Happy 2022! It has certainly been a while since I have been over here on the blog. December was a crazy month, and with 12 inches of snow to kick off January, 2022 has already been pretty eventful around here. I am hoping and praying that all of you had a wonderful holiday season and that you were able to stay safe, healthy, and happy. I know the holidays can be a bit complicated for many, but hopefully the joy of the season found its way onto your doorstep!
As we begin a new year, we can’t help but turn our attention to our intentions and goals. While not everyone likes to set resolutions, it is only natural to take a look at our life at certain waypoints like the new year, birthdays, moves, or in the midst of other changes in our lives. Personally, I am a very goal oriented person that thrives on setting up new goals and habits to help myself continue to grow and mature as a person. Some of the goals are simple, like remembering to floss daily or tidying up the refrigerator. Other goals that I set are lofty and far reaching, but I love to dream of the path that may just help me to reach one of my bigger goals.
Our creativity is a part of our life that deserves goals just as much as other areas like health and finances. Creativity is tied so deeply to our well-being and our ability to process the world around us, I feel like it may even be MORE important to set goals in this arena. We never want our creative spirits to grow cold, or to go ignored completely. While creative goals sometimes may feel trivial or “extra”, they absolutely deserve to be addressed, tracked, and monitored. If that seems a little too “left-brained” for such a “right-brain” activity like creativity, don’t worry! No, you can’t force creativity. You can’t force inspiration. But, you certainly can nurture it, encourage it, and create an environment not only around you, but also in your head, that invites creativity to take up camp and grow!
As you begin to set creative goals for this new year, keep in mind that you do want to align them with being a “SMART” goal. In case you never heard this acronym before, “SMART” stands for: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Any goal that we set for ourselves is more likely to be successful if we make sure we have outlined how our goals aligns with each of the principles.
For instance, let’s take a common goal, which is getting our craft space in order. You’ll want to be more specific than just saying, “I want to clean out my craft room”. How much do you plan on cleaning out of your craft room? Are you reorganizing the whole thing or just destashing? Are you planning on redecorating the room or just doing a good clean out? Being specific helps you focus in on what your desired outcome is. Instead of “I want to clean out my craft room”, you may want to state that “I want to destash my craft supplies to create more space for crafting”.
Next is making sure the goal is measurable. How much do you want to decrease your stash by? Are you hitting all areas of your craft space or just trouble areas? Set some parameters! Perhaps, “I want to destash my craft supplies and reduce them by 25% to create more space for crafting and creativity.”
The next part is a little harder to judge. Is your goal attainable? I was just talking to my daughter about this element today. She would like to set aside time to practice soccer on her own in the new year. Her initial goal was to practice soccer every day for an hour. While I respected her enthusiasm, I asked her if that was really an attainable or doable goal. Probably not! Instead, she decided that practicing on her own 2 to 3 times a week, outside of normal practice, was a much more attainable goal. I agreed! As you are setting your creative goals, what is going to be attainable for you? I’m not saying the goal needs to be easy, it certainly needs to stretch you. But, it does need to be within your view!
Next is relevance! This is really talking about your “why” behind your goal. No need to spend time decluttering and organizing your craft space if you are perfectly happy with how it is functioning in the present! You need to have a why behind your goal, or you are quite likely to lose steam and drop off in the first month or two. Define your why. Write it down. Read it all the time!
And the last element of a SMART goal is that it is time bound. This can look like two different things. One might be a deadline to complete the goal. For instance, maybe you have visitors coming in the month of March, and you intend to have your craft space in order by the time they arrive. You could also look at the time-bound element in a different way. Perhaps you are planning to dedicate a specific amount of time to a project each week. It doesn’t matter how far you get in that time, but you are setting aside the time to work. That would look more like dedicating one hour every weekend to destashing and organizing your space. Set a timer and get to work.
It may seem like a drag to take your beautiful creative goals and hash them out in this way, but I promise it is going to make a huge difference in your ability to achieve those goals. Just because we are creative does not mean we can’t be focused and get things done. Creativity and inspiration thrive when they are invited into our lives in this way!
I’d love to hear about some of your creative goals for this year! Let me know what you are planning on focusing on in the comments below!
Keep it creative,
-The Scrappy Wife