felt its ideas were sound, inspiring, and worthy of implementation. Others felt the book was insubstantial, lacking in concrete actionables, and too fluffy to motivate creativity over the long run. Negative critics also thought the book as a whole was Gilbert-centric: that it provided recommendations that worked for Gilbert but might not work for everyone.
Furthermore, some readers struggled with Gilbert’s belief in magic that underpins much of the book. Her perspective on creativity is rooted in mysticism rather than science, and most of her views are unprovable and must be taken at face value. Finally, some objected to the “cutesy” expressions of how creativity worked: for instance, the presentation of an idea as an entity that has agency and can leave you if you don’t pay enough attention to it.
Gilbert tackles the concept of creativity from six different angles in Big Magic, each of which has its own chapter: courage, enchantment, permission, persistence, trust, and divinity. However, the discussions in each chapter are only loosely linked to the title: For instance, the chapter on courage mainly discusses fear and coping with it.
The book reads more like a collection of Gilbert’s musings and stories on a particular aspect of creativity than as a set of guidelines. In the chapter about enchantment, for instance, Gilbert relays an anecdote about how an idea first visited her before transferring to the mind of author Ann Patchett as almost the exact same idea. This anecdote illustrates how Gilbert envisions ideas working (that they can move from person to person), but there are no concrete actions or recommendations to be drawn from it.
This loose structure and indirect approach reflect Gilbert’s own views on and approach to creativity. She conveys in her book that creativity involves a high degree of “magic”: in other words, irrational, unexplainable, possibly supernatural input. To present such ideas on creativity in a highly structured and methodical way with many actionables would not only be difficult, but it would also somewhat defeat the purpose of the book itself.
Overall, Gilbert’s aim seems to be to inspire and catalyze readers using her own experiences and learning, not to provide concrete tips or suggestions.
Rather than centering each chapter in this guide around a concept, our chapters each discuss a step of the creative process. This allows you to follow approximately chronological advice as you embark on your creative explorations.
Here’s what we’ll discuss in each chapter:
Our commentary in this guide predominantly serves three main goals:
In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert explores what it means to live a creative life and the benefits of a creative existence. In this guide, we’ll discuss Gilbert’s ideas on:
In this chapter, we’ll introduce Gilbert’s key terminology and unique definitions surrounding creativity, which we’ll use throughout the guide. We’ll first describe Gilbert’s vision of creativity, then introduce the concept of Creative Sorcery, the cosmic force that can visit you when you are creating. We’ll end by discussing two key ways Creative Sorcery might come to you: via ideas and through your genius.
Gilbert defines a creative life as the search for and excavation of universe-endowed gifts that are within us, hidden from our view. Our gifts are the talents, interests, and desires that make us us. You can have a gift for anything—stargazing, website design, or mushroom hunting, for instance—not just a traditionally artistic pursuit, like painting, writing, or performing.
In practice, Gilbert’s idea of searching for a gift and becoming creative might look something like this: All your life, you’ve felt that you get along well with animals. You’re not sure why, but it seems as though you can understand them better than other people can. Finally, after years of feeling this way, you decide to test out your hunch by volunteering at your local animal shelter. To your delight, you find that the shelter animals do indeed respond well to you. You are great at training them, playing with them, and bonding with them. Injured or abused animals grow healthier under your care. You have just excavated a creative gift that has always lived inside you, but which you never before searched for.
Notice that Gilbert does not define creativity as a professional pursuit or even as the main goal or mission of one’s life. It’s simply a commitment to exploring your depths and bringing to light the powers that exist within you.
Other Definitions of Creativity
Gilbert’s conception of creativity for this book is unique, perhaps because seasoned creators develop idiosyncratic definitions of this concept. If Gilbert’s definition doesn’t fully resonate with you, fellow writer Amy Tan has her own definition, which she presented in a popular TED Talk. Tan feels her creativity is the product of her upbringing, the big questions that preoccupy and interest her, and her quest to derive meaning from the world.
Steve Jobs’s definition of creativity was different still: He said that creativity was just a matter of forming novel connections. For Jobs, magic and mysticism figured far less into creativity than for Tan and Gilbert.
Finally, Jazz musician Charles Mingus defined creativity similarly to Jobs in that he didn’t romanticize the creative process. Mingus felt that creativity was found in striving for simplicity, not uniqueness or newness. Being able to execute something simply and elegantly was, for him, the truest expression of creativity.
As a creator, you may wish to come up with a definition of creativity that most resonates in your life.
According to Gilbert, the central reason to develop your creativity is to come in touch with what she calls “Big Magic,” or, as we’ll call it moving forward, Creative Sorcery. In Gilbert’s view, Creative Sorcery is a mystical or spiritual force of creativity. This force is bigger than us and cannot be explained scientifically or proven empirically. It is an eternal cosmic entity that creatives must have faith in.
For Gilbert, coming into contact with Creative Sorcery is a transcendent experience. Touching Creative Sorcery lets you be moved by and interact with something greater than yourself. This communion with a higher creative energy constitutes the chief goal of Gilbert’s life.
Other Forms of Spiritual Enlightenment
Gilbert’s vision of touching Creative Sorcery has a lot in common with the search for spiritual enlightenment which humans all around the world and in all faith traditions seek out, either to stimulate creativity or to experience more general spiritual relief. Sufi Muslims, for example, perform a whirling dance to escape the confines of their egos, commune with God, and become spiritually perfect.
Outside of faith, some use mind-altering drugs to come into contact with something bigger than themselves and even to enhance their creativity. Research has shown that psychoactive substances don’t activate creativity but do make drug-takers more sensitive and open to stimuli, which can indirectly lead to greater creativity.
Gilbert states that Creative Sorcery is trying at all times to contact humans to help them bring their creativity into the world. One way Creative Sorcery communicates with humans is through ideas. Gilbert envisions ideas as living entities, capable of self-sustained activity. Ideas move around space, seeking humans who will take them on and give them life.
According to Gilbert, humans do not give rise to ideas: Ideas exist independently of us. This means that ideas are free to come and go as they please. You may find yourself visited by an idea and then deserted by it.
The Neurological Explanation for Ideas
Gilbert’s description of what ideas are and how they operate comes from a magical perspective. Science, meanwhile, has a different explanation.
According to researchers at the University of Haifa, creative ideas come into existence when two separate and possibly opposing brain networks are activated. These networks are the “associative” region and the “conservative” region. The associative region seems to be linked to originality, while the conservative region may be associated with adhering to social norms and rules. Thus, it seems that when both originality and an awareness of social regulations come together, the best ideas are produced.
This neurological explanation for ideation is at odds with Gilbert’s belief that humans don’t give rise to ideas and that they “visit” us; instead, it seems they’re formed, and stay, within us.
Most of us are typically too preoccupied, unhappy, or stressed out to be open to receiving an idea, writes Gilbert. But when you’re relaxed enough, ideas can slip into your psyche. The experience of receiving an idea is a pleasant, physical one, akin to falling in love or beholding a natural wonder, and the idea will occupy your thoughts until you choose to act on it or not.
(Shortform note: As Gilbert suggests, there appears to be a negative correlation between stress and creativity. Studies have shown that stress renders you less cognitively flexible and able to use your working memory (which the brain draws on during the creative process). In addition, Gilbert’s assertion that receiving an idea feels good is also backed up by science: Dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with feelings of pleasure, is required to be creative. The more dopamine is released, the greater our creativity.)
Ideas sometimes even visit two people at once to be sure they are taken on by a host, claims Gilbert. This explains the phenomenon of multiple discoveries, when two independently operating scientists, entrepreneurs, or companies make the same discovery at the same time. In such cases, the idea, says Gilbert, is trying to increase its chances of being taken up.
The Science of Multiple Discoveries
While Gilbert claims that sentient ideas visiting multiple people are responsible for multiple discoveries, there is also a scientific explanation for this phenomenon, in which creators—in this context, usually inventors—make the same breakthrough simultaneously.
Inventors don’t create in a vacuum: They instead draw upon an existing body of research, adding small breakthroughs of their own that other inventors can then draw upon. Thomas Edison, for instance, didn’t outright invent the light bulb. Instead, he incorporated a new filament that worked better than the material used by other inventors working on the light bulb. Because inventors work incrementally, using the same existing body of knowledge, they often make final critical discoveries at the same time.
While this explanation is scientific, it, like Gilbert’s vision of sentient ideas that come to humans, shifts responsibility for full ideation away from the individual. It shows that individuals don’t come up with brilliant ideas on their own—they only come up with the final piece of an idea on their own.
For Gilbert, your genius is another manifestation of Creative Sorcery: It’s an external creative spirit that can help you as you work. Gilbert draws on the Roman and Greek conception of genius to craft this definition. For ancient thinkers, a genius was a creative imp or “daemon” that resided in your house. That imp would sometimes appear to assist you in your pursuits.
Gilbert emphasizes that your genius is not a part of you. It is, rather, an outside entity that sometimes visits you. In this regard, a genius is similar to ideas. Yet, while there are many ideas floating around the universe, you only have one genius.
Drawing on Ancient Conceptions of “Genius”
The personal, singular, visiting “daemon” of genius to which Gilbert refers here has classically been called a eudaemon. Both Gilbert’s genius and the Ancient Greeks’ eudaemon promote personal improvement. What’s more, just as Gilbert argues we each only have one genius, in the ancient world people believed that children were assigned a single, personal daemon at birth, which represented their best possible selves.
Yet Gilbert’s genius differs from the eudaemon in subtle ways. While Gilbert’s conception of the genius helps you be a stronger creative specifically, the eudaemon helps you be a better person in general. Additionally, unlike Gilbert’s genius, which appears whenever it wants, the eudaemon appeared at opportune times to guide the person’s choices. Socrates, for instance, felt his eudaemon made itself known when he was making difficult decisions and dissuaded him from making the wrong choice.
Gilbert adds that when your genius is helping, your creative process becomes more fluid. You might be struggling to make progress on an idea and then suddenly realize you’ve just spent hours fully and blissfully immersed in your work—that was your genius lending a hand. But your genius is not going to be reliably present when you’re working on a project. It comes and goes as it pleases, claims Gilbert.
