I find it’s really important to have clear goals and plans to keep me on track with the many important interests that I’m pursuing. Juggling my day job, family relationships, self care, and art career are challenging enough even with an organized plan. It would be total chaos without one.
Recently, I participated in one of Christina Merkley’s “Shift-It” group training sessions which really helped me gain clarity on where I’m headed and develop an organized plan to get there, across multiple facets of my life. (I highly recommend the Shift-It program for anyone who really wants to make a change to their current situation and would like some help in clearly defining goals, plans, and ways to break through their own resistance.) Through the Shift-It course, I first developed my Goals, then developed a Big Picture Plan which had 3 top level action areas in support of reaching those goals, and then for each of these Big actions, I created a Take Action Plan which includes the smaller tasks required to achieve the Big actions.
Below is a picture of my Take Action Plan. It’s comprised of multiple sticky notes, each with a specific task. It’s also a pretty dynamic plan, because I am constantly completing tasks and removing them from the wall and just as quickly, coming up with new tasks to add to take their place. It’s all linked together, so I know that by working on completing the small tasks, I’m always making progress and headed in the direction of my ultimate goals. It’s my anchor and compass, to get me where I want to be.
My "dynamic" Take Action Plan
Developing an Art Career
One of the action areas of my plan, in support of developing my art career, is to establish an exhibition record. One of the tasks associated with that is to identify a list of potential juried shows to consider entering, noting their entry guidelines, and putting the entry due dates on the calendar. Getting this information captured and then noted on the calendar really helps me to structure my plans and adds a nice incentive (i.e. “deadline looming”) to help me get pieces done. Here’s a photo of my list of potential shows to enter for 2010.
I won’t be entering all of these shows (my goal is 2-3 this year), but having this list helps me map out and manage how I’ll focus and spend my studio time throughout the year.
What big goals do you have for your art career this year and what tools and processes do you use to keep yourself on track?
Awesome to see this Ayn. Well done! You are doing great work! And, thanks for the plug 🙂