from NYT Best Seller,
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
Can a book ignite change and help you live a more creative life? On some level, every book ignites change in its reader. As words lift from the pages and enter your brain, the neural pathways calibrate to make sense of the message. Opinions form. Storylines draw you in. You start to open your mind to new perspectives and you realize you may never look at life the same way again. Your creative life is now.
I felt that way when I read Big Magic. Liz Gilbert’s advice and stories on creative living was mind-altering. At the same time, it made so much sense. I felt captivated by the creative mind. Liz lives what she calls an enchanted life. Creativity interacts with her like a physical being in the world. She uses tools and tricks to attract creativity, synchronicity, and magic into her life. The following list of quotes by a creative mind will leave you feeling super inspired. Ready?
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As I develop a lifestyle with creativity as a central focus, this book was practical and useful. It literally changed the way I think about the creative process. It gave me confidence to speak my truth and feel my feelings. It encouraged me to pursue curiosity. It has helped relieve some stress around the idea of using creativity as a source of income. These are huge shifts for me! So much so, that I felt compelled to compile some of the most powerful creative freedom quotes from the book and share them.
I often use creative life quotes as powerful reminders to keep calm, kind, and focused. Sometimes I work with a single quote for months at a time. Other times, I exchange them daily or weekly. The creative quotes from this book have come at a meaningful time in my life.
Try posting creative mind quotes as your desktop background or write them on the office whiteboard to remind yourself of your creative freedom. Quotes that inspire you can serve as powerful reminders to stay committed to whatever you are working on. Creative motivational quotes can help us along the path.. and we are all working on something, right?
Currently, I am working on living an enchanted life like my homegirl, Liz. I am opening myself to opportunities for creativity to find me. To work with me. To inspire me and guide me. I am listening to the whispers of the universe and I am exploring what makes me curious. I jump on ideas that feel right and I turn away from those that don’t.
A month ago, I felt like I needed to churn out article after article to build up my content library. I started to get frustrated with my slow progress when I decided to re-read Big Magic. I realized, I was using the wrong approach. I felt like I needed to put in effort to be creative, but I can live a more peaceful balance when I allow creativity to flow toward me.
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As my approach shifts, I may not post as often as my internal clock would like. But, I am learning to be comfortable with that. Quality is much more important than quantity. I am aware of my original timeline and goals, but on a more flexible and realistic scale. I am eliminating any pressure that could suffocate my creative flow. I invite play, curiosity, sponentaity, and maybe even a bit of fairy dust into my life.
I hope you find time to read Big Magic. It’s a quick and easy page-turner full of advice and compelling stories that teach you how to live a bigger, bolder, and more creative life. I cannot recommend it enough. But for now, enjoy these magical morsels.
Let me know which one sticks out to you. Comment below or follow on social media to stay in touch.
1. You can measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures.
What a powerful reminder. By staying true to your own path, you are worthy. The path may be winding, long, and full of potholes but if it is your path, you won’t care. If you are anything like me, you may have spent some time walking down a different path. When you find your true path, you will know it in your bones.
Don’t allow others to put limits on what you can or cannot do. Perceived failures are learning opportunities disguised as lessons. This quote reminds me to embrace the lessons and the potholes on my path.
2. In the end, it’s all just violets trying to come to light.
This quote comes from a story about a mathematician that developed a new theory. The father of the mathematician urged him to publish his findings immediately. Like new flowers, when the timing is right for a truth to be born, it will unearth itself in the light of day. Ideas that rise like violets coming to light have the potential to be picked by any passerby.
If ideas are things waiting to evoked, anyone could latch onto the new theory emerging in the ether. When an idea bonds to you and you bring it to light, you get to be the one who takes credit for it. Isn’t that great?
3. I believe we are all capable of brushing up against a sense of mystery and inspiration in our lives.
Think of the last time you got chills while hearing a story. Coincidences and synchronicities appear in your life for a reason. Paying attention to them can lead you in remarkable directions. We inhabit a physical world, but a lot happens beyond our senses. If you feel a hunch or a gut feeling, it is vital to listen carefully.
This quote implies that there is a divine order that sometimes interacts with the physical world. We are all capable of this kind of encounter and sometimes it happens without you even noticing.
4. Creative entitlement simply means believing that you are allowed to be here, and that- merely by being here- you are allowed to have a voice and a vision of your own.
I’ll be honest. I struggle with creative entitlement. I know a lot of other beginner bloggers do as well and as a result, we have come up with a term for it: Imposter Syndrome. Lovely, isn’t it?
Sometimes I don’t feel like I have a right to be here. I don’t feel that my opinions or ideas are worthy or interesting. I compare myself to others and feel inferior, so trust me when I say, I get it.
Whatever it may be, this quote empowers me to step into my role. I am a creative person and I deserve to be here. Simple as that. I’ve got to let go of old ways of thinking that limit my potential. It’s time for me to get out of my own way. Hands up if you can relate!
5. Stop treating your creativity like it’s a tired, old, unhappy marriage and start regarding it with the fresh eyes of a passionate lover.
I am totally in love with this idea. If I ever start to feel in a rut about my writing or if I am in a creative slump, I try to remember this quote. But, how do you regard your work with the fresh eyes of a passionate lover you may ask?
Well, it starts with yourself. Take off the sweatpants you’ve been wearing for the sixth day in a row. Freshen up. Shower, shave and put on lipstick, or whatever else it takes to make you feel confident.
