Matthew Ferry's Blog

When I have clients who are feeling sorry for themselves, I pose this question, “If Picasso were in jail, would he still create?” Some say, “No, he wouldn’t” Others say “If Picasso was in jail, he wouldn’t be able to create the same way and therefore his creations would not be of the same quality” They assume his paintings in jail would be less valuable then others.

As a creator of business, music, relationships and many other things myself, I totally disagree. Picasso would definitely create masterful works in jail. Could he create the same way? No. Can you create income, operate your life or move your projects forward in the same way during this economy? No. So what if you did what Picasso would do if he were in jail?

Picasso would be struck with an idea, a flash or a vision. He would have a pull inside of him to manifest this idea into reality. Yet, if he was like most people today, he might think to himself, “Oh well, I’m in jail, I don’t have any paint, I can’t create it… ho hum… poor me” Thankfully, Picasso and other creative people are not like most people today. There is no room for the victim mentality in creation. Creative people always find a way.

As a creator, Picasso simply assesses his situation. He seeks to understand the truth of his situation. He studies his environment very carefully, trying not to miss any of the details. He wants to identify what he can create with in this particular environment. He doesn’t complain he seeks to fully understand the truth of his situation so that he can create his vision from there. He doesn’t need the situation to change in order to manifest his vision. He accepts the situation as it is and makes it work for him.

For example he might notice that there are three different colored soils in the yard, a pencil, a blue pen, various red, yellow and green leaves and the background of gray paint on his cell wall. Everything is examined for its usefulness in creating the vision. He may not possess the pink he envisions so he waits, he observes and he allows the pink to reveal itself in the environment. He doesn’t get upset about a lack of pink because he keeps looking for solutions.

Ultimately his vision manifests in the form best suited for the environment. He doesn’t judge it or make it worse then a painting he created with canvas and paint. In fact, he marvels at how interesting it was to have to create it within the limitations he was presented with. That sparks another idea and off he goes creating again.

Now I ask you, “Can you create your dreams given your current set of circumstances?” If you approach your life the same way Picasso approaches his art, then the answer is absolutely “Yes!” Read this article again and look for clues or mosey on over to my website for more powerful lessons.

Matthew Ferry is an author, inspiring speaker and life coach. For 15 ways to kick the recession blues and get inspired to make positive changes head on over to www.15strategies.com for a free 15 day e-course sure to lift your spirits and get you in action.

1. As a life coach, part of my job is to help my clients maintain a greater balance in their life. This isn’t easy to do because usually people who hire my company to coach them are very successful, powerful people who have very strong desires to achieve big dreams and big goals. Why else would you have a coach? So their goals and dreams have a tendency to suck their life up and absorb many of the hours that they have to spend on their life.

2. What we do in the life coaching process is begin to measure and monitor the level of satisfaction in each of the areas of their life. By measuring and monitoring their level of satisfaction we can improve it. What you monitor, you can improve.

3. We monitor the following categories to maintain a balanced lifestyle:

a. Your physical body

b. Your mindset

c. Your spiritual practices

d. Your primary relationship

e. Your family

f. Your business

g. Your personal finances

g. The contributions you make

h. Your social life

i. Your recreational activities

4. In the Inspired Action Coaching process, we spend one call every quarter determining how satisfied you are in each of these areas on a scale from 1-10; 1 being unsatisfied, 10 being completely satisfied. Then once you identify the number of how satisfied you are, then we ask as your coach, what would make it a 10? The key is to identify specific measurable results, intentions, experiences, feelings that you want to have, ways of being that you could be putting forward in that particular category.

5. Then you monitor what is going on with this new list, this new balanced list. By doing that, everything works in your favor.

As a life coach, I help clients understand what their true passion in life is, and then help them set their life up so that their passion can exist within the structure of their life.

Now, this is not easy, because our life is currently designed to perpetuate the commitments that we’ve made in the past. Oddly, that’s really the hint or the key to getting our passion to fit into our life, as well. It’s all about making commitments and making promises.

Now, you can’t just make commitments and make promises, you have to make those commitments and promises to other people. So zero in on your passion. By the way, I would love to help you do that, please go to www.discoveryourpurposecall.com to go through my free Discover Your Purpose process.

Once you’ve discovered what your purpose and your passion are, now you’ve got to begin to find people that are aligned with that same purpose and that same passion. You must find groups, clubs, organizations and opportunities and then begin to make promises and commitments to these people that are in line with what your passion in.

Now, you can’t stop at making new promises. It’s not going to be enough to make promises and commitments to new groups of people that are committed to the same thing as you, because your old patterns will naturally fight against these new behaviors. So you must also examine the impact of your new behaviors on the people and the promises and the accountabilities that you have in your life now, and go back and re-negotiate, cancel, or re-design your current promises, commitments, and accountabilities in your life.

For example, if you have a promise to make dinner every Wednesday night and the new group that you belong to that follow your passion, meets Wednesday nights, and you want to be able to go and meet with them too, you have more work to do. You can’t just make the new promise, and then say, I’m not making dinner anymore. That doesn’t work.

Instead, you go back to your wife and your family, and you tell them how important this new passion is to you and how you’re committed to learning more about it, understanding it, and implementing it into your life. And the class, or the structure, the group, or whatever it is that you’ve found, the mentor that you have found to support you in beginning to foster this passion, this purpose in your life, is on Wednesday nights, and that you would like to re-negotiate your Wednesday night dinner for a different night, so that you can follow your passion and serve your family, the way that you want to serve your family.

So, it’s not enough just to make promises and commitments to new groups, you must also examine the structure that is currently present in your life and make good or re-arrange, re-negotiate, challenge, or cancel all of the commitments that you have that it might conflict with.

Now, there is a caveat. You might discover that parts of your life actually conflict completely with what you’re newly committed to. You may find some hard choices and hard decisions that you’re going to make about the life that you’re living now.

That’s where a life coach comes in. My specialty as a life coach is to help you make those decisions, and I would be honored to help you if that’s appropriate.