Genius and the Concept of Flow
Gilbert’s visits from your genius that leave you absorbed in your work have a lot in common with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow, outlined in his book of the same name. Flow is a state of concentrated, purpose-driven work that is enjoyable and immersive.
But unlike Gilbert, who says you have to wait for your genius to appear, Csikszentmihalyi proposes active ways to achieve a flow state. First, set a specific, appealing aim that you can get lost in and a way to measure progress toward it. Next, concentrate on working towards your aim, keeping an eye out for opportunities for new approaches and learning. Finally, keep challenging yourself to avoid complacency and boredom, which inhibit flow.
Define creativity for yourself.
Ignoring Gilbert’s definition of creative work for the moment, how would you define creativity? What in your life do you consider to be a creative pursuit? Explain your answer.
Do you agree with all of or parts of Gilbert’s definitions of creativity, Creative Sorcery, ideas, and genius? If so, describe what resonates for you and why. If not, how would you frame or describe these processes differently?
Think of a current hobby that you don’t consider to be “creative.” Keeping in mind Gilbert’s definition of creativity (the search for and excavation of universe-endowed gifts that are within us), how might you reframe this activity as being a creative endeavor? (For instance, you might now consider your hobby of fixing old trucks as creative as it allows you to use your gift for mechanics.)
Going forward, what new creative activity might you choose to pick up and why? (Remember that in Gilbert’s view, anything can be creative.)
In the last chapter, we defined important terms Gilbert uses—creativity, Creative Sorcery, ideas, and genius—and described how humans can interact with ideas and their geniuses. In this chapter, we’ll dig into your relationship with Creative Sorcery. As we’ll discover, how you view and choose to work with Creative Sorcery is critical. You can engage with it in a way that makes your creative process fraught and difficult, or you can engage with it in a way that makes your creative process joyful and smooth.
Specifically, we’ll discuss four keys to a good relationship with your creativity and Creative Sorcery:
Let’s explore each key in detail.
Gilbert stresses first that Creative Sorcery naturally seeks out relationships with all humans. You don’t need to be selected by the universe to receive visitations from ideas or your genius. This is because, according to Gilbert, you and all humans were born with the ability to create and be creative. Forty thousand years ago, our ancestors first executed what could today be classified as “art.” And since then, humans have been making, building, and creating. The push to create is part of our DNA.
(Shortform note: There are additional examples of ancient art beyond the forty-thousand-year-old cave paintings in Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc in France to which Gilbert is likely referring: ostrich eggshell carvings in Africa, covering bodies decoratively in ochre, and the creation of sophisticated and aesthetically pleasing tools 2.5 million years ago. This evidence all supports Gilbert’s notion that humans can’t help but be creative—perhaps even more so than she envisioned.)
Because of your innate creativity, Gilbert says Creative Sorcery sees your mind as fertile terrain to plant in and will never hold back ideas or your genius. You, therefore, have always had and will always have the tools to create—your creativity and Creative Sorcery—at your disposal.
Why Humans Like Being Creative
Gilbert suggests that Creative Sorcery’s attraction to us is the reason for our creativity. An alternative, scientific explanation for humans’ proclivity toward creativity is that having new ideas triggers the body’s reward system. Having an idea feels pleasurable in the same way that good food, drugs, and sex are pleasurable. As we discussed in commentary on Chapter 1, this is the neurotransmitter dopamine working its way through our brains. Because of this pleasurable feeling, we’re enticed to keep having new ideas.
It also seems that some gain more pleasure from ideas than others. These are the creators who become immersed in or “addicted” to their creative pursuits. They keep working because they desperately want to re-experience that feeling of pleasure that comes with the next big idea. Framed through Gilbert’s lens of Creative Sorcery, these people might enjoy being touched by Creative Sorcery more than others and try to commune with it more often.
As a creative, Gilbert says, take the understanding of your innate relationship with Creative Sorcery a step further by developing joyous faith in Creative Sorcery. Joyous faith is the conviction that Creative Sorcery loves to work with humans, is at all times trying to help and communicate with them, and will never voluntarily abandon them. This faith gives rise to feelings of joy, ease, and lightness around your creative work, writes Gilbert.
(Shortform note: While Gilbert says that joyous faith makes your creative process more pleasant, a broader religious or spiritual faith can similarly make your whole life more enjoyable. Religion imbues one’s life with a sense of purpose and meaning. It also offers moral guidance and opportunity for socialization and community formation, which can combat feelings of isolation. Having some form of faith, whether it be limited to your creativity or not, can thus bring a sense of ease and joy to your life, as Gilbert suggests.)
According to Gilbert, when you have joyous faith, you believe that Creative Sorcery is always trying to leave clues to help you in your creative pursuit (in addition to sending you ideas and visits from your genius). All you need to do is look out for these clues.
Gilbert writes that clues can take the form of coincidences, items of beauty, dreams, déjà vu, and other strange occurrences that interrupt usual daily life. Therefore, by adopting joyous faith, everything in life can be viewed as Creative Sorcery desperately trying to assist you.
A clue left for you by Creative Sorcery could look something like this: You’re traveling by bus in a foreign country and accidentally get off at the wrong stop on your way to an attraction. You wander down empty streets with no idea of where you’re going or how to get back home. Suddenly, at the end of a street, you come upon a magnificent ancient structure. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen and immediately makes you think of a panel of your graphic novel about the ancient world you can’t quite get right. You realize this structure is the ideal inspiration for that panel and snap a picture so you can recreate it in your novel. This apparent accident was, seen through a lens of joyous faith, Creative Sorcery leaving you a clue.
Distinguishing Signs From Coincidences
Gilbert suggests that Creative Sorcery is always trying to find ways to intervene in your life to help you be more creative. An argument could be made, though, that seeing “signs” wherever you go is a passive and potentially dangerous way to go through life. When is a repeat sighting of a blue jay, for instance, just a coincidence, and when is it the universe trying to give you the brilliant name for your latest play? And is it ever appropriate to wait for a clue from Creative Sorcery instead of actively seeking out projects and inspiration yourself?
Sociologist and author Martha Beck has a three-perspective approach that helps her discern between ordinary coincidence and intervention from a higher life force. When she encounters a potential sign, she views it:
First, as a statistician, asking herself if it’s possible it’s just a coincidence
Next, as a detective, asking herself if there’s a logical explanation for the sign
Finally, as a seeker, asking herself if the universe is trying to tell her something
If you’re skeptical that Creative Sorcery is always leaving clues for you, you could take this three-perspective approach to vet each possible clue and be sure that you’re not seeing signs where there aren’t any.
Gilbert writes that you can further strengthen your relationship with Creative Sorcery by understanding it as one of mutual benefit. You need Creative Sorcery to inspire you, and Creative Sorcery needs you to manifest that inspiration.
This explains why Creative Sorcery is always trying to find ways to help you, adds Gilbert. It needs you to bring ideas to life and will make every effort to make your work easier. It also helps explain Creative Sorcery’s innate benevolence towards humans. Creative Sorcery is not an enemy, but rather a friend who has a vested interest in your creative endeavors.
Pronoia as a Version of Faith in Your Relationship to Creative Sorcery
Gilbert’s belief that Creative Sorcery needs you and wants you to do well is rooted in a mystical perspective, but also contains echoes of the somewhat more mainstream term “pronoia.” Experience designer Amy Segreti defines pronoia as a conviction that the universe wants you to succeed. According to Segreti, pronoia makes you pay closer attention to the world because you know you will find beauty and happiness in it. By paying closer attention, you derive more meaning and learn from what you see.
You can cultivate pronoia in your own life by:
Not taking things personally: Taking things personally feeds hyper-sensitivity, which puts you on the lookout for negative, rather than positive, input about yourself.
Declining to gossip and speak negatively about others: When you engage in negative talk about others, you’re more likely to believe they’re also speaking negatively about you. This stokes paranoia, rather than pronoia.
Cultivating optimism that good things are about to happen in your life: When you believe something great is just around the corner, you seek out those great things and are more likely to then find them.
Gilbert recommends approaching your creativity and Creative Sorcery with a playful, flexible, and mischievous attitude to have the most enjoyable creative experience. Think about what you want to do and how you can make it happen. Be wary of perceptions of finality or impasse. Usually, blocks can be overcome or reframed using playfulness and out-of-the-box thinking.
On the same token, says Gilbert, sticking to abstract principles, morals, and self-imposed rules will not invite Creative Sorcery into your life. Instead, Creative Sorcery will see you as not being open to its influence and will keep its distance. In a rule-based approach to Creative Sorcery, you may not violate any of your “creative morals,” but you won’t generate the work you want to generate and the process will be less fun, claims Gilbert.
Maintaining Mental Flexibility Every Day
Gilbert recommends staying playful and flexible and avoiding imposing rules on your creativity, but she doesn’t propose specific ways to do this. There are shifts you can make in your daily life, though, to encourage mental flexibility. By surprising your mind with new information every day, you keep it off-balance and prevent potentially unhelpful patterns of thought from solidifying. You may also shake your mind out of a creative block that otherwise felt final.
Here are some shifts to try:
Change up your daily routine. Just switching around the normal sequence of your bathroom routine or taking a different route to work forces your mind to stay alert and notice new things.
Challenge your own beliefs regularly. Read news from a fresh source. Consume television, documentaries, films, theater, and art that you wouldn’t normally and that may represent views that are different from yours. Always look for new ways of seeing the world so that your ideas and beliefs don’t become rigid.
Choose the hard or old-fashioned way. Technology has made our lives so easy that we take much of our daily existence (such as communication, navigation, and administration) for granted. Try doing something the “old-fashioned” way every day. This will force you out of your comfort zone and will stimulate new thinking and ways of seeing the world.
For the sake of comparison, here is both a principle-driven and a playful approach to creativity in action:
Your creative interests lie in politics, and you are trying to organize a local political group. You publicize this group but in the end, only a handful of people show up for the first meeting. Having a principle-based attitude might lead you to say: “So be it. We will forge ahead with only three people, even though such a small group won’t make much of an impact.”
