As a huge fan of Elizabeth Gilbert, it came somewhat as a surprise to me that ‘Big Magic‘ was completely off my radar until mid-2020 when I saw someone mention it on their Instagram feed.
A few months later I purchased a second-hand copy, added it to my TBR pile and began reading it last month (December 2020).
Gilbert is the bestselling author of ‘Eat Pray Love’. Yes, that book. The worldwide phenomenon that sold over 10 million copies and was later turned into a Hollywood film starring Julia Roberts.
‘Eat Pray Love‘ is a memoir that reads more like a fiction novel. It follows Gilbert’s story from marriage break-down to solo-travelling across Bali, India & Italy to find herself.
“I wrote a travel memoir in order to make sense of my own journey and my own emotional confusion. All I was trying to do with that book was to figure myself out”
Elizabeth Gilbert | Big Magic
What Is ‘Big Magic’?
‘Big Magic‘ takes on a slightly different tone to ‘Eat Pray Love‘ and acts as the self-help/business book that we never knew we needed.
Gilbert takes on the role of life coach and shares her unique perspective on living a creative life that is led by curiosity and not by fear.
Gilbert uses past life lessons, real stories and her timeless wisdom to draw out a road map of how we can gain the courage to pursue our own creative endeavours.
Throughout the book’s 6 sections – Courage, Enchantment, Permission, Persistence, Trust and Divinity – we are shown how to deal with our doubts, how to observe our ideas and how to act upon them without fear.
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Main Takeaways
The biggest takeaway that I took from reading ‘Big Magic‘ is that I should never feel embarrassed about building a creative biz. I’m doing it for me and because I enjoy being creative and for no other reason other than that.
There seems to be such a stigma around creative work and I’m glad Gilbert has finally spoken about the fact that it should be treated the same as non-creative work.
Gilbert also puts a huge emphasis on the fact that it doesn’t matter if an idea has been done before. It’s never been done by ourselves and therefore it will always be unique.
“Once you put your own expression and passion behind an idea, that idea becomes yours”
Elizabeth gilbert | big magic
I am definitely partial to self-comparison, who isn’t right?! But being able to say the above quote out loud daily has helped me to train my brain into believing that although my ideas may not be unique, the way I execute my ideas ARE unique.
Why Read ‘Big Magic’?
If you are someone who gets bored easily from conventional business books with dull, plain covers written by men then you’ll love ‘Big Magic‘.
Just like the cover, ‘Big Magic‘ is not just another boring self-help book but one that stands out as daring to be different.
Gilbert writes as though she is writing to a friend and has a very matter-of-fact, screw-the-norm tone of voice. She encourages us to embark on our creative dreams and to not give a f*ck about what anybody says or thinks.
This is our life so why don’t we start living it the way we want.
“Let people have their opinions. More than that – let people be in love with their opinions, just as you and I are in love with ours. Never delude yourself into believing that you require someone else’s blessing in order to make your own creative work. And always remember that people’s judgements about you, are none of your business”
Elizabeth Gilbert | Big Magic
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