Intentional Practice - Follow Your Artistic or Professional Calling Without Selling Out

May 25, 2012 - PRLog -- As an artist, do you feel that your only choices are to work in isolation or lose your soul in the art game?  Did you have a sense of calling when you joined your profession, but now find yourself putting the work second, even as your status, privilege and rewards continue to grow?  Do you feel torn between the seeming safety of a system that offers you status and reward, and the life you really want to be leading as an artist or as a professional?  Are you ready to come back to yourself as an artist?  As a professional?  

If you are ready or want to be,   The seven elements of  Intentional Practice developed by Creative Development Advisor, Marc Zegans (http://www.mycreativedevelopment.com/p/tools-for-you.html) will enable you to live your artistic and professional life with the purpose, meaning and integrity that you have been seeking.

Regaining Your Bearings

You know how it is, you decide you want to be an artist, a writer a doctor, a lawyer: you have big plans for your life and you know that you are going to be different from everyone else. You’re not going to sell out to make a living. You’re going to work uncompromisingly with purpose, passion and authenticity whether on a creative path or following a profession.

Then along the way you get sucked into “the system”, and like David Byrne sang in “Once In a Lifetime” you suddenly realise “well, how did I get here? You’ve unwittingly made a deal with the Devil. You sold your soul for position and status. You may be making art that is responding to the dictates of the market but doesn’t express the creativity that’s in your heart or, you’ve used your skills to climb to the top of your profession but the work drains you. You’ve got used the trapping of success, whether it’s the money or the recognition or both but it’s not enough.

Five, ten, twenty years into your career you hit a wall. Life sucks, you know there has to be more than this. You hear your voice calling, telling you to be true to yourself and to find a better way, but you’re scared, stuck and don’t know how to change. What happened to your dreams?  Why is it so hard to maintain your integrity?  What happened to your soul?

Marc Zegans, leading Creative Development Advisor has created a new and groundbreaking approach called http://www.mycreativedevelopment.com/p/tools-for-you.html and the Professions that will help you return to your self.  Intentional Practice begins with the idea that work is a calling, not a vehicle for achieving status and safety, which are by-products of doing the work well.  

Living an artistic or professional life through “intentional practice” is a way to be true to yourself, a way of living without compromise; it means taking responsibility for your actions rather than being swept along; it means making choices that are congruent with your values; it means being courageous. Most importantly, if you follow its seven basic practices, it means that you will always be able to look those you work with directly in the eye, and that you can look yourself in the eye as well.  You’ll be able to put your passion into your work and never have to kowtow to anyone.

By applying the principles outlined in Zegans article you will be able to work with integrity, with meaning, and with practical and creative success.  You’ll be able to do so because you’ll have the tools to undo the Faustian bargain that turns us against ourselves.  Says Zegans, “The Devil’s deal arises because we want to be free from fear and we want to feel important, so we look for an arrangement that protects us.  Accordingly, we submit to a matrix of dominance and subordination that marries our identities to a status structure in which we can feel safe and special, so long as we do as we are told.”  

“Intentional Practice”, says Zegans, “is the way out of this morass.”  Intentional Practice has seven basic elements: 1) being active, 2) taking responsibility, 3) being mindful, 4) being reflective, 5) being authentic, 6) being communicative, and 7) being accountable. Outlined and discussed in his groundbreaking article the seven elements of intentional practice give you the tools to make the changes you need to make, enabling you, whether as an artist or someone working in the professions to work in a way that is genuine, meaningful, rewarding and authentic.

Ends

To see the full article go to http://www.mycreativedevelopment.com/p/tools-for-you.html


To contact Marc Zegans please email marc@mycreativedevelopment.com  or call (617) 547-9547

For further press information please contact: Caroline Ratner caroline@carolinecomms.com  http://www.carolineratnercommunications.com

Notes to editors

About Marc Zegans
http://www.mycreativedevelopment.com

Marc Zegans advises creative artists and creatively driven organizations. In addition to prominent artists, writers, musicians, actors and directors his clients have included: the World Bank, the Ford, Rockefeller, Ewing Marion Kauffman and James Irvine Foundations, the Carnegie Corporation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, From the Top, GrantCraft, The Actor’s Shakespeare Project, Tooth and Nail, Opera Boston, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, The Ariel Group, XVIVO, Artists in Context, NatureStage, Philistine Records, the Social Innovation Forum, Theater Offensive, Embody Physical Therapy and Yoga and Chelsea Pictures. He has also advised the George H.W. Bush and Clinton Administrations on fostering innovation in the public sphere, and managed the City of Boston’s goals program, integrating strategic planning with the city’s first program-based budgets.

From 1988 through 1995 he served as Executive Director and Research Director of the Innovations in American Government Program, a joint venture of the Ford Foundation and Harvard University.  In 2005, he was a Fellow at Harvard University’s Ash Institute for Democracy and Innovation and in 2010 he was writer in residence at Bascom Lodge atop Massachusetts tallest peak Mt. Greylock.