A playful, flexible attitude might lead you to instead say: “No one has shown up… Firstly, that means more doughnuts for me! Secondly, I wonder what I can do to excite others about this? Perhaps instead of holding this meeting in the morning, I can hold it at night at my friend’s karaoke bar. That way, people will unwind and have fun while I subtly chat them up about this political initiative.”
The above playful and flexible approach eschews high-mindedness (“If no one comes, that means no one is interested”) in favor of actually getting something done (“I can twist this situation so that others are more motivated to show up”). It is much more likely to succeed and be fun for everyone involved.
Gilbert warns against the common tendency to see creativity as necessitating or being facilitated by suffering. This view has been promulgated, particularly in the West, by Christianity and 18th and 19th century German Romanticism, both of which put a premium on agony. The central idea of these philosophies is that you cannot create great work without suffering for it.
(Shortform note: Gilbert is correct in suggesting that German Romanticism is partly to blame for our associating pain with creativity. German Romanticism was an artistic and philosophical movement centered around the concept of “Sturm und Drang,” “storm and stress.” For the romantics, human individualism and extreme emotions were both needed to create art and the only worthy subjects of that art. With its emphasis on turbulence and passion, German Romanticism didn’t last long as a movement—in much the same way that a turbulent relationship with Creative Sorcery likely won’t be a lasting one.)
Gilbert recognizes that suffering is often unavoidable and that many creators suffer in spite of their desire to be healthy and happy. But she maintains that suffering does not spawn creativity and believes the opposite is true: that suffering is an obstacle to creativity.
(Shortform note: Gilbert rejects the belief that suffering can be a positive creative force. But research has shown that in some cases, trauma can cause a person to embark on a journey of spiritual growth, which could arguably be channeled positively into a creative pursuit. Still, this can coexist with Gilbert’s belief: While you should not cause yourself suffering because you feel it necessary to be a good creator (Gilbert’s stance), if you are caused to suffer—as all of us are at some point in our lives—you can use that experience to grow and become a sager and more compassionate creative.)
Let’s discuss three specific reasons why suffering should not be seen as intrinsically linked to creativity.
The first reason why Gilbert wants to dispel the notion that suffering is necessary for creativity is that “tortured artists” are allowed to get away with bad behavior and avoid personal growth. Viewing yourself as a suffering artist gives you license to do things other people would consider selfish: not earn enough money to support yourself, neglect your friends and family, be rude or dismissive toward others, destroy your living space and possessions, and so on.
While such behavior may feel good at the time, you ultimately only harm yourself, says Gilbert: You deny yourself the opportunity to improve and grow as a human and stay stuck in childish and self-destructive cycles that limit your potential.
Tortured Artists and the Victim Mentality
Gilbert’s description of being a “tortured artist” who refuses to grow is similar to having a victim mentality. Those with a victim mentality don’t take responsibility for their lives and act as if they were helpless to improve themselves. This self-sabotaging behavior limits their potential to succeed and be happy.
Some of the ways to escape a victim mentality may also apply to escaping the “tortured artist” identity:
Be kind to yourself. Negative self-talk, like calling yourself “a loser” or “a failure,” will only make self-improvement seem more pointless. When you are nice to yourself instead, you begin to see yourself as someone who can improve.
Take responsibility for your actions. You may not be able to change how you feel—for instance, miserable because your project isn’t going as planned—but you can decide if you are going to take out that misery on your friend.
Stop blaming others. Opt to see everything in life as an opportunity to gain agency, rather than as a chance to cast blame. Instead of blaming your friend for not inviting you to a fun event, for instance, ask yourself if you could have just invited yourself along. You’ll begin to discover that you have more choice in life than you thought.
The second reason why Gilbert pushes against creativity requiring suffering is that she feels this assertion to be patently untrue. Gilbert sees creativity as arising in spite of suffering, not because of it. In her own experience, anguish makes her less, not more, creative. It keeps ideas and her genius at bay and puts her out of touch with Creative Sorcery.
(Shortform note: Scientific evidence backs up Gilbert’s assertion that suffering inhibits creativity. Depression, a common form of mental suffering, can shrink parts of the brain. This can lead to problems with learning, memory, brain development, and mood. With such impairments, it’s not hard to imagine it being difficult to create.)
In the very worst cases, suffering for creativity can lead to death, writes Gilbert. A too-great number of artists have died tragically as a result of their mental suffering. In such cases, in addition to the horrendous loss of life, the artist’s creativity becomes lost forever, too. Others cannot find joy, solace, or encouragement in the artist’s new works.
(Shortform note: Gilbert writes that many creators suffer so greatly that suicide seems like the only escape left. Even worse, if you earn money as a creative, it can be doubly hard to maintain mental equilibrium. Mental anguish can be compounded by work environments that are unsupportive, low-paying, and high-pressure. Taking a creative job, therefore, may leave you more likely to have a mental or emotional breakdown.)
Think about and discuss the role of faith—creative and non-creative—in your life.
We talk in this chapter about joyous faith in Creative Sorcery. Describe other parts of your life in which you have unconditional faith and why this faith exists. (This doesn’t have to be religious faith and can be quite narrow. It can just be, for instance, faith that difficulties at work will get sorted eventually, or faith that your kids will get their grades up in school without you needing to panic about it or intervene.)
How does that faith impact your life? Does it make things easier or harder for you? Explain your answer.
Now, think about your creative process. How strong is your faith in your creative abilities? Explain your answer.
Describe some ways you might increase your creative faith (by, for instance, adopting a perspective of abundance or stating your identity as a creator out loud).
In the last chapter, we discussed the keys to building a healthy and lasting relationship with Creative Sorcery, which will make your creative process as enjoyable and fulfilling as possible. In this chapter, we’ll move on to discussing the commencement of your creative journey. We’ll cover the mental preparation and mindset adjustments that will set you off on the right foot creatively.
One of the first things you must do as you begin your creative journey, says Gilbert, is find a way to manage your fear. She believes fear is omnipresent when we are trying to be creative. This is because fear’s main purpose is to protect us in situations of uncertainty, and, unfortunately, the creative process is full of uncertainty.
(Shortform note: There is a specific condition called “fear of the unknown,” or FOTU, which seems to be the type of fear Gilbert talks about here. The anxiety generated by fear of the unknown may be the scientific explanation for why we pull away from creative projects: When we’re burdened by worry about how a project might turn out, the easiest choice is often just to drop the project. FOTU may underpin all human anxiety and neuroticism—mental events that can make it impossible to simply function in daily life.)
However, fear is not useful in the creative realm, writes Gilbert. Despite this, she doesn’t advocate ridding yourself of fear entirely. Fear, and its function of keeping us safe in uncertain circumstances, is essential to our daily survival and well-being.
(Shortform note: Gilbert’s view of fear as a life-saving instinct may not reflect the full picture of how fears arise. Some theories suggest that fears develop in several ways and that some don’t keep us alive: Traumatic, albeit non-life-threatening, experiences can spawn fears that don’t serve us. A painful social experience in middle school, for example, can leave you with social anxiety that isolates you as an adult. Also, certain personality characteristics can make us more likely to develop phobias, which don’t actively protect us from real threats. A phobia of needles is unlikely to benefit your survival, for instance.)
To deal gracefully with fear, Gilbert suggests you take the following steps:
(Shortform note: In contrast to what Gilbert recommends here, fear may at times be helpful in your decision-making because it forces you to think through choices prudently and thoroughly. That said, fear shouldn’t be the only reason you make decisions, as being totally led by it can be harmful. For instance, when you can’t learn the full context around a choice, you may make a snap decision purely from a place of fear. You’ll probably end up regretting your decision, as the negative feelings that led you to make it typically decline afterward.)
Tactics to Make Space for Fear
Gilbert recommends acknowledging and making space for your fear but doesn’t offer specific suggestions on how to do this. Here are some concrete tactics to come to terms with fears around creativity:
Practice mindfulness. Mindfulness allows you to accept what is going on in your mind and body rather than struggle with it. It is not a way to learn to approve of something that you don’t like about yourself, but rather a way to achieve a clarity of vision that allows you to accept your fears and let them be.
Label your fear. This gives shape to the fear so that you can see it clearly. You may discover that an amorphous feeling of dread around creativity is actually a fear of what a specific friend might think of you for creating something. Labeling your fear may reduce its potency.
Try to think long term. If the thing you fear comes to pass, will the impact still last a month or two months out? Or would the worst-case scenario merely be a blip in the grand scheme of your life?
Learn. Educate yourself around the thing you fear. Perhaps your fears are based on faulty information about what that thing involves.
As you approach a project, Gilbert also stresses that your enjoyment of the creative journey should be your only focus. Let go of any goals or desired outcomes and prioritize the process.
According to Gilbert, if you create to receive external validation or to achieve something particular, you make your creativity contingent upon forces outside of your control. You’re much more likely to give up your pursuit, then, if you don’t achieve your goals.
Approaching All of Life as a Journey
Gilbert’s notion that we should only enjoy the creative process and not hope for even some small form of external validation or achievement can seem unrealistic. Even the most high-minded creator surely longs for some praise or acknowledgment of their work, right?
Yet cultural commentators agree with Gilbert: Focus on the journey of life, not on the attainment of external displays of success and value. Columnist David Brooks argues that striving to accrue societally-endorsed markers of achievement—job titles, degrees from prestigious universities, accolades—only leaves you with a feeling of emptiness when they’ve all been obtained. Brooks instead suggests you embark on a lifelong quest for connection and meaning.
Gilbert advises specifically against striving for some perceived form of “success.” You ultimately have little control over your creative success, so to avoid anguish and unhappiness, don’t even aim for it.
Success, in whatever shape is common to your particular creative field, is hard to come by because it’s not dependent merely upon your hard work, argues Gilbert. Often, there are creative gatekeepers to success, like publishing companies and funding agencies, which have their own agendas. Plus, success is often simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time.
