2011 Goals – Executing

Home #36
©2010 Lisa Call
2.5″ x 3.5″
Textile Painting (Fabric hand dyed by the artist, cotton batting, cotton thread)

$40

2011 Goals

My series of articles on my 2011 vision/goals:

• Article #1: Thoughts on Choosing a Word of the Year (action vs being words).
• Article #2: Confidence - my word for 2011.
• Article #3: My 2011 Art and Creativity Goals + thoughts on writing goals.
• Article #4: My 2011 Art Business Goals + the difference between ongoing vs new projects.
• Article #5: My goals for makebigart.
• Article #6: My personal goals for the year.
• Article #6: Executing on the goals. (this post)

I’ll be reviewing my progress towards my goals once month here on the blog.

Planning

My goals this year are definitely on the ambitious side. Making a lot of art (details here), maintaining and expanding my art business (details here), more focus on makebigart (details here) and my personal goals (details here).

Along with my day job, I’m going to have to be pretty organized to meet my goals.

To help stay on track, I’ve broken down my goals into 12 months and have a page for each one. Mostly they are identical, 1/12 of all the ongoing goals (blog posts, hours in studio, a newsletter, etc, etc) assigned to each month.

I then prioritized the big new projects and will be working on one big new project (like creating workshops) plus one little project (like writing a consistent bio for all my online accounts) each month.

Breaking my big projects into smaller tasks is key to not being overwhelmed. This week, I met with a fabulous coach to break down the work for my workshops, and have a list of smaller tasks that I can tackle on a weekly basis.

From my monthly plan & my smaller task list, I then organize my work into weekly plans. I generally do this on sunday evenings or early monday morning. Each week has the recurring tasks listed, such as blogging, yoga classes, 15 hours in the studio. I then add in the tasks for my big project for the week and a task for 1 for my small project.

Add in my todo list (stuff like go to the bank, call insurance, etc) and my appointments to the page and then my plans for the week are set. And I know they are focused on moving me towards all the goals I’ve identified for the year.

I find it’s easier to say no to projects that don’t fit into that big vision when I see my week is already full with important tasks that create my dream.

Aim High

My goals are big, ambitious and will definitely require me to work hard.

I find if I don’t set my sights high, I end up procrastinating until the amount of work left is a going to be a challenge to complete. So big goals, or small goals, I still end up working hard. The question is how much time do I waste before I get to work.

If I said “I will make 12 new large textile paintings this year” I would goof off for 8 months and then work really hard the last 3 months to make it happen. Spending the first 8 months being rather annoyed at myself.

People have told me they are impressed by how much I get done, and I must be very disciplined, etc etc. Really, I’m no different than everyone else. I didn’t get rid of my TV because I didn’t watch it – I got rid of it because I watched way to many movies on it.

I know what I want (to be a really good artist) and I know what it takes to get there (to make a lot of art) so I try to remove the obstacles that get in my way.

Easy goals are one of those obstacles, because for me, they lead to procrastination. I need to feel some sense of urgency to get myself to the studio. A goal of 800 hours in my studio for the year is enough to create that sense of urgency right now, in early wow – MID January – to get me there as I know I can’t put that off until october.

Be Kind

On the flip side, I’m very kind to myself when I don’t reach my goals. I know I’ve set them high, so if I fall a bit short, that’s okay. I don’t feel bad.

If I fall very short, because I was doing nothing more than sitting around watching TV on hulu or surfing facebook, well, maybe it’s time to do some reflection on what I really want and get off my butt and get back to work.

Tagged as: 2011 goals, goals, intention, planning, vision