Hello, hello my creative friend! This year I have decided that I will not set new year’s resolutions. Yes you read correctly. I find resolutions to be vague and easily forgotten. Things like “I will look after my health more” or “I will paint more often” are just fuzzy, hazy sentences which don’t really mean anything. How will I look after my health? More exercise? More healthy food? How often is “more often”? Every week? Every day? Twice a day?
That is why, since last year, I set goals instead. But not any sort of generic goal, otherwise they could be as bad as the resolutions. I’m going to set very specific, effective goals, to achieve very specific results.
When I say effective I mean big goals that at the same time are still achievable; so I’m not going to say I will earn a 7-figure salary (though that would be nice) but I’ll follow some guidelines to make the goal maybe challenging but achievable at the same time.
So my goal will be reachable and inspiring, the journey to reach it should be enjoyable and of course, it needs to be measurable, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to track my progress and celebrate my wins!
So have you set your goals? Or are you still undecided and unsure where to start? Maybe I can give you a little help here by sharing how I set and keep track of my goals.
First of all, I say goals but I’d like you not to set too many goals for yourself. I usually set a goal for my business, one for personal development, one for my “mind, body and spirit” and one for finance but I am careful not to overwhelm myself with too many tasks and things to do otherwise the goals setting would become just a stressful exercise and who needs more stress right?
Pick ONE Goal
So for my business/creative goal I choose one main goal I want to achieve and I set a date by which I want to accomplish it. Don’t stress too much about the date but having a deadline will help keep you accountable. I suggest sitting down with a nice cup of your favorite hot drink and dedicate some quiet time to your goal exploring and setting. Write down 3-4 goals but then pick one, yes just one because that will be enough to start with. Focus your undivided attention to it and once you achieve it you can move on to the next one. Depending on your goal it might take you a few months to the whole year to accomplish it, but be kind to yourself and give yourself all the time you need.
Establish Your WHY
I find that establishing why I want to achieve this goal is also very helpful. Once you reach your goal, will it help you be more financially stable? Will you help other people? Will it give you more free time? Imagine yourself in a few months’ time, after you have achieved your goal, how do you feel? Why are you happy to have reached your goal? Why was it important to get there? This exercise will give you a strong reason to keep working for your goal. Remember to write everything down so you can refer back to it later.
Share Your Goal
I usually share my goal with my accountability group and my family. Saying the words out loud has the power to make it feel more real and when other people know about it you feel more accountable towards it. If you don’t have an accountability group, share your goal with members of your family or trusted friends.
Time To Plan
Now that you have decided on your goal, you might look back at it and think “how am I going to get there?” Last year my goal was to create a pattern portfolio to send to companies for licensing. I happily set the goal and then thought “now what?” “how am I going to accomplish this?”
The next thing I did was to break down my goal. If I want to create a portfolio then I need to:
- Create more patterns
- Improve my skills in Adobe Illustrator
- Learn how to build a portfolio
- Learn how to find and contact companies
Once I had these steps I could break them down even further
- To create more patterns
o Set aside time slots every week to draw and make the pattern in Illustrator
- To improve my skills in Adobe Illustrator
o Find and follow classes about Illustrator
o Practice every day
- To learn how to build a portfolio
o Research and find out about portfolios
o Look at other people’s portfolios for inspiration
o Find a class on portfolio building
- To Learn how to find and contact companies
o Find courses on pitching your portfolio
o Do some internet searches to find potential companies to contact
So as you can see, your main goal can be broken down into smaller, more manageable steps that are not so overwhelming and can be divided in things to do in the next 6 months, 3 months, 1 month etc.
Re-evaluate Your Goal Regularly
You can find a paperback version of the planner HERE
Keep re-evaluating your goals throughout the year, every quarter go back to your notes and check your progress. Also, we all know that life happens so you might need to readjust and review your goals, but that’s only normal. In my planner I added a Goal-Setting page every 3 months so I can review and adjust as necessary.
Enjoy the Process!
One very important thing to remember is to enjoy the process of reaching your goal! Don’t set a goal just for the sake of it. Don’t set the goal to license your collection just to make money; yes money is important but you MUST enjoy what you’re doing. I don’t teach for the money, I teach because I love to share my knowledge and help others reach their goals.
If, for any reason, you don’t reach your goal by the deadline you set yourself, please don’t take this as a failure. Sometimes a task takes longer than expected, sometimes a pandemic happens! Look at what you have achieved so far, congratulate yourself for the progress and just keep going, you’ll get there.
And when you do achieve your goal, CELEBRATE! Treat yourself to a cake, a new set of brushes, a meal out or a day at the SPA. You’ve earned it!
I have created some Goal Setting Worksheets for you to download and use to write down and keep track of your goals. I made different versions because we are all different and we all like to work in different ways. I hope you’ll find them useful.
Let me know in the comments if you have set your goals for this year and, if you like, tell me what they are, I can be you accountability buddy :-)
I wish you a great and productive year!
PS. Just a little present from me to you: click this LINK to download a 2021 calendar made with patterns and illustrations I did throughout last year.