The Difficulty of Succeeding in the Fine Art World
As Gilbert suggests, “success” is hard to come by in creative industries, often because the game is rigged against creatives and artists. Creatives are often expected to work for free or on a freelance basis and aren’t fairly reimbursed for their efforts by their “creative gatekeepers.”
The world of fine arts, in particular, has long been criticized for its bizarre and unfair practices towards artists. For instance, when a work is sold by a buyer at auction in the US, the buyer profits while the artist doesn’t. Therefore, if a buyer gets a painting for a bargain and the value of the artist’s work rises over years or decades, the buyer can then sell the painting at a far higher price point, keeping the profits all to themselves. An artist looking to “succeed” in such a system—be fairly compensated for their work and earn deserved recognition—might have a very hard time indeed.
Gilbert also advises against being creative to earn a living. Practically speaking, she says, creative work can rarely pay the bills. Relying on your creative pursuits to keep you afloat may leave you in dire financial straits, which may force you to give up your creative work altogether.
(Shortform note: The (incorrect, according to Gilbert) belief that our creativity should support us financially has only come about relatively recently. For most of history, creators—especially artists—had jobs that had nothing to do with their creative work. Some held jobs that were entirely unrelated to their creative work (like repair jobs), some used creative skills for commercial purposes (a writer might have worked for an advertising agency), and others still worked in fields that they could mine for their creative work (like working for the NYC subway). There is thus a historical precedent for creators supporting themselves other than through their creative work.)
Instead of expecting a payoff, Gilbert says that if you derive all your joy from the process of creativity, you’ll be able to stick with your creative work indefinitely. Gilbert suggests framing your creativity as a “vocation,” something you do simply because you want to. This helps rationalize your decision to stick with an activity that may have no external reward.
(Shortform note: According to Gilbert, you should focus on enjoying your creative process as a vocation: something that won’t necessarily earn you money. But not everyone has the time and energy to have a vocation. Most Americans work 44 hours per week and more and more people are holding multiple jobs to get by. It may not be realistic for these people to dedicate time each week to a creative pursuit for no reason other than to bring them joy.)
As you start your creative journey, Gilbert stresses the need to bolster your belief that you’re allowed to create. Your claiming this right to create is not a privilege or form of self-centeredness, says Gilbert. It is, in fact, the opposite: a way to stop thinking about yourself as being different or special or more or less gifted than anyone else. You’re just like everyone else in that we all have the right to use our minds to make things.
Cancel Culture and the Right to Create
Gilbert’s assertion of our inherent right to create seems to bump up against cancel culture. This is a recent phenomenon in which celebrities and prominent creators who have behaved or spoken inappropriately or offensively are called out, and efforts are made to shut down their creative projects. The bedrock belief of cancel culture is that creativity is a privilege, not a right. Therefore by behaving badly, a creator can have their creative privilege taken away. Louis C.K. and J.K. Rowling are examples of prominent “canceled” celebrities.
The effectiveness and fairness of cancel culture are hotly contested. It’s seen negatively as fostering an unsafe environment for creators to put their work into and positively as holding those whose status previously elevated them beyond public scrutiny accountable for their actions. No matter how you see it, cancel culture is likely forcing creators to think deeply about how and when they share their work.
One specific way Gilbert suggests you own your right to create is to verbalize your creative identity. Say out loud how you’ll exercise your creative right: “I am a writer,” “I am a sound designer,” “I am a scuba diver.” Make this proclamation time and time again to remind yourself and the world of your determination to inhabit your creativity.
(Shortform note: There is science to back up Gilbert’s claim that repeatedly verbalizing your right to create helps you to exercise that right. Positive affirmations—phrases that counter negative or unhelpful thoughts—activate areas of the brain associated with positive self-perception. Constantly saying that you are a creator, therefore, helps your brain determine that you really are one.)
Gilbert warns against seeing your ability to create as contingent upon an externally-conferred degree or title. You don’t need an education in your creative field to legitimize your right to create.
Gilbert is particularly wary of Master of Fine Arts degrees. These are typically expensive and don’t guarantee gainful employment after. Many students emerge in debt, and debt is a stressor that saps creativity.
The MFA Debate
The usefulness of MFAs is hotly contested. Like Gilbert, many writers—both those who have MFAs and those who don’t—take passionate stances on these degrees.
Detractors argue that when an MFA becomes an expectation within the publishing industry, talented writers without advanced degrees are pushed to the side, likely to never be published. Additionally, the high cost of such programs prohibits many from applying, meaning the work written in MFAs tends to reflect white, upper- and middle-class voices.
Conversely, you could argue that MFAs offer learning opportunities and connections to other creators and industry figures. They are therefore valuable in that they help writers hone their skills and increase their employability.
The main takeaway from this debate may simply be that despite Gilbert’s warning to stay away from these degrees, every writer should decide for themselves whether or not to seek out an MFA.
Rather than relying on an externally conferred degree to “turn you into” a creative, Gilbert suggests you build your own education using the following approaches:
If you’ve lived at all, then your life can be your education, says Gilbert. No matter your age, you’ve gained a unique perspective and collection of life experiences that can be mined creatively. Thus, rather than relying on an institution to give you resources—such as reading, lectures, and data—from which to create, plumb the depths of your life experience.
(Shortform note: Memoir-writing has become an increasingly popular way to use one’s own experience to be creative, as Gilbert suggests. People from all walks of life use the format to recount their life experiences, and readers seem to love reading the results. For instance, Christie Watson’s memoir, The Language of Kindness: A Nurse’s Story, which is based on the diaries she kept during her 20 years of work as a nurse, sold over 100,000 copies in mere weeks.)
Gilbert stresses that you don’t have to pay for an expensive degree to gain access to master teachers. There are masters all around you: in books, on the internet, in the media, and in exhibits and presentations at public institutions. You just need to look for them and then take it upon yourself to practice what you learn from them.
(Shortform note: Gilbert proposes that you can gain just as much by studying the works of masters as by studying alongside teachers or experts. But this discounts the personalized nature of study with another human. Mentors can add value to your creative journey by conveying information and knowledge, stimulating your professional and personal growth, and offering encouragement when you need it.)
If you know other creatives with the same interest as you, start a “class”—a group—of your own, says Gilbert. You can collectively experience and provide feedback on each other's work and act as a support system to one another, filling the basic functions of a school peer group. Most importantly for Gilbert, as you should do at a formal school, practice your craft. Do the creative work you want to do, and learn from mistakes and successes.
(Shortform note: A workshopping group, like the kind Gilbert describes, can do much more than get your work in front of fresh eyes: It can also help you maintain your creative flow and mental health. These groups can reduce feelings of isolation, doubts around your work, and the emotional turbulence of creative living. More generally, support groups, formal or informal, are critical to human wellbeing. Social support is linked to a decreased risk of mortality and morbidity. So, it might be worth making contact with a support group a top priority of your creative practice and life.)
Learn to create effectively with your fears in hand.
Describe some fears or anxieties you have around creating. (Are you, for instance, afraid of not executing an idea well?) Be as detailed as possible.
Now that you’ve listed some fears, acknowledge those fears by writing down why they may be valid. (Remember, Gilbert doesn’t recommend eradicating fears. She instead advises that you acknowledge them as necessary parts of the creative process.) For instance, if you wrote down “I’m afraid of not executing an idea well,” your validation of that fear might be: “I care about this idea and want to do it justice.”
Next, write down how you can continue to create in spite of that fear. What affirmation can you tell yourself that will allow you to circumvent the fear and keep creating? (Continuing with the example of a fear of not executing an idea well, you might write: “It’s the creative journey, not the destination, that counts. If I enjoy my time on an idea, I can consider that a success.”)
In the last chapter, we discussed how to prepare yourself mentally for your creative journey. In this chapter, we’ll talk about the next step of the journey: responding to an idea in a way that is creatively fruitful.
When an idea comes to you, Gilbert says, there are a number of responses you can give. The most common is to pass on the idea. As previously noted, the idea will then move on to find another host who can take it on. The other response is to say yes, says Gilbert. When you say yes to an idea, you enter into a “contract,” or agreement, with it. You choose to work together and see the idea through to the end, whatever that end looks like.
(Shortform note: Gilbert believes that when you respond in the affirmative to an idea, you must make an agreement with it so that you complete it to the best of your ability. But creators often find that despite their best efforts, an idea just doesn’t work, and they must decide whether to keep at it or drop it. Abandoning an idea doesn’t mean tossing it in the waste bin, though. It can live on in another iteration or even within a different idea. It can also simply be set aside and revisited at a later date, when the writer achieves some distance from their work.)
When you make an agreement with an idea, follow these good practices to ensure your work with it is satisfying and fruitful:
Rather than fretting over the idea, fighting with the idea, or just plain putting it off (which are all common responses), work with the idea, writes Gilbert. Think of your idea as a human creative partner, and treat it with dignity and respect.
Gilbert says that in practice, this might mean getting more rest, so you’re more alert, and setting aside uninterrupted time to work with the idea, so you’re more productive. It also might mean building a healthy mindset toward your process: appreciating the journey, rather than worrying about the outcome, and allowing yourself moments of satisfaction when something has turned out well.
Other Ways to Cooperate With Your Ideas
Gilbert advises you to cooperate more effectively with your ideas by resting, increasing your productivity, and building a healthy mindset. But these suggestions may not be realistic for everyone. For instance, people with busy careers or children may not have the time to rest more or become more productive. Further, changing your mindset isn’t a quick fix; it can take time and hard work.
Daniel Pink’s Drive offers alternative ways to effectively cooperate with ideas. Pink suggests that developing intrinsic motivation, the urge to do something because you want to, not because you might receive external validation, is the key to accomplishing high-quality creative work—in other words, cooperating with an idea.
Intrinsic motivation can form when you have autonomy over what you’re doing, the opportunity for mastery or improvement, and a solid purpose—a “why.” To cooperate with an idea, therefore, ensure that you have control over how you execute it, that you can learn and grow from the idea, and that you feel a strong sense of purpose in the pursuit of this idea.
