For 2022 I decided to try something new. Goal setting has never been a strong suit. Either they are too vague, incalculable, or something I didn’t care enough about to make happen. This year I decided to set goals, with quarterly milestones, to hopefully make them more achievable. This system has already taught me a lot about goal setting and what really works if I want to see progress.
In Quarter 1 I decided I had 3 goals: I was going to paint, do yoga, and write. Then, I broke down these goals into monthly deadlines:
- Paint 1 thing in January, paint 2 things in February, and paint 3 things in March.
- Do 10 days of yoga in January, 20 days in February, and 30 days in March.
- Write 2k words in January, 2k words in February, and 3k words in March.
and, for reasons I don’t understand, I also had
- Draw 2 times a week in January, 3 times a week in February, and every day in March.
- Read 20 books in Q1.
Where did those goals even come from? What was I thinking? I don’t even draw regularly now and I have never counted the number of books I read like that…
What I did not take into consideration was what my life had going on during Q1. I took on a new job, things at my other job are quite hectic (hello gala season), and my partner and I were trying out a new schedule to care for our daughter in the best way we could. I did not look back at these goals and prioritize them in my schedule. Heck, these goals were made in early December when I was feeling good about making changes in my life.
What I did accomplish in Q1 was both more impressive and entirely off the rails.
- I did yoga almost every day. The number of days I missed from Jan 1 to March 31 can fit on one hand.
- I prioritized martial arts classes. I went from going 2-3 times a month to going 2+ times a week.
- I read over a dozen books and then stopped counting because who cares.
- I have set boundaries (that I have managed to keep) for the job that overtook my life.
I learned that if I do not set aside time to prioritize being creative then I will never have time to use art as an outlet. I’ve also learned that artistic goals are not my priority at this time. While I hope to one day go back to feeling like a painter or a doodler, now is not that time. Instead, I have been focusing on my mental and physical health in a way that has returned the investment tenfold. It already feels like I have more good days than bad this year and I 100% attribute that to the yoga and JKD classes. During this time I’ve also discovered that writing is something I want to do more of. Education is another thing I hope to fold into my life. I am currently taking a course on writing and have signed up for a course on project management for August. Who knows what else will come from these discoveries.
So, for Quarter 2, I have some new goals:
- Achieve level 1 mastery in JKD (done)
- Continue daily yoga
- Wrap up and leave that one job
- Paint one thing from the Art Sherpa course on YouTube
- Write something. My dreamy goal is 6.5k words over the course of the quarter but we will see. (I am at 2k already!)
Yes, I worry this is too many goals. Yes, I worry that these are the wrong things to prioritize. Yes, I am making this up as I go along. But I am going to give this a go and see what happens. I am not afraid to reassess and go in a different direction if the need presents itself to me. This is merely the current format to check my progress. Forward momentum, not static, please and thank you.
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