Your Life, Your Masterpiece

It is a joy to express my creativity. I have the power, strength, and knowledge to transform my life into a magnificent work of art.

What if you could transform your life into a work of art? In fact, what if you could make it an incredible masterpiece? You really can!

One of the ways to do so is illustrated well in a scene from the movie Bernie. In one part, Bernie (played by Jack Black) was enthralled with a man who was magnificently carving a bear out of a log with a chainsaw. When Bernie asked him how he did it, the man replied, “I wake up in the morning with an idea and cut away everything that ain’t that idea.”

That statement is quite profound and holds a key to creating a masterpiece of your life. First, know what you want to create. Second, cut out all that isn’t contributing to that vision. 

As simple as the first step seems, it is absolutely critical in creating your life’s masterpiece. What do you want for your life? Consider each area, including relationships, finances, career, health, and so on. When deciding what you want, make sure you focus on what you do want rather than what you don’t want. For instance, deciding you want to live in a strong, fit, energetic, healthy body, is focusing on what you do want . . . while telling yourself you don’t want to be sick, tired, and overweight is focusing on what you don’t want.

The reason it’s important to know what you do want is because what you focus on grows. It’s like planting a garden. If you know you want tomatoes, you plant tomato seeds. If all you know is that you don’t want cucumbers, you can end up planting anything but tomato seeds. As a result, you often end up with the very thing you don’t want—cucumbers!

Your thoughts are seeds. In fact, where you are today is a direct result of the “thought seeds” you planted in the past. Where you will be in the future is determined by the thoughts you are thinking—planting—right now. Will you want to be where and what you're thinking right now in the future? If not, now is the time to change your thinking. You are a master creator, so choose to think masterful thoughts. The first step to doing so is deciding what you want.

In addition, be sure to be as specific as possible. Let’s suppose you decide you want to “get fit.” What exactly do you mean by that? Do you want to improve your cardiovascular endurance? You need to be specific about what you want in that area. Perhaps it’s to run a half-marathon in three months’ time. Or, maybe it’s being able to walk at a specific speed for a certain distance. Whatever it is, be sure to capture your ideas on paper. Writing it all down will keep you focused and on track.

The second step is to “cut out” anything you don’t want in your life. As a simplistic example, suppose you want to accumulate a specific amount of wealth. What might you need to cut out? Perhaps it might be mindless spending, debt, and procrastination. Replace it with knowing exactly where you spend your money, creating a plan of action to pay off debt, and taking the time in the present to do the work you need to do to create what you desire.

This is your life to live, so begin transforming it into a work of art today. First, choose one area of your life in which you’ve been wanting to make a change. Decide exactly what you want to create in this area and plant those thoughts—those seeds—in your mind. Then decide what you need to cut away. Before you know it—one action at a time, one day at a time—your masterpiece will be revealed.