As described in Chapter 1, Gilbert imagines ideas as independently-functioning entities with wills of their own. Ideas visit people; people don’t produce ideas. This isn’t just a cute way to visualize the creative process. It’s also a productive and sanity-saving approach to your creative work for two reasons:
1) You honor the idea: The perception of your idea as an independent being keeps you invested and committed to your idea, says Gilbert. If you neglect an idea, it has the agency to leave you and inspire someone else.
(Shortform note: Gilbert’s description of honoring an idea and sticking with it is similar to Angela Duckworth’s concept of “grit,” as described in her eponymous book. Duckworth states that grit is made up of perseverance and passion and is a prime predictor of success, more so than talent or IQ. Though Gilbert doesn’t recommend striving for creative success, she does, like Duckworth, believe that the only thing you can control on your creative journey is your effort.)
2) You protect your ego: Feeling that you are an ideator can cause all sorts of unproductive mental anguish, says Gilbert. If your idea is well received, you can develop an over-inflated ego and sense of superiority. Conversely, if your idea falls flat, you may crush your ego and feel inferior. Separating yourself from the idea allows you to work without your ego becoming damaged or overinflated.
(Shortform note: Gilbert says to view ideas as separate entities to protect your ego from either over-inflation or damage. In his book Ego is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday proposes a different way to deal with your ego: Instead of protecting it, as Gilbert advises, Holiday advocates for limiting its influence over you by, for instance, refraining from talking or thinking about yourself excessively. When you do this, your ego can’t cause you to overestimate your abilities and underestimate obstacles, thereby preventing you from satisfactorily completing projects. Whether you protect your ego by separating yourself from it, as Gilbert suggests, or you limit your ego’s influence over your actions, as Holiday suggests, the result is a smoother creative process.)
According to Gilbert, a perspective of abundance is the belief that there are many ideas floating around, looking for hosts. Taking this view, says Gilbert, can mitigate disappointment if things don’t go as planned between you and the idea. If, for instance, either you or the idea abandons the other, you know there are still many other ideas seeking individuals to take them on. By framing the idea’s loss as an opportunity to get to know a new idea, you avoid the pitfalls of anger, jealousy, and self-reproach, which only stymie your creativity the next time around.
(Shortform note: Gilbert’s perspective of abundance is at odds with the pre-existing concept of abundance in Buddhism. According to author and Buddhist practitioner Jack Kornfield, we all contain abundance within ourselves. Each of us possesses abundant love, connection, and freedom, and we don’t need to seek external validation or possessions to acquire these qualities or prove we have them. Extrapolating this notion, Kornfield would probably also say that we contain all the ideas of the universe within us and needn’t look outside of ourselves for them, unlike Gilbert, who sees ideas as an external abundance to search for.)
In the last chapter, we discussed how to best respond to an idea. In this chapter, we’ll discuss how to handle the inevitable creative challenges you’ll encounter on your creative journey. We’ll first discuss accepting the inevitable difficulty in your creative work. We’ll then cover some common mental pitfalls creators set up for themselves and how you can, as best as possible, guard yourself against them.
First, Gilbert claims that no matter what creative pursuit you take on, there will always be attending annoyances. A circus performer, for instance, must contend with physical danger. A bird watcher must deal with the reasonable chance of not seeing any birds. A world traveler must cope with jet lag.
Instead of railing against or trying to avoid pain points, view them as equally integral to your job as the high points, says Gilbert. Developing an ability to cope with irritants and unpleasantness is as much a part of your job as a creator as actually creating.
Meditation Can Help Cope With Difficulties
Gilbert suggests viewing irritation as part of your job as a creator, but she doesn’t offer concrete suggestions on how to develop that perspective. This is where meditation may help: Some meditations help you see difficult thoughts and life experiences as waves in a broader sea of life. In meditation, you learn how to avoid clinging to these negative thoughts or feelings. Instead, you let them pass through your mind without staying there and becoming a mental burden.
Meditation also teaches you that you can’t stop negative thoughts or feelings from happening. You can’t prevent anger or irritation from arising when a creative project isn’t going your way, for instance. But you can change how you relate to those thoughts and whether or not you allow them to affect your attitude or your engagement with your work.
If you question whether or not you’re able to cope with the irritations of your creative pursuit, Gilbert acknowledges that it may be best to give it up. However, if you do so, find something else to commit to creatively. Gilbert believes that every human needs to have some creative pursuit that allows them to temporarily escape their reality and their current societal roles and responsibilities (for instance, being a parent or a CEO).
The Broader Benefits of Creative Work
Creative pursuits can have personal benefits beyond giving you the chance to slip out of your established identities for a while, as Gilbert proposes. A creative project, or hobby, can help you by:
Forcing you to manage your time better: If you must build creative work into your schedule, you’re forced to manage your time more effectively and waste less of it.
Building your social networks: A creative pursuit can get you in touch with people you wouldn’t otherwise meet. In an age where we tend to only socialize with people who are very similar to us, this is of huge personal and creative benefit.
Forging new identities: Beyond escaping your current roles and responsibilities, pursuing a creative project allows you to explore new identities and positive ways of seeing yourself.
Having made peace with the irritations of your chosen creative pursuit, you next need to face down some common mental obstacles that prevent you from doing your best work, says Gilbert. The first obstacle is your perception of what your work should look like. Prescriptive thoughts prevent you from fully exercising your creativity and ultimately only stymie you.
Below are three common prescriptive thoughts that get in the way of your creativity and which you should dispel:
Gilbert claims that many people—artists especially—feel their work must be totally novel to be worth making. But it’s nearly impossible to be novel anymore. Most ideas or concepts have already been executed in some way. There have been, for instance, many different parodies of the Lord of the Rings books and films.
However, writes Gilbert, all other executions of a concept will be different from yours. You bring a specific sensibility and worldview that make your idea unique. While there are indeed dozens of Lord of the Rings spoofs, each of them is unique because each creator’s sense of humor and perspective on the original work is different.
Gilbert says that when, instead of trying to be original, you try to be genuine—try to best express how you really feel through your unique lens—you create work that is interesting and will resonate with others.
Gilbert’s Inconsistent Use of the Word “Idea”
Here, Gilbert uses the word “idea” in a way that seems contradictory to her use of the word in Chapter 2. She said previously that there were many ideas floating around the universe, searching for people to make them manifest. Yet now, she seems to assert that there are actually only a few limited ideas floating around the universe (and most of them have already been executed).
Perhaps the easiest way to reconcile these two descriptions is to say that there are many duplicate or closely related ideas in existence. This would explain why it’s hard to be totally novel despite a proliferation of ideas being out there.
It may also make sense to broaden the conception of what an “idea” needs to look like or contain. An idea may not need to be fully fleshed out; perhaps it can just be “Lord of the Rings parody.” The “Lord of the Rings parody” idea can visit many people over many years, yielding many different parodies. In this way, just one “root” idea can spawn many different similar yet unique ideas.
In any case, Gilbert’s definition of an idea is somewhat nebulous, leaving room for multiple interpretations.
Another way Gilbert thinks you can limit your creativity is by feeling that your work needs to be helpful to others, politically relevant, or otherwise “important.” This approach always ends up backfiring. Those consuming your work sense that you’re trying to fulfill some external expectation rather than express a genuine feeling or experience. This renders your work less resonant, writes Gilbert, because it does not come from a place of truth.
The Need to Help and the Savior Complex
The need to help others through your creative work that Gilbert describes is similar to a psychological phenomenon called the savior complex, or white knight syndrome. This is the compulsion to help others to feel good about yourself. People with savior complexes often exacerbate problems they’re determined to solve because they lack the required expertise or skillset to solve them. They also stifle the growth of those they’re helping by keeping them from coming up with solutions to problems. In the end, helping others to receive external validation—even in creative work, as Gilbert suggests—typically will not help anyone, least of all the helper.
Advice on how to counter the effects of a savior complex revolves around changing your self-perception and your perception of your role in the world. Understand that you can only really help yourself: Everything outside you is out of your control. Plus, your own life probably isn’t perfect, either, so why not work through your problems before tackling those of others?
A final way in which Gilbert feels you might stymie your creativity is by thinking your work must be “lofty,” “high-minded,” or “worthy.” It’s a waste of time to try to meet some vague standard for “worthy” work, and you should instead just create what you want to create.
Gilbert continues by saying that there’s no such thing as “high” or “low” creation; there’s just creation. When people draw a line between highbrow and lowbrow, it’s merely a subjective distinction. Work that someone condemns as philistine might be lauded as a tremendous accomplishment by someone else.
(Shortform note: The distinction between “high” and “low” art to which Gilbert alludes has been widely debated and is in constant flux. In the past, the line between high and low art was drawn between works that were created purely for aesthetics—a painting, for instance—being high, and works that served a purpose, such as a chest of drawers, being low. But over time, the utilitarian came to be regarded as high art: A beautifully decorated box or piece of furniture might today be considered high art. If “low,” utilitarian work can eventually become “high” art, Gilbert’s assertion that it’s pointless to try to be “highbrow” seems valid.)
According to Gilbert, another mental challenge many creators face is the input and feelings of others about their work. Others will inevitably form opinions of and try to categorize your work, but you must not let those opinions or labels affect how or what you create. The need to categorize and label is an inherent human trait. You cannot change that and you cannot fight off every label or opinion others try to assign to you, writes Gilbert. All you can do is to make what you want to make. Everything that comes after is out of your hands.
(Shortform note: The impulse to label and categorize people, concepts, and things is innate to humans, as Gilbert suggests. What’s more, when you’re assigned a trait, others will come to see you as having more of that trait than you did before the assignation. Similarly, you will become less associated with a different trait. For instance, if you’re categorized as “avant-garde,” you’ll be seen as more avant-garde than you were before, and also less, for example, “classical.” Gilbert is therefore right to caution against letting others’ labels define you. If you let labels determine how you see yourself, you cede your right to create what you want to those labels—labels that will only become more restrictive over time.)
