Focus on these areas of core creative goals

Areas for Core Creative Goals and How to Choose Them

For weeks now, I’ve been talking to you about setting goals so that you can achieve some awesome things this year. I know that if you set some powerful creative goals and work at them the right way, you’ll crush your goals and this will be the year where you finally started to make the journey towards unlocking your creative potential.

My creative friend, you and I have talked about this for quite a while, how to set smart goals you’ll accomplish, how to plan those goals and finally how to review your goals. But I think it’s only fair that after all this talk about goal setting for creatives, I give you a chance to peek into my own goals. Don’t you think?

After all, what better way to lead than by example, right? I knew you’d agree.

I stopped making new year’s resolutions some years ago and rather decided to have a word of the year to focus on for each year. My word for the year is JOY.

I want to focus on joy in my spiritual life, personal life, my business, my art and every aspect of my life. I’ve decided to do three things with respect to joy – to seek joy, create joy and share my joy. And when it comes to art, I believe joy is both my reason and my reward for making art.

My goals for 2019 are:

Spiritual Goals:

• Listen to God more and what He’s saying concerning my life. Talk less at him, worry and stress less and be more in tune internally rather than externally.

Family Goals:

• Support my son in applying for colleges and getting into a school he wants.

Creative Goals:

• Exhibit my work
• Learn to draw portraits
• Launch information products

 Health Goals:

• Be more active and eat healthier. Find ways to counter my sedentary life of sitting for long hours sewing, sketching and working on my computer

Personal Goals

• Read more books

I’ll tell you more about each of these goals as time goes by. (Please note, these are not the SMART version of my goals)

How to Choose Your Own Core Creative Goals

Meanwhile, you’ll notice I don’t have a lot of goals under each of the core areas of my life I plan to work on. It’s because, over the years, I’ve learned that we often judge our time quite poorly. We tend to underestimate how much time we need to accomplish something and overestimate the time we actually have at our disposal to work on that thing.

Secondly, when you practice breaking down your goals it helps you become realistic about the size of your goals. When you see a goal as a bullet point on a list of goals it doesn’t look like much.  But when you see the list of small actions required to achieve one goal on your list, it helps you keep it real. Just saying 🙂 For example, if one of your goals is executing a solo show, like I want to do this year, when you learn what goes on behind the scenes of a solo show, you’re not going to set a goal for five solo shows a year.

Thirdly, setting a few stretch goals which will make you truly proud of yourself when you’ve accomplished them is better than setting a ton of goals you’re likely not going to accomplish and worse of all, will leave you feeling bad about yourself.

So, to help you choose your own goals, first, identify the core areas of your life you want to make changes or see improvements in.

Here are some general areas to get your mind thinking:

Core Areas of Life for Goal Setting

• Family
• Financial
• Spiritual
• Business/Work/Career
• Health/Wellness
• Creativity
• Relationships

Since I’m all about helping you amplify your creative potential over here, I want to break down the area of creativity a little more to help you see specific areas you can focus on and the actions you can take to set your creative goals in those areas. So let’s break down creative goals.

Areas for Core Creative Goals

• Personal creativity – Gain confidence, learn new techniques, deal with fear and rejection, manage time better, practice more consistently, create every day, find joy in the creative process, make creative friends, overcome limiting beliefs, improve your technical skills, unlock your creative potential
• Professional development – Exhibit your work, write/update a resume, write/update an artist statement, build a website/online portfolio of your work, visit art exhibitions, attend conferences
• Creative Business – Sell your work, obtain gallery representation, teach, get speaking gigs, create products, learn about business, hire a business coach, develop partnerships

So, there you have it, so many things you can choose as your creative goals for the year. Remember not to overwhelm yourself by setting too many goals. Make your goals about things which are meaningful to you. Things which will bring you satisfaction, not simply make you look good in the eyes of others.

After you have chosen the core creative goal areas you want, set SMART goals which are realistic. And set yourself up for success by planning to effectively achieve your creative goals. And oh, it’s never too late to set goals.  You can do them at any time of the year.

To assist you with all of this, I created a worksheet to help you think through the core areas of your life and choose your goals. I know you’ll like it.

Question: What are the core areas of your life you want to change or improve this year? In the comments below, add yours to my list if it’s not already there.

Warmest Regards,

 

Related Posts:

• SMART Goal Setting for Creatives
• Effective Goal Planning for Textile Artists
• Why Your Intangible Achievements Matter Too 

 

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Also published on Medium.