Hello Readers! In today’s article, I will explain the book Summary of Big Magic Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert, chapter-wise. There are a total of 6 chapters in this book. Which explains many important things about Our life, thoughts, Persistence, Courage, Enchantment, etc.
Chapter 1: Courage
In this chapter, the author talks about the essential concepts, creative life, and fear of the book. She says that creative life means discovering the hidden secrets in your life, knowing that you can use your creativity properly to write novels, creative like painting, skating, and performing well in everything your passion.
Finding a creative secret doesn’t depend on your age, but it depends on a fine process. No matter what your age, if you find it right, then you will find its fruit. The author, while sharing his personal experience about it. Says that by writing this book and adopting the methods mentioned in it, he gets amazing results.
To adopt this method, firstly, think creatively about what you want and remove the fear while thinking. Because a creative life cannot be lived with fear. It puts you in a comfortable comfort zone and prevents you from thinking and doing anything new. And if you don’t have fear in your life. Then you get inspired to think and do new things to move forward in life.
You take it easy to make your creative ideas come true. To overcome fear, the author recommends adopting these methods:
1st, live life with courage.
2nd, Focus on the things and ideas that increase your courage and creativity.
When the thoughts of becoming courageous and creative are strong in the mind. Then the fear automatically goes away, on the contrary, the feelings of fear destroy the positive thoughts of courage. So when you start thinking creative and courageous thoughts for a creative life.
So you can eliminate fear. In reality, fear is simply an emotion that arises when an obstacle appears. But sometimes these obstacles are not there. So don’t guess wrong but cross the hurdles with hope. Because you can be creative only by being brave, with bravery you can think new, and innovate.
Bravery means doing the work that is important to you. But you have been holding back or avoiding doing it for a long time. Just do that uncomfortable or scary thing. So you can prove to yourself that you’re brave. Be excited to be brave, and be ready to accept new and better ideas. This will create a strong foundation for you so that you will be able to find your unique or creative ability.
Chapter 2: Enchantment
In this chapter, the author explains ideas, where ideas come from, and how they work. Thought is a kind of living force that keeps on being transferred from one person to another. Till the person is found who does not make it real by adopting it in his life. In this way, thoughts do not depend on any one person to adopt and get results in their life from them.
Rather, thoughts react according to their nature. When a person adopts a good idea, it helps him to get good results in his life, and as long as that person adopts those good thoughts, from which he is getting good results. The thoughts keep helping him. But if the person leaves the thoughts, then the effect starts showing on the results.
But it doesn’t matter to the ideas. They get transferred to someone else who is ready to adopt them, and that’s how the process goes. That’s why the author advises us to think positive thoughts. The author illustrates the process of receiving and discarding ideas, telling the story of Writer Ann Patchett and Amazon.
She says that two years before writing this book. The idea of writing a book on the Amazon Forest came to her mind. But she did not give importance to it. So that idea was transferred to her and went to Patchett, writer Patchett gave importance to this idea. And as a result, he wrote a story on Amazon.
In this way, our thoughts are creative in themselves. Listening to what you are thinking about them and how long they want to be with you and when they are not. As long as you want to do something new and creative by adopting them in life. They cooperate only based on your thinking.
And an idea has no real life until it becomes something in real life. For example, if you are thinking of writing a book until you write a sentence or chapter related to it. It will remain only an idea, not a reality. The lesson from this is that the idea of doing something creative and innovative is always there and available to everyone.
Take that idea with courage, and feel it coming true in your life. And try to make it a reality in real life. It will always give you a chance to explore and find something new. Apart from this, not every thought is the same. Some ideas, such as those thoughts that are related to your feelings and beliefs, are already strong. And they can be adopted quite easily.
But pay attention to some new ideas, which do not match your mentality and faith in the beginning days. If the idea of becoming rich seems uncomfortable to you. At this moment, you think of becoming rich. But after some time, the thoughts of poverty start coming into your mind. So with awareness, pay maximum attention to those thoughts.
Which will lead you to become rich. By doing this for a few months continuously. The thoughts of wealth will automatically start coming into the mind and the possibility of economic prosperity will increase. This allows you to realize that you are the creator and in control of your thoughts. So you can turn them in whatever direction you want to create that life.
Chapter 3: Permission
In this chapter, the author explains that along with our inner thinking, external things also affect our thoughts. Many people think that they need someone else’s permission to become creative, who tells you that you have this talent in you. And such people put the responsibility of their creativity on someone else’s head.
They blame the surrounding environment, culture, lack of resources, and so on. So make it a habit to take responsibility to end such a habit. Start doing creative work by changing the mindset of blaming others, and adopting the mindset of being responsible. You should know your priorities. Many people do creative work hoping to impress others. This knowingly or unknowingly makes them dependent on others. So instead of impressing others, find a reason to do it, which will give you inner happiness.
With this, after doing that work. You will feel satisfaction from the inside, giving her an example in this regard. The author says, I have not written this book for anyone else, I have written it for myself. I have written this book for my satisfaction, as I enjoy thinking about creativity. This gave me an inward inspiration and enabled me to write such a great book.
Listening to the inner voice gives you a sense of why you want to do that work. When you want to do it, and how you are going to do it. This will make you aware of your interests and perspectives. And will be ready to work hard to bring about a better change in your life, just like the author did. In the end, the thing made from your creativity will prove beneficial to others.