Gilbert adds that when you put a creation into the universe, you surrender control over how it is interpreted by consumers. For instance, you might write and produce a play about a love affair. After the performance, audience members approach you to tell you what they thought of your play about “growing up,” or your play about “family,” or your play about “coming out.” Each audience member might interpret your play completely differently, based on their own unique lived experience.
This, again, is normal, claims Gilbert, because each human sees the world through a unique lens. But this means that you should not try to control how the world takes in your work or allow the reactions to your work to define you as a creator. Trying to control others’ perception of your work is an energy-sapping waste of time, and their reactions have little to do with you and everything to do with their unique situation and worldview.
How to Cope With External and Internal Opinions
Gilbert’s belief that the reactions to a creator’s work don’t say anything about the creator as a person is echoed by don Miguel Ruiz in his classic self-help book The Four Agreements. Ruiz’s Second Agreement (or habit to improve your life), “Don’t Take Anything Personally,” states that others’ negative input about you is merely a reflection of their struggles or issues. This is similar to Gilbert’s assertion that we all see the world, and thus art, through our unique lens and that your reality may be different from someone else’s.
Ruiz takes this notion even further, saying that you shouldn’t even always listen to your own opinions about and feedback on yourself (and, by extension, your work). You can develop a myriad of thoughts and feelings about yourself and your work which often are in disagreement with one another: For example, you might in one moment loathe something you’ve created and in the next, think it’s the greatest thing you’ve ever made. To avoid inner turmoil, don’t give these thoughts too much credence, says Ruiz.
According to Gilbert, one of the greatest mental obstacles to creativity is perfectionism. She believes that no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to attain perfection: There will always be a way someone can find your work lacking. It’s therefore pointless to strive for perfection and better just to create something imperfect and put it into the world.
To Gilbert, perfectionism is a nefarious psychological ailment because it appears to be a good thing: You seem to simply be holding yourself to a high standard. But in reality, perfectionism is a manifestation of the fear of not being worthy. You don’t believe that you deserve to exist as you are and therefore put the onus on your work to earn you that right by being perfect.
If you let it, says Gilbert, perfectionism can stop a project dead in its tracks or prevent you from even starting it for fear it won’t be perfect, and that is the worst possible way to honor an idea.
Brené Brown’s Take on Perfectionism
Brené Brown discusses perfectionism at length in her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, diving more deeply than Gilbert into the psychological underpinning of perfectionism.
Brown states, like Gilbert, that perfectionism is founded on the belief that you aren’t inherently good enough. But Brown goes on to claim that perfectionism isn’t just a way to earn your right to exist—it’s also a way to control how others perceive you. Perfectionists don’t want to be seen as different or aberrant, so they work extra hard to project normalcy and perfection. This kicks off a vicious cycle: Because you will never succeed in appearing perfect all the time, you blame and shame yourself for not conforming. This shame leads you to try even harder to be perfect, which you, again, cannot succeed at. Perfectionism thus negatively impacts your life in every way.
Brown agrees with Gilbert that ultimately, striving for perfection is pointless, and she recommends that you be compassionate with yourself to fight perfectionism. Don’t try to hide your imperfections or punish yourself for having them. Instead, embrace them through, for instance, positive self-talk.
Perfectionism is hard to get over, though. Here are a few habits you can develop to reduce its impact on your work:
Gilbert says you can reduce perfectionism’s impact by being realistic about what you can accomplish in the time you can allot to your creativity. Decide what you can reasonably finish, and then don’t force yourself to do more or spend more time on it.
A Different Way to Manage Time and Expectations
Gilbert advocates for changing your perspective on your productivity: In other words, don’t expect more from yourself than you can reasonably accomplish in a set amount of time. There are other time management approaches out there, though, that aim to increase productivity: in other words, do more with the time you have.
For example, Stephen Covey’s First Things First focuses on improving how you spend your time rather than increasing the amount of work you accomplish. One way he proposes that you do that is by distinguishing between tasks that are important—necessary to the achievement of personal goals—and tasks that are urgent—requiring your immediate attention but not necessarily related to your goals. Then, work to prioritize tasks that are important over urgent, so you are more often pursuing the meaningful goals in your life.
Another way to curb perfectionism is to exercise your “release” muscle, says Gilbert. When you find yourself tweaking to get something to be “just right,” stop yourself and leave minor imperfections as they are.
(Shortform note: Gilbert advises learning to let go and stop fixing mistakes but doesn’t propose ways to practice this skill. One way you might consider strengthening your “let go” muscle is through improvisational (improv) comedy. Improv encourages you to make bold choices on the fly. Once you’ve made a choice, you’re forced to deal spontaneously with the outcome however you can.)
Take pride in the completion of a project rather than in its attainment of some ideal to curb perfectionism, recommends Gilbert. Many creators do not complete projects, and finishing is an achievement in itself.
(Shortform note: Gilbert proposes that you learn to take pride in finishing a project, even if it’s not perfect. In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown presents the same argument but using shame, rather than pride, as her starting point. Brown proposes you develop shame resilience, the ability to normalize and accept shame, in your creative and life pursuits. When you finish a project that doesn’t fully live up to your standards, shame resilience, like pride, lets you move on with a minimal amount of negative feeling.)
Gilbert emphasizes that nothing bad will happen if you release something imperfect. Most of the time, others are too caught up in their own work and lives to pay much attention to your creative output. If they do pay attention, it will be fleeting.
(Shortform note: The rise of the internet in some ways complicates Gilbert’s belief that no one will care (for long) if you release something imperfect. In 2011, thirteen-year-old Rebecca Black’s music video “Friday” became a viral sensation, viciously mocked all across the internet for its imperfect imitation of the music video style of the time. The video is still referenced in pop culture today. It’s unlikely that most creative projects could provoke Friday-level ire, but it’s still worth thinking long and hard about releasing creative work on the internet.)
Gilbert finally urges you to take joy in the abundant ideas floating around the universe and the prospect of encountering and starting something new. A creative life is one in which you create many things. Perfectionism prevents you from doing this by gluing your attention to the same project.
(Shortform note: Tunnel vision is a psychological phenomenon that can prevent you from moving on to a new project in the way Gilbert describes. It’s a stubborn focus on one task or project that prevents us from taking in new information, and it’s based on existential fear: We cling to projects because we fear what will happen to us if they don’t end up perfect. One way to combat tunnel vision is by writing down your overarching goal in a place you’ll look at often (for instance: “Submit short film to competition”). This is a constant reminder to re-focus on the big picture, rather than getting stuck on details.)
The final mental obstacle to creativity Gilbert mentions is the feeling of being stymied or uninspired. When you find yourself struggling to progress for any reason, find a different creative pursuit to engage with temporarily. This pursuit should be in a different medium than your original pursuit, says Gilbert. By engaging in a creative activity you have no prior investment in, and in which you don’t care if you do well or not, you often become able to re-access your creative playfulness. That playfulness can then find its way into your original project, unblocking you.
For instance, if you’re struggling to finish your work of historical nonfiction, you might take up learning the harmonica. Because you’ve never thought about the harmonica before or been able to establish any goals or feelings around harmonica-playing, it won’t matter to you if you play well or not. Once you’ve achieved a carefree attitude toward the harmonica, you can take that attitude back to your work of nonfiction.
An Argument for Doing Nothing
Gilbert says that if you’re experiencing difficulties in your main creative pursuit, you should switch to a different one for a while and not just sit idle. It’s possible, though, that doing nothing at all, rather than doing something new, can help you regain your creativity more effectively. Studies have shown that “idle” activities, like daydreaming, can actually promote creativity. Letting your thoughts roam, rather than focusing them on a task, also enhances your problem-solving abilities, meaning you may be more likely, not less, to overcome an obstacle in your creative work.
Idleness also helps when you feel burned out on a creative project. Doing nothing lets you replenish your energy and regain a measure of productivity and momentum to bring to your creative pursuit.
Identify and plan how to overcome your main external and internal creative obstacles.
Describe your creative work habits. What are your strengths, and, more importantly, your weaknesses as a creator? (For instance, you may habitually procrastinate, but have excellent focus when you do get to work.)
Now, think of some common external obstacles you encounter when creating. What disturbances tend to get in your way of creating? (These can be as mundane as poor internet connection or as significant as having kids to tend to.) List as many as possible.
For each weakness and external obstacle on your list, describe an active way to overcome or circumvent it. (For example, if you procrastinate, you might consider setting up a support group that holds you accountable for meeting deadlines.)
Now, describe how you might be able to change your internal expectations of yourself to shrink the obstacle. (If you’re a serial procrastinator, maybe you need to make peace with that and just enjoy the time you’re avoiding working, rather than feeling bad about yourself.)
Learn to counter perfectionism and perfectionistic thoughts.
Describe a time in the past two weeks when you felt you were being perfectionistic or demanding more of yourself than realistically possible. (For example, did you agonize over a work presentation, trying to get it just right?)
Thinking back to that incident, describe the thoughts going through your head. What sorts of worries or convictions compelled you to try to achieve an unrealistic goal? What did your self-talk sound like? (Using the work presentation example, perhaps you worried that you would lose your job or that your boss would be angry with you if your presentation wasn’t perfect.)
Now, dig a little deeper into those thoughts. Try to see them as a reflection of your thoughts about yourself. Why did you hold yourself to an impossibly high standard at that moment? Why did you think you must be able to accomplish the impossible? (You may have believed that anything less than perfection meant you were a bad worker.)
Finally, if you could go back in time to this moment of perfectionistic behavior and assuage your fears, how would you do it? What are some words of kindness or reassurance you could offer yourself? (For example, you may tell your past self: “You’re no less competent than any other employee at this company.”)
In the last chapter, we discussed how to deal with the challenges you’ll run into during the creative process. In this chapter, we’ll switch to a long-term perspective on creativity. Gilbert believes creativity is not a one-off project or pursuit only for the young. It is, rather, a lifestyle and mode of being you should maintain throughout your lifetime. Here, we’ll discuss Gilbert’s suggestions on how to upkeep your creativity over your life.
