It was my birthday last week (cue the music!) and it was a lovely low key day. Each year my birthday serves as my Jan. 1st. I don’t really do serious goal setting until mid-way through February. I do this for two reasons: First, it makes me feel less pressure about the actual New Year. And second, as a lover of arbitrary dates and deadlines, it gives me permission to over analyze the hell out of myself around my birthday.
For the past several years, I have been writing these goals down in blog form. (So not this blog but another, more personal blog I have for close friends and family) and it’s been fascinating to chart the difference between last year’s goals and this year’s goals. Those differences say a lot about where I am and where I am heading.
Last year’s goals were really specific: Take a Lynda.com class for Illustrator, Photoshop, and After Effect. Draw 365 faces. Read 8 books. Clearly I love quantifiable numbers. They can be really helpful. Last year, I landed at around 200-something faces, which is way more than I would have done if I hadn’t had that numbered goal. And even though I finished no lynda.com classes, I am better at each of those programs. And books? Well, I can always read more than I read now.
But this year’s goals are more general. They are more holistic. They are about creating a life that supports art. And art does take a holistic approach, and that’s something I’ve always known, but now that I am working on art consistently, that truth has become much clearer.
The other big difference is that the scope of my goals are much more focused. Over the past 5 years I can see a serious trend in trimming. I no longer feel the pull of filmmaking or crafting. My creative energies have found a focus, and now my life is catching up to that new truth.
Sometimes it takes awhile. And for me, my birthday is about sitting quietly and charting that path. Reveling in the success and being inspired by the failure. Here’s to another year of both. 2014-02-27 1:00pm