Consider: Setting (Creative) Goals
January 2023 Blog Post
If you prefer, read this post on the blog.
As dawn rises on a new year, I thought it would be a good idea to write this month’s blog post on goals. If you’re pondering your own resolutions, this is the perfect place for you to sit down with me for a few minutes. Even if you are not actively doing so, we all have goals, whether they look likes hopes and dreams, fleeting thoughts, or subconscious musings.
I like developing goals into things that feel tangible, but it’s not always an easy thing. Developing tangible goals makes you vulnerable; if you don’t reach them, it can feel like failure. But on the other hand, when they’re understandable, tied to what you really want to achieve, and given a plan of action, they’re much easier to reach.
Sometimes I leave my big goals in the “hopes” category, but I spent time this month breaking them down and I feel really good about it. It feels like building a staircase, and also ensuring that the big stuff is what I actually want since all the small stuff that leads to it feels exciting.
So, I’m just going to share some of the stuff I did to flesh it all out, and this can be a starting point and a roadmap if you’re looking to set your own goals, especially creative ones. I’m also going to be a little bit vulnerable on this larger scale, sharing some of my own goals at the end in an effort to make the process clear and illustrate how exciting this was for me.
What Do You Want?
This is the big question, and is probably one you’ll have to keep coming back to. For me, journaling is the best way to figure this out; but, instead of journaling in my Moleskin, I wrote in a google document. This makes the whole process a little easier to parse—you need to be able to look back through what you’ve written, pulling out the through lines and the big ideas.
Even if you’re not normally a writer, journalling is accessible to everyone. You probably have more to say than you think. Open up a place to write and start thinking out loud. I broke my journaling down into categories:
Personal/Household
This is the most important category in most ways, because it’s about figuring out how to make yourself feel good in the everyday. It’s hard to function to achieve anything if you’re unhappy, worried about your social life, your household, etc. So, it’s important to set yourself up for success in the emotional/social/financial realms of your life first (more on money later). Like I mentioned last newsletter, I’m working on patience. I also have realized that I have to prioritize balance. I tend to overbook myself, and then when I don’t have enough time to commit to myself to any of the stuff I care about I’m frustrated and exhausted.
It was helpful for me to make a mini monthly summary of 2023. This gave me direction in my balance goal (e.g. I already know I’ll spend June-October dedicating a lot of time to frisbee; I already have trips planned in March & April; there’s a big move coming for me in the latter half of the year, etc.). Overbooking often happens over time for me, saying yes to commitments one at a time, not realizing that I already have a full month or week. I think looking at the big picture will help to avoid this.
The monthly summary also helps me figure out what I may need to be prepared for. My very not-LDR will soon be an LDR for a big chunk of 2023, and processing this now helps me to figure out what emotional and relationship goals I should set.
Art
This is the most exciting place to goal set for me. It’s the work I care most about developing, and it’s a fun thing to parse through. I find that even in times of rest, when I’m not doing much creative work, I have a lot of energy for planning out what’s coming next creatively. I addressed different forms of making separately, writing out what I hope to see from each one and narrowing where I intend to place focus. Note that this part of my journaling was about the artistic practices themselves, not where I hope they’ll lead me (e.g. how much time I want to spend writing, not that I hope to publish another book)—that comes later.
I let myself get really granular with this writing, exploring new rendering techniques I want to try, places I want to draw inspiration from, subjects I want to take on, etc. I also put time into thinking about my creative organizational systems, which are crucial for keeping this train on the tracks, and which I’ll be writing about more extensively in upcoming blog posts.
Career
This is where I got a little more big picture with some of my creative and household goals. It’s the most straightforward category, and for me, it was mostly concerned with making more money and advancing my book career as an author/illustrator. It also included writing about how online I am with my work (including this newsletter), my lovely full-time job as a craft book editor, and incorporating artist residencies into my yearly plans.
Money
Money is something I came back to over and over while setting my goals. Like it or not, how much money we are making and have the potential to make in a year has a huge impact on what goals we can realistically achieve. It’s important to recognize how much money-making ventures are taking up your time, and make sure that you’re allocating your money to the right things.
Paying off my student loans has been a primary goal for me in the past few years, and will continue to be until they are paid off. This year, I got a bit more granular in estimating how soon that might be, and it gave me a lot of peace and control to have something more specific to aim for. Facing your financials can be scary and confusing, but I recommend acknowledging it in your goal-setting process. You don’t need to make hyper-specific plans or budgets to give yourself an idea of what you’ll be working with.
Timelines
The timeline of a new year’s resolution can be quite limiting. Goals don’t need to happen in a year, and for lots of projects, especially big creative ones, financial ones, or personal growth, a year is not enough time. Don’t feel pressure to label your goals as “2023 goals” or be embarrassed to add one of the same goals you set last year. Acknowledge an appropriate timeline for each one, no matter how long it is.
I have recently started working on a 5-year outline. It’s not a plan per-say, but a glimpse into the things I might be interested in over the next few years, or the things I want to be saving money for. The idea of planning so far into the future is intimidating, but I like reducing these long-term things into potential destinations. I can hold onto them, maybe steer myself towards them, or maybe head in a completely different direction when the time comes.
Nesting
During this process, I started realizing that a lot of my goals nest into one another, or that to achieve a larger goal, I’d need to first achieve several related smaller goals. For example, a goal related to my book career (e.g. querying agents) is first guided by goals in my art practices—experimenting with new rendering techniques, finishing a dummy or a draft, etc.
I didn’t make any formal system or acknowledgement of how my goals nest, but keeping these connections in mind helps me better plan my upcoming weeks and months, and plan appropriate timelines for each part of a goal.
Readability
Finally, I wanted to be able to easily look back at the goals I set. Yes, reading through the whole document would sometimes be a useful way to understand myself and my mindset, but I also wanted something I could look at at a glance. So, after journaling though each category, I made bullet points for each section that I can easily read back when I need a reminder. The most beautiful part of word doc journaling? You can insert a page break and add your 2024 goals when the time comes. It’s so easy to reference. You can also integrate your goals into whatever other organizing systems you use (e.g. notion or gcal).
2023…
So, I’m sharing some of my goals (albeit with redactions). These are not all 2023 goals, but I am not listing my timelines here. Many of these bullet points may be too vague for you to get the whole picture, and that’s okay. Developing a shorthand works for me! I hope you spend some time exploring what you want for yourself. Looking forward a little bit is an exciting place to be.
Personal/Household
Patience - in the process, in working w/o competition, in other people
Prioritize balance (health, social, commitments) without overbooking
Openness to change
Quiet mind
Money (this goal is redacted!)
Art
Maintain & improve a functioning creative organization system
Fill the Well: garment sewing/knitting, natural dye, quilting, experimentation
Weekly Weekend Writing
Illustration (this goal is redacted!)
Career
Residency database
Freelance at max sustainability
Stay online: Substack, Website
Query! (this goal is partially redacted!)