The Creative Home Base Protocol
Your home is whatever you love more than you love yourself
The Creative Home Base Protocol is Elizabeth Gilbert's framework for surviving both catastrophic failure and disorienting success by anchoring yourself to the work you love more than you love yourself. Gilbert discovered that the psychological experience of great failure and great success are nearly identical: both catapult you far from your normal center into equally blinding extremes. Failure launches you into the darkness of disappointment. Success launches you into the equally blinding glare of fame and recognition. Your subconscious cannot distinguish between them -- it only feels the absolute distance from your center.
The remedy for both is the same: find your way back home as swiftly and smoothly as possible. Your home is whatever you love more than you love yourself. It might be creativity, family, invention, adventure, faith, or service. It is the thing you can dedicate your energies to with such singular devotion that the ultimate results become inconsequential.
Gilbert's crucial insight is that loving your work more than yourself means loving it more than your own ego. This is what allows you to keep creating through both failure (when ego wants to quit to avoid more pain) and success (when ego wants to protect its newly inflated status).
- The psychological experience of great failure and great success are nearly identical -- both fling you far from center.
- Your subconscious cannot distinguish between bad and good outcomes -- it only feels the distance from your center.
- Your home is whatever you love more than you love yourself.
- Loving your work more than yourself means loving it more than your ego.
- When catapulted by either failure or success, fight your way back to your home.
- Identify Your Home -- The Work You Love More Than YourselfYour home is not a place -- it is the activity or commitment you can dedicate yourself to with such singular devotion that the results become inconsequential. For Gilbert, it was writing. She loved writing more than she hated failing at it, which is ultimately to say she loved writing more than she loved herself. Identify what that is for you -- it might be creating, building, teaching, serving, or something else entirely. The test: would you keep doing it even if you knew the outcome would be negative? If yes, that is your home.Pro tipThe answer is not what makes you happy or what you are good at -- it is what you would keep doing even if it brought pain, because the doing itself matters more to you than the result.WarningAddiction and infatuation do not count. Gilbert is explicit about this -- those are not safe places to live. Your home must be something worthy.
- Build Your House Directly on Top of ItOnce you have identified your home, build your entire life structure around it. Do not let it be a hobby or a side project while you chase more 'practical' pursuits. Gilbert spent six years as a waitress writing daily, sending stories out, and collecting rejection letters. She did not pursue a backup career -- she built her house on writing and refused to budge. This total commitment creates the foundation that will anchor you when either failure or success tries to fling you off center.Pro tipThe commitment must be non-negotiable. If your home is writing, write daily regardless of mood, success, failure, or circumstance. The consistency is the house.WarningBuilding your house on your home does not guarantee financial security or recognition. It guarantees that you will survive whatever outcomes arise because you are anchored to something more important than outcomes.
- When Catapulted, Fight Your Way BackWhen either great failure or great success flings you far from your center, your job is to fight your way back home. After six years of rejection, Gilbert kept going home to writing. After the massive success of 'Eat, Pray, Love,' she did exactly the same thing -- got her ass back to work. The follow-up book bombed, and she was fine, because she had broken the spell. She had proven that the work itself was the point, not the outcomes. Put your head down and perform with diligence, devotion, and respect whatever the task is that love is calling forth from you next.Pro tipWhen you feel lost after a major success or failure, ask: What would I do if the outcome did not matter at all? The answer is your path home.
For almost six years after college, Elizabeth Gilbert worked as a diner waitress, writing daily and sending stories to publications. Every single day, she had nothing but rejection letters waiting in her mailbox. It was devastating every time. Each day she had to decide whether to quit. She always found her resolve the same way: 'I am not going to quit, I am going home.' Going home meant returning to writing, the work she loved more than she hated failing at it.
After 'Eat, Pray, Love' became a massive international bestseller, Gilbert faced a different crisis: knowing that her next book would inevitably disappoint. Fans would be disappointed it was not more 'Eat, Pray, Love.' Critics would be disappointed she still existed. She had no way to win. She seriously considered quitting writing entirely. But she recognized she was experiencing the same psychological dislocation as during her years of failure -- just in the opposite direction. The solution was identical: go back to writing.
Elizabeth Gilbert developed this framework through her deeply personal experience with both extremes. She spent almost six years sending stories to The New Yorker, receiving nothing but rejection letters. She was a diner waitress who failed at publishing daily. She kept going because she loved writing more than she hated failing at writing -- more than she loved her own ego, more than she loved herself. Then 'Eat, Pray, Love' became one of the biggest books in the world, and she found herself in the equally disorienting territory of massive success, knowing that everything she wrote next would disappoint someone. She recognized she felt exactly like that unpublished waitress again -- both were flung far from center. The solution was the same both times: 'I am not going to quit, I am going home.' Going home meant returning to the work of writing, the thing she loved more than outcomes.