Big magic: creative living beyond fear - Elizabeth Gilbert 2015

Fierce Trust
Trust

The final—and sometimes most difficult—act of creative trust is to put your work out there into the world once you have completed it.

The trust that I’m talking about here is the fiercest trust of all. This is not a trust that says “I am certain I will be a success”—because that is not fierce trust; that is innocent trust, and I am asking you to put aside your innocence for a moment and to step into something far more bracing and far more powerful. As I have said, and as we all know deep in our hearts, there is no guarantee of success in creative realms. Not for you, not for me, not for anyone. Not now, not ever.

Will you put forth your work anyhow?

I recently spoke to a woman who said, “I’m almost ready to start writing my book, but I’m having trouble trusting that the universe will grant me the outcome I want.”

Well, what could I tell her? I hate to be a buzzkill, but the universe might not grant her the outcome she wants. Without a doubt, the universe will grant her some kind of outcome. Spiritually minded people would even argue that the universe will probably grant her the outcome she needs—but it might not grant her the outcome she wants.

Fierce trust demands that you put forth the work anyhow, because fierce trust knows that the outcome does not matter.

The outcome cannot matter.

Fierce trust asks you to stand strong within this truth: “You are worthy, dear one, regardless of the outcome. You will keep making your work, regardless of the outcome. You will keep sharing your work, regardless of the outcome. You were born to create, regardless of the outcome. You will never lose trust in the creative process, even when you don’t understand the outcome.”

There is a famous question that shows up, it seems, in every single self-help book ever written: What would you do if you knew that you could not fail?

But I’ve always seen it differently. I think the fiercest question of all is this one: What would you do even if you knew that you might very well fail?

What do you love doing so much that the words failure and success essentially become irrelevant?

What do you love even more than you love your own ego?

How fierce is your trust in that love?

You might challenge this idea of fierce trust. You might buck against it. You might want to punch and kick at it. You might demand of it, “Why should I go through all the trouble to make something if the outcome might be nothing?”

The answer will usually come with a wicked trickster grin: “Because it’s fun, isn’t it?”

Anyhow, what else are you going to do with your time here on earth—not make things? Not do interesting stuff? Not follow your love and your curiosity?

There is always that alternative, after all. You have free will. If creative living becomes too difficult or too unrewarding for you, you can stop whenever you want.

But seriously: Really?

Because, think about it: Then what?