Goals for the New Year

Working with a Plan

Goals for the New Year come in all shapes and sizes. The most common goal worldwide is to lose weight.
And 80-85% fail by mid-February. Why?

Because they have a goal without a plan.

Consider your artistic goals as a personal journey. You wouldn’t go on a journey without a map, would you? (Photo Credit: 123RF.com Copyright: visionsi)

Reaching a goal (even an artistic goal) is the equivalent of going on a personal journey. If you decided to go on a road trip and drive across the country, you wouldn’t just jump in your car and go without doing any research or without a map, would you? No! You’d do some research, look up the places you want to see along the way, what the weather will be like, what the best time of year is to go, the order of places you’ll hit along the way, etc. If you didn’t do this, you would possibly be ill prepared for weather, drive in circles just to see certain landmarks, and ultimately waste a lot of time getting lost.

Artistic goals for the New Year require the same preparation and planning.

Define your goal. What do you want to improve or accomplish? Maybe it’s a specific project, something you’ve never attempted before. You might want to enter an art festival and have your own booth. Or maybe it’s learning a new skill. Define it and picture yourself having achieved it.

Thoughtful consideration will help connect you more closely with your goals. (Photo Credit: 123RF.com Copyright: Freddy Cahyono)

Take time to seriously consider why this is important to you and how your life would improve or change once you reach your goal. Maybe learning that new skill will allow you to accept bigger and better commissions. Perhaps that project will help a charity of some sort. Or maybe you’ll just have that satisfying sense of accomplishment of doing something you’ve never done before.

What do you need to do in order to reach the finish line?

If you’re planning on getting a booth at an art festival, what needs to be done? You can’t just show up. Where is the venue? What are the dates and times? What size booth will you need and how much will it cost? How many art pieces should you have in order to have a successful showing? Will you sell originals only, or prints as well?

Once you know your goal intimately, it’s time to start mapping the goal out into smaller mini goals. (Photo Credit: 123RF.com Copyright: Milosh Kojadinovich).

Then it’s time to start mapping things. You already know your end goal. But let’s face it…the end goal can be totally intimidating. So it’s prudent to plan the journey by breaking things down into smaller bite-size chunks, or mini-goals. As you figure out everything that needs to be done, consider how those things can be broken down evenly throughout the year (assuming you’re giving yourself a year to reach your goal).

• Paid for booth – end of January
• 3 paintings completed – end of March
• 3 more paintings completed – end of June
• order business postcards – beginning of August
• 3 more paintings completed – end of September
• 1 last painting completed – end of October
• Drop originals off at printer – early November
• Purchase frames for originals – end of November
• Package art for transport – early December

It’s Your Turn

Digital or paper calendars. Pick one that works for you.

You may have your own way of mapping things out. Perhaps with Google Calendar or an actual paper calendar. However you prefer, it should be easy for you to keep track of each mini-goal and the progress you’re making. If you find yourself getting side-tracked, refer back to your plan and get back on course. And don’t be too hard on yourself. We’re human and we all get off track sometimes by up taking little detours. Acknowledge the distraction and move forward with your plan.

The more you notice what distracts you and the more you pull yourself back on track, the more disciplined you’ll become by making it a habit. This method of working with a plan might be totally unnatural for you in the beginning. It was for me. But the more you do it, the more comfortable you’ll be with it and the less intimidated you’ll be with tackling new goals and future goals for the New Year won’t end up being another statistic.

Further Reading:

Artistic Resolutions