Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love discusses and dispells the myth of the necessity to be a “tormented genuis” to be creative and successful.  She believes that it is possible to teach and embrace creativity without embracing distracting and destructive drama along the way.

Elizabeth shared some wonderful life and learning stories with the audience at GCECS2009.  Some poignant lessons from her talk included -

She started her creative journey at 15 years old and knew then that what she always wanted to do was write.  She loved reading and writing.  She had found the place where she was her best self.  By telling the story of how she found that place, she reminded us to remember that you have to find that thing to do, that place where what you do makes you your best self.  You have to bring that kind of passion and energy to your creative work   Do the work from a place of devotional passion and love and it will help you manage your expectations.   If you are acting from a place of passion, you have to prepare yourself for no other rewards, other than the fulfilling of your passion.

We live in a society with relentless expectations that you will outdo yourself.  By constantly striving to meet these expectations, we lose what drives us to make it perfect, as opposed to making it new and different.  We have lost the sense that we have the scale of time to become a master of our craft, whatever the craft may be.

The stereotype that a creative person must live a life of angst is dangerous.  It paralyzes us from moving forward to do things in different creative ways.  Our failures become so overwhelming that we are not able to thoroughly enjoy our successes.  It is in the allowing ourselves to let go of the anxiety and angst that we find other creative outlets which nurture the work that derives from our passion.

Self-forgiveness along the way is just as important as discipline and focus in allowing us to follow the path that exposes the creative brilliance found in the work that is born of following the passion that makes us our best selves .

Tags: creativity, Eat, Elizabeth Gilbert, lessons, Love, passion, Pray