Resolutions & Inspirations
I love setting New Year's resolutions. Resetting the year on January 1 makes me feel like I can do anything: if I just set the goal, I will achieve it. Of course, I don't always [ever] succeed 100%, but writing down some specifics makes me that much more likely to work toward them. Best case scenario, I look back in December and have a couple achievements or new habits to be proud of.
So last month, as I pondered my goals for 2017, I wondered what my creative peers would be shooting for this year. I took to Facebook and encouraged my friends to share. Here's a little of what the responses looked like:
- Make a decorative door wreath for every season
- Write more
- Meditate more and finish a book proposal
- Achieve happiness (deep)
- Learn how to make jewelry and complete a personal book-reading challenge
- Write at least one children's book
- Utilize The Artist's Way
- Begin watercolor classes
- Finish a second book
- Not die of exhaustion (fair enough)
- Learn Spencerian script
- Throw a set of 6 ceramic dinner plates
- Sell products at an additional 10 retailers and reach 1,000 followers on social media
- Write enough music for a full record and record it
- Find ways to make personal dreams come true while helping clients
- Go to one of those paint-and-drink-wine places and not have an emotional meltdown
- Learn to make homemade pasta and sticky toffee pudding and write a travel piece
Jewelry by Bang-Up Betty
Dog portrait prints by Iloh Design
Calligraphy by Sarah Script
I loved how these spanned from broad goals (be happy! take time to meditate! write!) to wildly specific (sticky toffee pudding!). Work by some of those folks nice enough to share is pictured above. Aren't they talented?
One strategy for completing resolutions that a friend shared with me this year was to make them as quantitative as possible. I have embraced that method with gusto. Here are my creative goals for 2017:
1. Complete 50,000 words of creative writing (my friend is doing this with me. He writes creative nonfiction about his anxiety here.)
2. Send 104 pieces of snail mail (that's two a week!)
3. Post 36 blog posts (three per month)
Are they ambitious? Very. We're already a month in and I ain't doing so great at some of these -- the only snail mail I've sent so far is a handful of angry postcards to my senators. But I'll keep at it, and I appreciate my creative community for sharing their ambitions with me. Maybe in doing so, we can help hold each other accountable this year.
