2019 Goals and Resolutions

It’s been a little while since I posted here; mostly because, as it always does, life happened. I even have a post written up about New York in my drafts ready to hit publish, but I didn’t feel like doing any social promotion for it, so there it stays. When I wrote my 2018 Resolutions post last year, I said that I’d been writing annual goal posts for eight years, and it would be a shame to stop the tradition.

Now, in 2019, I find myself in April (?!) having not thought much about my intentions for the year at all. It’s hard to make goals when everything is different, and life has changed. It should probably be the perfect time to make them – to regain control and focus, to work toward something of your choosing. But it also requires reflection, and I think, subconsciously, I’ve been avoiding that. I’ve just been letting life happen, without much thought or purpose, but just letting the hours and minutes pass by.

So I’ve finally sat down to have a think. Writing is really cathartic for me, so I’m going to see where this takes me. And if I’m publishing it, well maybe it'll inspire you to get back on goal setting, or re-evaluate how your resolutions are going so far. Maybe I just want it out there for a little accountability and to keep up my yearly blogging tradition.

I suppose the logical thing here would be to look back at last years goals and see how those went. Usually I find my goals are more of the same – never anything too drastic because I’m quite content with life in general. On a personal level, life this year will look very different to the past eight, and I’ll be navigating that road as it comes.

A lot of the goals from the past however many years have been the same; exercise more, create more, step outside of my comfort zone. Well, for the first time I think I can scrap that last one, because 2019 is proving to be just that in a big way. I'm actually feeling proud about stepping out on my own and seeing what can happen if I push myself to do the things I knew I was always meant to do. It's liberating, and the unknown of this year isn't scaring me as much as I thought it might. I have no idea what the future holds for me now, so I'm just going with the flow. New year, different house, new job, different life.

In terms of business and creativity, here are my goals for 2019.

Write more

Write articles and blogposts and thought pieces. I love writing. Originally I planned on being a journalist before art took over, and I'd love to make this more of a priority again. That comes hand in hand with the next goal really, which is to

Relaunch the blog

Before my little (ok, big) hiatus, I had a notebook full of ideas, scribbles of a content plan and titles of posts to write. I'd love to get this blog back on track, I just need to shuffle some things around and make writing and blogging more of a priority rather than a sideline thing.

Redesign website

I launched this website in it's current form on the 1st of January 2018, and I'd love to refresh it. While it serves it's current purpose, I'd like to get a bit more creative with it and also give it more of a focus on content creation.

Experiment more

While my art creation in general has definitely increased already this year, I did find myself feeling a little paralysed at the thought of creating art that was good enough to share. To push myself out of this negative way of thinking, I'm focusing on actually creating bad art. I want to experiment, practise, try new mediums. I don't want to feel confined and I need to get over the fear of drawing something 'bad'. I want a sketchbook full of rubbish drawings and experiments and something that is just for me. Something that is just pure fun.

Create more finished illustrations

I often create doodles and little things for Instagram, but seeing as I want to create more of a portfolio of editorial illustrations, I need some finished pieces! I'm also hoping this will help me refine my style and eventually get some illustrations published.

Shop

Re-evaluate. My Etsy shop has been on the biggest backburner since I decided to stop launching new products every month last year. I'm still kind of amazed that I kept that up for an entire 12 months since I first launched it in 2017! But without the push of creating new products and knowing I had a newsletter to publish each month, it has definitely not been at the forefront of my mind. It's lovely that it's still been ticking away behind the scenes but this needs to become more of a focus.

I usually have a word I choose for the year. I had no idea what to choose for 2019 but while writing this post, it seems clear to me now and I love the idea of it. So my word for this year is 'Prioritise'. I know I can't prioritise everything, obviously that totally defeats the object of it! But I want to prioritise the things that make me happy, and the goals above do that for me.

I will prioritise writing, illustrating, creating. More importantly this year, I want to prioritise me. For too long I put others before myself. This is the year of self discovery and finding my purpose.

I might be four months late. But better late than never, eh?