Who are stuck in the same kind of problems as you think and are looking for a way out. With this, you will be able to identify the hidden treasure or talent inside you. For example, when the author decided to write this book, there was no formal education about book writing, but her strong desire to be a writer didn’t stop her from moving forward, of lack of formal education about becoming a writer.
Despite the difficulties she faced, she went ahead to solve them and became a good writer. This increased his confidence. They did not ask permission from others and did not stop on the pretext of lack of resources. But made good use of what they had, and learned where they felt. Teacher alone is not enough to learn, learning opportunities are present everywhere. Learning can be done from inanimate or non-living objects like paintings, mountains, sun, etc.
So learn wherever you get a chance and don’t get influenced by others’ negative things. Because your results are important in the long run. Keep doing your creative work continuously. This will increase your understanding of that art, and you will get information about new opportunities in it. In this way, you will be committed to a creative life, in which you keep thinking and doing creative ideas.
Chapter 4: Persistence
In this chapter, the author explains in detail what it means to be dedicated to a creative life. To explain this, she tells her story that she dedicated her life to writing and becoming a writer, and after becoming a writer. She managed to show her readers that despite many difficulties, she stood by her promise.
With this, you will be able to know the way forward by overcoming the challenges in your field. First of all, write down the challenges faced in your chosen field. And the possible ways to overcome them, that is how the challenges can be overcome according to you. Similarly, in the selected field, make a list of the goals, which you want to achieve.
Start with small goals now and take action to move forward overcoming the challenges. That may come with them until you reach your ultimate goal. Choose wisely while choosing a creative field. Because no creative field is easy, every field will need to face challenges, it is possible to do this only when you have an interest in your chosen field.
Being interested will not take the upcoming challenges, the game will be able to move ahead by easily overcoming them in the game. This will increase your confidence. Keep working hard on this. Regarding hard work, the author says that it does not always lead to success. But every time you will be able to find a path that can lead you there.
Appear and behave the way you want to be in your field. So that relevant things are attracted to you faster. While doing the work of your creativity, consider yourself as an expert. In that work and deserve it, and keep imagining from time to time that you are moving ahead. And overcoming the challenges that come your way.
One of the barriers to overcome from adopting new ideas is to be perfect. The thought of being perfect in the beginning drives us away from adopting new ideas. It creates an inner fear of what people will say if they do not do it properly. So this thinking prevents you from doing something creative and in many cases, you will not even be able to start.
Perfection is something that can never be fully achieved because the better you do, the more you can do better. So instead of using your creativity to do better. It will bring you a feeling of sadness that you could not do your best in the beginning. That’s why the author advises you, to give your 100% in the work. try to be the best from your side, and don’t worry about the results. Now keep doing it continuously, And as we discussed earlier with continuous effort, the chances of getting results will increase.
This is the only way that we can constantly do something new, and stay motivated to learn related information. And finally, be able to create something that will give us inner satisfaction and will also be beneficial for others. The road to success is a bit difficult, so don’t take it as a joke. Live every day with full enthusiasm, and keep striving to make the future better.
The author gives an example to illustrate this point. She says that two years before this book was published. She wrote a short story. However, the magazine she sent for publication did not take an interest in the story and hence the story could not be published. After the rejection, the author did not despair but went on to improve her story and Two years later her story was published in the same magazine.
The purpose of telling this story is also, you understand that the arts are constantly changing. So keep improving the work in your chosen field. Give up the idea of achieving huge success in a day and remain successful once you become successful. Understand the needs of the people, and make your product accordingly, by this you will remain in the market.
Chapter 5: Trust
In this chapter, the author talks about faith, an essential aspect of living a creative life intelligently. Trust in the universe to harness your creative powers. If you work hard continuously with this belief then you will get new ideas and creative powers. Because thoughts full of faith are always powerful and creative.
Creativity wants a connection with you, the more you use the power of creativity, the more it will grow. For this, see for yourself whether you believe in doing something new and better with creative power. Believing in this will increase the commitment toward the work. Many people feel that their creative approach does not match with others and they become unhappy. The author says, that a bad attitude is also unique, so instead of leaving work after getting demotivated with it, use this
creativity to create something new, it will be unique compared to others. Always remember that creative life is a life of struggle, so keep trying continuously with faith in your ability. Some people fail in creative arts. Because they start doing it after seeing someone else. They do not get satisfaction from doing that work, or they do the work they like but do not get time to learn and understand about it. So do the work that you like and keep learning about it.
Chapter 6: Divinity
To become a creative artist, give importance to smart work more than hard work. To be creative, you have to pay in some form, whether it is money or time. So instead of being a creative martyr, be a creative smart person. Creative martyrs are people who spend their time or money to do something new. Whereas creative smart people use others’ time, money, and ability or they use those methods only.
To understand this, the author gives the example of Elizabeth Brené Brown. Brown had always enjoyed listening to stories, thus arousing the desire to write a novel. But she felt that reading a story was a boring and tiring process for him. So instead of reading the story himself. She asked two of his helpers to read the story and tell Brown about it.
She made notes based on the stories he heard from friends and wrote his stories from them. In this way, she helped to write good stories easily, and she completed his work in less time by following. The easy path of his choice instead of creative martyrs who read, understood, and wrote those books for the first years.
This allowed her to do more work than creativity. In the end, it teaches that you believe in your creative power and the universe. Keep striving to improve your work continuously. Take care of your own business, and do not get influenced by the negative things of others. Keep trying to make your creative ideas into reality with courage. Because the real meaning of life is to live a creative life.
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