I hope you are doing well and had a lovely Christmas. 

We’re coming to the end of the year and as always we all try and make new year resolutions that are almost impossible to keep. Now, for me, they just don’t work.

A lot of the time we make these resolutions that are just unachievable for the year – it’s almost like we are setting ourselves up to fail, and that is not how we should start the year. We want to start in a positive way to make the year successful. 

It’s impossible to set realistic goals without values. Without reflection on previous years and looking at what we loved about the year gone by, what we want to change, what we want to achieve, how we want to live. Without looking at any of this, how can we create a new resolution that is meaningful and one that is going to be truly beneficial?

Kickstart the year!

This is why I started doing these January workshops – to set you off in the right way so you can make your year the best year yet. Our wants and needs will change as we grow through life, so returning to this process at the start of each year is really important so you can establish what you want to gain from the year. 

All the prep work set out is to allow you to reflect and look back so you can start to create a life that you want to live, and make the changes needed to make it a successful year. 

There are three things that throughout the year I return to, to regroup myself. 

Get clear on what you want

The first one is that you need to be clear on what you want to achieve, to change or to create. This involves prep work: 

  • Know your why.
  • Create a vision board of what you want your year to look like. 
  • Look at your finances to see if what you want to achieve is doable.
  • Make notes on what things you’ve loved about the year and want to carry forward. What do you want to change and stop doing?
  • What is it you want to achieve? For example, making art your living or if you may just want to make more art? 
  • How much time do you have or do you want to give yourself goals? How are you going to do this? 
  • Is there anything holding you back from achieving your dreams? 
Mindset

Now, if you’re a regular around here, you’ll have heard me go on about mindset. Everything goes back to mindset for me. There have been times where I have been in some really dark places and I have learnt methods that can trigger my mind to shift out of those places and back into where it needs to be. 

We aren’t going to be happy and in the right mindset all of the time and that is okay. Life can be tough and sometimes it gets the better of us and we need to realign our thoughts and get back into the right mindset. Here are some exercises that you can do to help with this: 

  • Look at your vision board and remind yourself of your why.
  • Take some time to create some art and have some fun with it.
  • Find a song that takes you to a happy place and can trigger your mindset.
  • Go out and get some fresh air – go for a walk or a jog and get some exercise. 
  • Take some time for you and enjoy some self care! 
Planning

Lastly, plan. Once you have reflected and got clear on what you want to achieve from the year, and have a focused mindset you can plan things out. Here are some top tips to plan:

  • Get a calendar and mark out what you want to achieve each month. 
  • Create bitesize tasks to make things seem much more achievable.
  • Mark out time each week to work on the things that you want to achieve. 
  • Make sure your goals are clear so you can keep going back and looking at them. 

When you have a dream or a vision, getting to that destination can be very overwhelming as quite often there is a lot of emotion behind it, so planning and creating bitesize tasks take some of the overwhelm away and is something I would definitely recommend doing. 

January workshops

So if you are reading this right now and think, yes, I want to make 2021 the best year yet but I have no idea how I can do this with my art, my January workshop is for you. It’s starting on 7th January, running for two weeks and completely free! 

In these workshops, I will help you take steps towards making art your living. We will cover:

  • Getting clear on what you want from your life, art and finances.
  • How to make a plan that works.
  • How you can design your own life and make a living from art.

You can sign up for the Make 2021 Your Best Year Yet workshops here: https://uas.unitedartspace.org/byy2021/ 

As this is the last blog post for 2020 and what a year it’s been! I am wishing all the best for 2021 and let’s make it even better than this one.

Much love, 
Michelle x.