We’ll first cover your relationship to your genius and how to work with or without it over the long term. We’ll then move on to more practical suggestions on maintaining your creative practice. We’ll end the chapter with advice on how to find inspiration when it doesn’t visit you for an extended period.
In Chapter 1, we defined your genius as an entity that exists outside of you which occasionally graces you with visits. Gilbert says this perspective helps you to hang on to your creative freedom over the long term by reducing personal responsibility for brilliance.
If, says Gilbert, you see yourself as singularly responsible for your work, when you produce something bad, you’ll feel the weight of that failure rests solely on your shoulders. You’ll frame this as a personal shortcoming, and this may stymie you or put you off creative work altogether.
Conversely, writes Gilbert, if something you make is exceptional, and you’re hailed as a “genius,” you’ll be burdened by the need to uphold that title. You’ll feel pressure to forever produce groundbreaking work, which is simply not possible for any human. This pressure may become so great that you never create again.
Instead of taking either above route, if you see yourself as simply “working with what you have,” says Gilbert, you’ll be able to distance yourself from sub-par work and frame it merely as something completed without your genius. This will allow you to engage with a new project with less self-reproach and anguish.
Does “Genius” Even Exist?
Gilbert stresses the importance of seeing your genius as something outside of yourself, rather than as an identity you inhabit, to avoid anguish around your work. Meanwhile, others question whether you need to acknowledge the existence of a genius at all.
Kevin Ashton, a noted technologist who coined the phrase “internet of things,” argues in his book How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention and Discovery that genius is nothing more than hard work combined with trial and error. Ashton draws on his own lived experience to come to this conclusion: He worked for several years for MIT and realized that the great intellects studying and researching there were simply using normal patterns of thought and discovery to lead them to big breakthroughs.
Renouncing the concept of the genius may help you cope with the mental hurdles around success and failure which Gilbert mentions: When you succeed, you won’t feel the pressure to repeat that success, as you know it may not be humanly possible to do so—you’re no genius, after all. Similarly, if you fail, you won’t feel as badly, as you know you’re only human and not capable of succeeding all the time.
Whether or not your genius is around, says Gilbert, always work hard on your idea. Not only is your genius an entity with its own will, but it’s also not very reliable. It can provide you with hours of fruitful, fulfilling inspiration, or it can remain at a distance for years.
If you wait until your genius strikes before getting serious, an idea may lose patience and leave you, claims Gilbert. It’s better to develop a disciplined practice and independent motivation to work and let genius come when it wants.
Substituting Help From Your Genius with Good Habits
Gilbert describes the importance of putting in the creative work even when your genius doesn’t show up to help you. But this can be hard to do: It can feel like a slog to work without creative inspiration, which is what the genius allegedly provides.
One way to make it easier to invest that creative time when you don’t feel particularly inspired is by establishing strong creative habits. In Atomic Habits, James Clear writes that when you put in place extremely specific habits, you remove the need for outside inspiration or an internal feeling of motivation.
You might consider putting in place a specific creative habit like “work on my canoe for forty-five minutes every morning starting at seven. Then, reward myself with a cup of coffee.” This way, you don’t have to think about working on the canoe or even feel like working on the canoe to do so; the habit makes you do it automatically. Genius can join you if it wants, but it’s not needed.
To create in the long run, Gilbert says you must also abandon the notion that there are time constraints on your creativity. You and only you decide when you’re ready to start and stop being creative. Believing that you can become “too old” for creativity can rob you of years of happy and fruitful work.
(Shortform note: Others agree with Gilbert’s claim that you are never too old to start creating and add that there are negative repercussions of this societally-held belief: For instance, there is too much pressure on young people to be prolific creators and too much pressure on older people to stay out of the creative game entirely. You can fight this unhelpful conviction by being aware of when you tell yourself you’re too old or too young to do something. Whenever you say this, stop yourself and correct the thought to: “I can do whatever I want in whatever time frame suits me.”)
Another way to stay creative indefinitely is to be willing to hunt for creative time, says Gilbert. Throughout history, creators have never had enough time to be creative. To cope with this dearth of resources, Gilbert advises thinking outside the box about when you can squeeze in an hour or half-hour for your work. You can accomplish a lot in “between times:” during lunch, before bed, on your commute.
(Shortform note: Gilbert’s advice to hunt for snippets of creative time isn’t the only approach out there to effective time management. In The 5 AM Club Robin Sharma proposes an alternative approach to maximizing your potential each day: Sharma suggests you firmly claim the hour between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. for yourself. This is what he calls the “Victory Hour,” a time before others have risen and when your responsibilities have not yet come crashing down on you. Sharma suggests specific activities to do in your Victory Hour (exercise, reflect, and grow), but you could seize the Victory Hour for your creative work.)
To keep up a productive creative practice long-term, be disciplined, insists Gilbert. According to Gilbert, a disciplined practice means you try hard at all times, but don’t take your work so seriously that you lose the joy in it. This is the only part of the creative process you have full control over: your commitment to your practice and the efficiency of your efforts.
(Shortform note: Gilbert advises working on your discipline, but how do you become more disciplined? In Deep Work, Cal Newport offers suggestions on how to develop focus and discipline in a world in which both are increasingly hard to come by. These include 1) focusing on what’s important and leaving what isn’t, 2) measuring your progress appropriately, and 3) creating accountability to yourself. Newport’s definition of deep work (work that is mentally strenuous, which you complete with concentration and without interruption) describes what most people feel disciplined creative work should look like, and his suggestions can therefore be applied to creative projects.)
To ensure you can stick with your creative pursuit over the long run, Gilbert says you should secure a reliable, non-creative source of income. Adjust your life so all your necessities—bills, rent, food, healthcare, childcare, and so on—are taken care of by some other job. This will keep your mind creatively free. Gilbert herself held on to her day job until she published Eat Pray Love, which was her fourth book.
(Shortform note: Gilbert strongly recommends that creators get a day job that pays their bills. But the advice to “just get a job” can seem a little out-of-touch with current job market realities. Finding a decently-paying, stable day job that leaves you time to create is becoming harder and harder. Part of the reason for this is that the skills needed for a given position change quickly because of new software and technology adoption, and candidates struggle to keep up. What’s more, companies rely heavily on software for their hiring, meaning many potentially qualified candidates are being eliminated without their resumes ever being seen by a human.)
To stay creative over months and years, Gilbert also advocates a policy of gentle inquisitiveness about everything. This lets you contact Creative Sorcery and reignite your creative flame at times when your inspiration inevitably falters.
As stated in Chapter 2, Creative Sorcery is at all times leaving clues to assist you in your creative work. Gilbert believes that when you adopt a policy of inquisitiveness, you’re more likely to notice and follow these clues. When followed, they can eventually lead you to a new creative pursuit.
How Inquisitiveness Fuels Creativity
Gilbert argues that by being inquisitive, you notice more clues Creative Sorcery leaves you. But you could also view this phenomenon from a rational standpoint. If you’re inquisitive—in other words, pay attention to the world around you—you’re more likely to notice interesting things that can inspire you. Paying attention also leads to improved memory function, meaning you remember details that can come into play in your creative work. Furthermore, you build your capacity for patience when you pay attention, which in turn fosters contemplativeness, an attitude that’s helpful in creative work.
Therefore, Creative Sorcery doesn’t have to be seen as a guide that leads you to inspiration. Just by noticing, you can inspire yourself.
Your inquisitiveness needn’t be overwhelmingly strong, writes Gilbert. Even a subtle interest or curiosity in something can, in small steps, lead you to an exciting new endeavor. In fact, Gilbert stresses that “subtle inquisitiveness” is a better approach than the similar-seeming advice to “pursue your passion.” Passion implies there must be a deep-seated, burning desire to do something. Subtle inquisitiveness, meanwhile, allows for mild interest.
Be Gently Inquisitive, Not Passionate
Gilbert advocates for a policy of being subtly inquisitive, rather than seeking a burning passion. The book Designing Your Life takes a similar stance: Authors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans argue that searching for a burning passion is the wrong approach to life. Instead of looking for your single passion that will allow all the pieces of your life to come together, adjust the pieces of your life so that you can feel passionate about it.
Being curious is one mental attitude that helps you make those necessary shifts to your life and generate passion. Both Gilbert and Burnett and Evans thus see inquisitiveness as the starting point for a good life and creative practice: Passion grows from inquisitiveness, not the other way around.
At a movie theater, you might notice a poster for a new film by your favorite director. You look up the film and discover it takes place during the Vietnam War. You remember that your neighbor is a Vietnam War veteran and decide to bring this up to him. He’s happy for the chance to talk about his experience and shows you his collection of photos and letters from the time.
You love your neighbor’s old photos and visit your library to digitize them. It just so happens that the local history society meets at your library and its members ask you to digitize their photos, too. In this way, you have just started an online photo album, documenting your town and its inhabitants during the 20th century. Creative Sorcery has left you small clues—the poster, the connection to your neighbor, the local history society—that lead you to a creative project you are excited about.
As a long-term creator, writes Gilbert, learn how to reframe all your work, and in particular your creative misses, as “interesting.” All creative output, no matter how beloved or reviled, can be seen through a certain lens as “interesting” and educative.
Gilbert notes that a mindset that frames everything as “interesting” encourages you to wonder what can be improved. A “good vs. bad” mindset, conversely, doesn’t encourage growth. It instead encourages giving up if you produce “bad” work.
Cult Films: The Ultimate “Interesting” Creative Work
Gilbert stresses the importance of framing your work as “interesting,” rather than as “good” or “bad.” For examples of this reframing in our culture, we can look to cult films. Cult films often were not well received initially but garnered a following in subsequent years because there is something in them that piques audiences’ interest. Plan 9 From Outer Space and The Rocky Horror Picture Show are iconic examples of such films: The Rocky Horror Picture Show in particular piqued the interest of LGBT communities at a time when gay rights were becoming an important political and cultural topic.
Seeing all creative work as “interesting” rather than “good” or “bad” thus is not an impossibly high-minded perspective to take. It’s a view we as a society take all the time toward the creations of others.