Make yourself presentable and seduce your creative side. Become irresistible for ideas and they will be attracted to you. Creativity likes confidence. When you feel more confident within, you are more confident reaching out.
6. Perfectionism is just a high-end, haute couture version of fear.
I am guilty of waiting several weeks before pressing submit on a new post. I have spent too much time writing and rewriting an instagram caption. I’ve read the same post over and over again until the words blur together and nothing on the page makes sense.
In the name of high quality content, it is easy to get stuck in this loop. Quality is important, don’t get me wrong. But, when perfectionism hinders your progress, it no longer serves its purpose.
I like this quote because it reminds me that perfectionism is a mask. Stripped down, it is simply fear of rejection. We all have that fear somewhere inside us and it’s okay to admit. It’s okay to be intimate with fear and know where fears lie. It’s not okay to dress up fear, call it perfectionism and never progress toward your goals.
7. We all need to find something to do in our lives that stops us from eating the couch.
This quote makes me laugh, but it doesn’t make sense without context. In the book, Liz compares a creative life to owning a Border Collie. If you don’t give this particular breed plenty of exercise, it will do something destructive, like, eating the couch.
The same goes for your creativity. If you are lucky enough to possess a creative mind, it will strive to be heard in one way or another. If you train the creativity to chew bones instead of couches, you will have healthy gums instead of a torn up couch.
It’s important to create an outlet for creative freedom to flourish, whether that is art, yoga, dance, writing, music, or anything else. If you are lucky enough to know your passion, pursue it. It could save yourself from self-destruction later on.
8. When it’s for love, you will always do it anyhow.
If I am not mistaken, this one comes from a story of a man who was nearly burnt out on pursuing his passion of photography. He discovered his love for photography, invested money and time into it, nurtured the skills, and eventually tried to make a career out of it. However, after years of trying to make it work as a career, he became discouraged. He started to feel like a failure.
He dropped the career, and like a rush of water from a broken levee, the love reappeared. Creativity doesn’t like to be pressured. The ego-mind stifles creativity and has the potential to block success. I am reminded that I am going to create because I love to create, not because I am trying to earn some kind of status. If it turns out that I totally suck, that’s okay too, because I still love it.
9. Uncertainty is what we sign up for when we say that we want to live creative lives.
Isn’t that the truth? All of us deal with uncertainty on some level or another. Making the jump from “creative outlet” to “creative existence” can be downright terrifying.
A creative life isn’t always full of bright colors and fairy dust. It can also be filled with gremlins and ogres. If you’ve ever seen the movie Shrek, you know that ogres are like onions, they have a lot of layers.
Living in uncertainty doesn’t have to be scary, just like ogres aren’t that scary once you peel back the layers. You have to be brave in order to step toward that kind of uncertainty.
You really don’t know what it is going to happen next. It can be an exciting adventure or a horrible nightmare, it depends on your perception and ability to navigate the muddy waters. No one said it was going to be easy, but we continue to peel back the layers because our creativity calls for it.
10. Sometimes I have no idea where my passion has gone off to.
This statement is so relatable for me. Fortunately, most days, I hold onto my passion. It lives inside me with wonder and zeal. I get excited about the smallest creatures and I express love and gratitude for life’s simple pleasures. I feel motivated to work toward goals without an end in sight. I’m willing to stay up late or wake up early just to continue the project.
Other days, I don’t have a passionate bone in my body. It’s not ‘sad’ in the sense that I fall into a depression or anything like that, but some days, it seems as if my passion has run off to help someone else. I relax in the understanding that it will return when the time is right. When I’m lacking passion, it probably means it’s not the right time to create. I never want to look at my creative work like it’s a burden or a drag. So, if the passion isn’t there, it means it’s time to take a break.
11. Curiosity is the truth and the way of creative living… the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.
A creative person is intuitively curious. In order to fully be present with your creative process, you have to be willing to dive into curiosity.
Curiosity can appear at the most synchronistic and meaningful times or at the most inconvenient times. It may strike while you’re in the middle of a conversation or while driving down the highway.
When curiosity calls, the creative person listens. The creative person needs to be ready to capitalize on curious moments, because often times, there is an idea or a story waiting to be discovered and brought to light. Following natural curiosity pulls you into alignment with your unique truth.
12. What would you do even if you knew that you might very well fail?
I’ll finish the list with this question-quote. When I first wrote it down, I took the question very light-heartedly. I would try lots of things, I thought! I would bake an angel food cake and make curry for the first time. I would try to paint the nails on my right hand, which is something I’ve continuously failed at since childhood. I would go wakeboarding and risk physical injury. I’d risk failure for a new experience, no doubt.
But, what about the bigger things? Would I be willing to risk changing my life? Would I be willing to risk my career to chase a dream? Would I give up a relationship that is holding me back from my greater potential?
While more difficult to answer, my answer is still a resolute YES. I have done it in the past and I would do it again. I have given up brick and mortar teaching in pursuit of a travel lifestyle. I left a familiar home and a safe relationship to explore the unknown. I haven’t regretted it at all.
Conclusion
Well, that just about sums it up. I use these quotes as positive affirmations and reminders to live my personal best life. Traveling for a living isn’t a conventional life and in that, I invite a different experience. It’s not always the picture perfect plan you may envision, but it is mine and I love it. How do you invite creative experience into your life? Comment below!
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