10 inspirational 'big magic' quotes to keep your dreams on track

News flash: I am a self-confessed and rather obsessed Elizabeth Gilbert fan.

​But unlike most, it's not her 'Eat Pray Love' vibes that hold me to ransom, but rather the pages of her recent 'Big Magic' masterpiece that equally inspire me and keep me in  check when I'm experiencing my most intense moments of self-doubt and vulnerability.
​I would encourage everyone to get their heads into this book pronto, but if you don't have the time to read the whole thing from front to back, I've extracted some of my most favourite quotes to keep you going until you DO get the chance to read it........
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'Big Magic' Quote 1.
​"So this, I believe, is the central question upon which all creative living hinges: Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?"

​'Big Magic' Quote 2.
​"The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them"

'Big Magic' Quote 3.
​​" I believe that our planet is inhabited not only by animals and bacteria and viruses but also by ideas"

​'Big Magic' Quote 4.
​"..you will never be able to create anything interesting out of your life if you don't believe you're entitled to at least try"

​>>(this one depends on you believing in yourself in your own right, without depending on others to believe in you. Self-love and self-care are the key denominators here.)

'Big Magic' Quote 5.
​"...without (creative entitlement) this arrogance of belonging, you will never push yourself out of the suffocating insulation of personal safety and into the frontiers of the beautiful and the unexpected"

>>I used to live in a façade of 'busy-ness' making myself so busy that my appearance depended on it; I got a reputation for it, but I also received positive reinforcement for all the things I was achieving, so I inherently thought that I was succeeding in life, that this is how it felt to succeed and achieve.

What's your insulation of personal safety?? Mine used to be a montage of "should be's": 'I should stay on my current career path because it's the right thing to do, and I've spent over a decade working my way through the university degrees, spent a lot of money along the way, have a huge mortgage to pay off and now I have to keep staying here to be able to provide my kids with the same opportunity......The 'same opportunity'....for what??!!

​'Big Magic' Quote 6.
"..Defending yourself as a creative person begins by defining yourself. It begins when you declare your intent"

'Big Magic' Quote 7.
"(Trust me, your soul has been waiting for you to wake up to your own existence for years)"
Yes, yes, yes & yes!!

'Big Magic' Quote 8.
​"Speak to your darkest and most negative interior voices the way a hostage negotiator speaks to a violent psychopath: calmly, but firmly. Most of all, never back down. you cannot afford to back down. The life you are negotiating to save, after all, is your own".

'Big Magic' Quote 9.
​"..maybe you fear that you are not original enough.
​...maybe that's the problem - your ideas are commonplace and pedestrian and therefore unworthy of creation........well, yes, it probably has already been done, most things have (been) - but.....THEY HAVE NOT YET BEEN DONE BY YOU!"
This one stays with me all the time - and whenever I doubt the originality of one of my ideas or concepts, I hear this quote in my head and push through it and throw it out there anyway, because the worst that can happen is that your idea or concept gets rejected, and who cares??!! As long as you believed in it at the time and felt its energy and presence, no-one can take that away from you. So push through the fear and throw it out into the world, no matter how zany or crazy it sounds.

'Big Magic' Quote 10.
​"So the question is not so much 'what are you passionate about'?; the question is 'what are you passionate enough about that you can endure the most disagreeable aspects of the work'?
​..Because if you love and want something enough....then you don't mind the shit sandwich that comes with it".
LOVE LOVE LOVE this one!!