Gilbert suggests making it easier to stick with your creative work long-term by inviting more visits from Creative Sorcery. You can do this by physically making yourself more appealing: Dress up as if you were going on a date with inspiration. Put on clothes that make you feel good, style your hair, and use a scent you like. When you take yourself seriously as a creator by presenting yourself well, ideas and your genius are more likely to see you as committed to your work and to visit, claims Gilbert.
The Effect of Clothing on Self-Image
The concept of “enclothed cognition” is similar to Gilbert’s idea that the clothes we wear change how inspired we are. This theory describes the impact one’s clothes have on one’s self-perception. For instance, wearing a suit may make you feel more professional and competent, while wearing wrinkly sweatpants may make you feel lazy and unmotivated.
Enclothed cognition theory also indicates that it's not only what we wear, but how we perceive what we wear that affects how our minds work and how we see ourselves. In the 2012 study which introduced the term enclothed cognition, students were recruited to wear white lab coats. In one group, the lab coats were described as “a medical doctor’s coat,” and in the other group, the coats were described as an “artistic painter’s coat.” Students wearing the “medical doctor’s coats” were more able to sustain their attention than those wearing the “artistic painter’s coats.” The lab coats alone, therefore, did not impact attention: It was rather the value that students assigned to the lab coats that made them more or less able to sustain their focus.
We established in Chapter 3 that you shouldn’t be creative to receive a reward. While this remains true, there is one form of reward Gilbert says you can look forward to as you create long term: touching Creative Sorcery.
You can’t predict when Creative Sorcery will visit, adds Gilbert, so just keep plugging away at your creative work. But know that when it does come, you’ll get to experience a transcendent feeling of communion with a higher life force. This, not accolades or praise, is what makes creativity worthwhile, she claims.
Altruistic Reasons to Create
Gilbert believes that coming into contact with the otherworldly forces of Creative Sorcery should be the only reason to create. Other creators might see a different “ultimate purpose” to creativity than this. For example, graphic novelist R. Alan Brooks talks about how he left his job and dedicated himself full-time to making comic books because he felt that his art could help people around the world cope with global turmoil. Helping others, to him, was the central reason to create.
This may, of course, be seen as its own form of sorcery: Rather than touching the forces of creativity, you are touching the forces of altruism and humanitarian joy through your work. Therefore, no matter what a creator might state as their purpose or motivation, it’s likely that all creators believe in and strive for contact with a transcendent force to some degree.
When Creative Sorcery keeps at bay, as it may in the long term, it might be because you’re expressing negativity about it, writes Gilbert. If you complain a lot about the creative process, stop. Complaining frightens away ideas and your genius, which see in you a being that’s not open to inspiration.
Instead, suggests Gilbert, proclaim to yourself and others that you love creating, that you love the creative lifestyle, and that you’ll carry on creating simply because you enjoy it. Saying this invites the forces of Creative Sorcery to visit more often. They’ll sense your receptivity and grace you with their presence.
(Shortform note: Gilbert’s line of thinking here has a lot in common with Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, in which Byrne presents the Law of Attraction: the idea that you can use your thoughts to attract the things you want into your life. For Byrne, getting what you want takes place in three steps: 1. Ask for what you want. 2. Believe you will get what you want. 3. Receive and feel the happiness you will feel when you will get what you want. While Gilbert’s approach to creativity veers significantly from the three steps described above, she does suggest that by saying, and thinking, and believing that you love creating, you will attract into your life the things that help you create: ideas and your genius.)
Create a sustainable creative schedule by finding new times to create.
Describe a time in the past month when you felt stressed or “pinched” around your creative work because you didn’t have enough time for it. Be specific about why you felt you didn’t have enough time—what was your obstacle?
Reflect on your daily, weekly, and monthly schedules, referring to your calendar, if possible. Which time slots do you often find yourself filling with mindless “busy work” (like social media scrolling or email-checking)? Note those time slots here and what you do during them.
Now, consider how you might fill these currently mindless timeslots with creative work. Create a list of action items that could help you to do this. (Would you, for example, need to bring along a pad and pen on your commute or set a timer while dinner cooks so you can leave the kitchen to work on a project?)
In the last chapter, we discussed ways to stay creative in the long term and ideally for the rest of your life. In this final chapter, we’ll keep that long-term lens but focus on maintaining your faith in Creative Sorcery and your creative process. We’ll discuss several final big-picture approaches you should take to your creativity to ensure that your process remains positive, enjoyable, and fulfilling.
To stay sane and easy-going about your creativity in the long run, Gilbert says to refrain from trying to analyze and understand the vagaries of your creative process. Because so much of creativity—the receiving of ideas, the intervention of your genius—is Creative Sorcery, it is beyond the realm of logic. You can’t bring reason to it. Instead, says Gilbert, learn to be okay with unknowns and mystery. Maintain joyous faith in Creative Sorcery, and know that it has your best interests at heart and wants to help you.
(Shortform note: The way that Gilbert advises against investigating into Creative Sorcery is somewhat reflected in the content and approach to creativity of Big Magic itself. Critics have described the book as containing good, broad discussions on creativity but little specific advice on how to actually create. Perhaps Gilbert, in writing her book, was following her own advice on not digging too deeply into the mystery of Creative Sorcery.)
Gilbert feels that to get along with Creative Sorcery over your years of creativity, you must both try very hard but also not care at all about your creative work. Here’s how you can put this into practice: As discussed in Chapter 5, in the moment you’re actively creating, commit yourself fully to your work. But when you’re not actively creating, writes Gilbert, distance yourself from your work to see it for what it is: merely a creative enterprise. Your artistic work is, in the grand scheme of things, most likely unimportant, so don’t let it make you unhappy.
Taking your idea too seriously prevents you from executing well or moving on to a new idea or approach, says Gilbert. You’re no longer playful and loose, and this shuts off your creativity.
(Shortform note: In her assertion that creative work doesn’t ultimately matter and therefore shouldn’t make you unhappy or stressed, Gilbert is referring narrowly to work in the arts. But even people working in essential, life-saving fields, like healthcare, should avoid taking their work so seriously that it leads to burnout. Burnout is characterized by a loss of motivation and energy and a lack of engagement with tasks. In healthcare specifically, it’s associated with increased medical errors, a drop in care quality, and low patient satisfaction. No matter what field you work in, maintaining a healthy distance between yourself and your work keeps your mind free and allows you to continue being productive—and helpful to others.)
Gilbert also stresses that to maintain a strong connection to Creative Sorcery in the long run, you must not let fear or embarrassment get in the way of sharing your work. Put your creation out into the universe, and do so proudly, without apology or shame, and with faith that Creative Sorcery has your back.
Feelings of self-consciousness around presenting your work to the world are inevitable, says Gilbert. Sharing a creative project is an act of vulnerability. But remind yourself that you have the right to create and share your creation with the world.
Coping Effectively With Shame
Gilbert doesn’t provide concrete ways to get over self-consciousness and shame around sharing your creative work. Brené Brown’s book Dare to Lead can fill in this gap with specific suggestions.
Brown firstly argues that shame is an inherent part of risk and failure and that because a creative life is full of risk-taking, shame can’t be fully eliminated from it (this is, incidentally, reminiscent of Gilbert’s discussion around fear and the need to live with it, rather than eradicate it). To cope with shame, therefore, Brown recommends first that you recognize it when you experience it. You can typically feel how shame impacts your body, like through your clenched fists.
Next, Brown recommends reminding yourself that shame is a universal feeling which everyone experiences. Finally, speak with others about your feelings of shame. This reduces the isolating power shame can have over you.
Gilbert’s final recommendation for maintaining a healthy relationship with Creative Sorcery in the long term is to never view your creativity or your creative output as sacred. Nothing you make is ever final, perfect, or a “crowning achievement,” writes Gilbert. You may well create something far superior in the future, or you may never create anything quite as good ever again. It doesn’t matter either way, as long as you continue to enjoy the process.
(Shortform note: Avoiding seeing your work as sacred is a good habit that can trickle down into your practical creative decisions. The concept of “killing your darling” is an example of an everyday application of eschewing sacredness: When creating, we can feel that we have made a “darling,” a piece of a larger work that we feel is particularly clever. However, there may come a time when you have to eliminate, or kill, that darling in service of the greater work. For instance, when writing a novel, you may write a scene that you particularly love, but that ultimately doesn’t serve the wider plot. If you, as Gilbert suggests, refrain from seeing that piece as “sacred,” it will be much easier to cut it.)
Similarly, never allow your creativity to harden or become inflexible, insists Gilbert. The whole point of creativity is to live a full, rewarding life, to commune again and again with the forces of Creative Sorcery, and to continue learning and growing. If you take your creativity too seriously or see the creative process as a repeatable formula or as a series of consecrated actions, you lose the growth, joy, and beauty that is otherwise to be derived from the process. An attitude that is instead playful and lightly profane lets you keep the channels between yourself and Creative Sorcery open, claims Gilbert.
(Shortform note: Gilbert proposes you approach your creativity with a light touch but doesn’t offer actionable ways to practice this. One way to combat the inflexibility that can arise when you’ve been doing something for a long time is to be more present and responsive to your immediate surroundings: in other words, to practice mindfulness. In The Power of Now, spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle describes how being aware allows you to respond more skillfully to present stimuli, rather than fall back on old patterns of behavior (which Tolle feels are often motivated by your ego and by fear). You keep your mind open and alert, rather than stuck in familiar patterns.)
Develop the mental strength to ensure your creative process remains positive.
Describe a time when you cared too much about a creative project or took a project so seriously that it became a negative experience for you.
Now, describe a time when you were afraid or embarrassed to put your creative work into the world. What most embarrassed you? Try to put your finger on what you were afraid of.
Moving forward, what are some ways you can prepare yourself mentally for the inevitable fear, embarrassment, and seriousness that can arise around your work? What mental habits or guardrails can you put in place for yourself to prevent you from falling into those traps? (For example, you might practice mindfulness or develop shame resilience.)