The Power of Creativity \(Book 1\): Learning How to Build Lasting Habits, Face Your Fears and Change Your Life pdfdrive com

Your Guiding Purpose
I once spent a year unemployed.
I  was  in  a  secure  job  that  paid  relatively  well,  but  it  was  awful.  When  I
couldn’t stand the thought of staying even one more day, I broke from this job
and found work as a press officer for a charity. It was supposed to be my dream
job, but after several months my manager let me go.
He  told  me  I  didn’t  have  what  it  takes.  I  contacted  my  old  employer  and
asked  for  my  job  back,  but  I’d  already  burned  the  boats;  there  was  no  way  I
could return to my old and safe role.
I spent months out of work, considering what career I should follow. I knew I
wanted  to  write,  but  I  didn’t  know  if  this  meant  working  in  journalism,  public
relations or some other career.
I was adrift.
I  eventually  discovered  people  who  are  happy  in  their  chosen  professions
face  these  types  of  crises  armed  with  a  personal  mission  statement,  a  guiding
purpose or code.
They  have  done  the  hard  work  of  educating  themselves  about  what  drives
and inspires them. They know, too, that creativity doesn’t just appear at will. It
takes months and years of hard and purposeful work.
Originally from Chicago, singer and poet Patti Smith (b. 1946) has dedicated
her life to the pursuit of art through poetry and punk rock. During the 1970s, she

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began performing poetry in clubs around New York and teaching herself how to
play the guitar.
At  first,  Smith  played  alone  in  her  room  before  performing  for  friends  and
then reciting poetry in small New York clubs.
Finally, she embraced the guitar and the microphone as her means of creative
expression. After assembling her band, Patti knew at once they shared a guiding
purpose. In Just Kids, she wrote:
We imagined ourselves as the Sons of Liberty with a mission to preserve,
protect, and project the revolutionary spirit of rock and roll . . .
We  would  call  forth  in  our  minds  the  image  of  Paul  Revere,  riding
through the American night, petitioning the people to wake up, to take up
arms. We too would take up arms, the arms of our generation, the electric
guitar and the microphone.”
Artists  Henri  Matisse  (1869-1954)  and  Pablo  Picasso  (1881-1973)  are  two
fine examples of artists with a guiding purpose.
Matisse worked solidly for 50 years at his craft. Even after abdominal cancer
and a difficult operation left the elderly artist bedridden, he continued to create
works of art in the form of paper cut-outs until his death.
Matisse  found  a  joie  de  vivre  in  his  art  that  wasn’t  possible  anywhere  else,
and he famously said, “Work cures everything.”
Picasso, sensing his mortality, used his art to look death in the eye. The last
of  his  works  tackle  subjects  like  human  sexuality,  physical  decay  and  his
looming death. He also left instructions for anyone in search of creative success.
Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which
we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act.
There is no other route to success.”
Both artists paid attention to what drove them. Each figured out the purpose
of their lives and pursued it to the end.

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