Todd Mitchell - Breakthrough: How to Overcome Doubt, Fear and Resistance to Be Your Ultimate Creative Self

An Immensely valuable book! There are plenty of books out there on creativity, but none like this an essential read for anyone who is seeking inspiration about the creative life.

Laura Pritchett, winner of the PEN USA Award for Fiction, author of Stars Go Blue

Ive been relying on Breakthrough almost daily Breakthrough has helped me sit back and remember that my hands and feet are soaking in a creative pool that has no bottom.

Emily France, author of Zen and Gone, a

Washington Post Best Book for Young Readers

Breakthrough is brimming with compassion and wisdom. a dazzling foray into the worlds of creativity and the human experience. Whether you want to improve your creativity or you want to gain insight into how to flourish as a human, this book is for you.

Nich Krause, creator of The Scientific Philosopher

Every creative soul out there should read this book! With empowering suggestions spanning the spiritual to the practical,

Breakthrough will help readers reflect, connect, and find renewed joy in their creative endeavors.

Laura Resau, Amricas award-winning author of The Queen of Water

For all those who create without recognition,

and for my daughters, Addison Story and Cailin Elizabeth,may you always be wildly creative.

Start Here

T his book is for creators, which might encompass everyone. After all, life is fundamentally creative, and living well requires relentless creativity. As the writer Madeleine LEngle put it, Unless we are creators, we are not fully alive.

More specifically, this book is for writers, artists, musicians, actors, entrepreneurs, innovators, and others who know what its like to struggle with bringing something new and significant into existence.

Most specifically, this book is for writers. Why? Because writing is the creative practice I know the most about. However, from what Ive seen, the challenges of creating are similar in almost any endeavor where you send your creations out into the world to be admired, criticized, or ignored.

Its no secret that the creative path can be brutal. Examples of struggling writers, artists, and other creators are common enough to have become clich. But if youre drawn to creativity, then you probably also know that creating can be a deeply satisfying and transformative practice.

To create is to conjure into existence new worlds, characters, images, inventions, and experiences. Its a god-like undertaking that requires both vision and ambition. Such ambition inevitably makes the creator vulnerable to criticism and heartbreak.

By the time I started writing this book, Id had four novels published by major houses and Id taught creative writing for twenty-three years. Many of my students have become friends whove kept in touch. I have friends (some who are past students, and some who I met elsewhere) whove written best sellers and had their books made into blockbuster movies, and I have friends whove received National Book Awards, Newbery Awards, and heaps of other honors.

I also have friendssome of the most naturally talented writers Ive knownwho got discouraged and stopped writing. A writing professor told me decades ago that the ones who publish and win accolades arent necessarily the most talented. Theyre the ones who stick with it. At the time I thought he was merely being encouraging to struggling young writers like myself who feared we didnt have enough talent. Now, after decades of teaching creative writing and working with hundreds of writers, I know that what he said is absolutely true: the ones who publish and find success are the ones who stick with it.

For those of us taking a creative path, perseverance matters more than talent. In fact, the most important secret to creative success is actually quite simple. It can be summarized by the Japanese proverb, Fall down seven times. Get up eight.

But how do you keep getting up? How do you persevere when things get rough? How do you stay creative and hopeful through the many years of doubt, struggle, and failure that almost every creator experiences?

The answers to these questions arent what most people think. They certainly werent what Id thought theyd be, and they werent things that other success books had prepared me to see. Nevertheless, there are powerful ways to transcend the suffering artist paradigm and realize your immense potential while enjoying the creative process more.

It would be a terrible waste not to enjoy your creative life. The techniques outlined in this book are designed to help you love every step of the creative process, because when you love what youre doing, youre far more likely to keep going and attain the success you seek.

Creativity is the territory this book focuses on, but the radical perspective-shifting solutions explored in these pages apply to a great deal more than writing, art, music, and other creative endeavors. Theyre about moving beyond whats holding you back so you can experience life more fully while becoming the wondrous creator youre meant to be.

Fall down seven times, get up eight.

Heres to giving each other a hand up.