It’s become a tradition every year for me to spend the week before the old year is finished and the week after the new year has come working out goals and projects I plan to pursue in the 365 days of possibility before me.
Goal setting helps me focus better on what it is I’d like to accomplish with the next year, and the time also offers an opportunity to evaluate what sorts of practices worked and didn’t work in the last year.
Evaluations are beneficial rituals to set up in our creative lives, because sometimes we practice certain habits just because someone somewhere along the way told us that’s the way we should do it, even though it doesn’t work as well for us as it did for them. An evaluation can tell us where we might need to find our own way, because there is no one size fits all when it comes to creativity.
So every year, at the end of it, I look back over the past 365 days and all those projects and practices, and I evaluate what went well and what didn’t.
And then I look at the blank slate of a new year and dream about three or four new projects that might fill the waiting days, and I break them down into monthly goals and weekly goals and, eventually, daily goals.
As a creative, one of my goals every year (not included in the three or four major projects) is to learn something new, because I believe we always need to be growing and evolving and learning at every opportunity we possibly can. So this year, I plan to learn the technique of humor writing, because it’s not something that comes as naturally to me.
I will be reading all there is to know about humor writing, and I will be studying those who do it well. I will practice the technique behind closed doors, because we all need permission to be bad at something before we can claim to be any good at all.
Another new practice I will try this year is taking a Sabbath week off from my regular writing activities every seventh week.
This Sabbath week will be a week when I will not stop writing, because I just don’t think I can, but I will intentionally not write on my typical weekly projects.
Maybe I will spend the week learning something new about my craft or learning about something not even closely related to my craft. Maybe I will spend it reading some of the books I already have on my 2015 list. Maybe I will spend it just hanging out with my family. Vacationing. Sleeping. Dreaming.
I don’t really know what it will look like, since this is the first time I’ve done anything like it. I’ll probably be antsy for the first few times I try it, but I am determined this year to uncover how to rest well and discover what resting looks like for me. I think my work and my writing and my self and my family will be better for it.
What are your goals for the new year? How many projects do you plan to pursue? Do you have a practice of evaluation/goal setting that you feel works well for you? Please share it!
And, for my own benefit: Who are your favorite humor writers?
Welcome to The Ink Well Creative Community.
The Ink Well Community is evolving. While this used to be a place where I posted a prompt for writers to share their creative works, I have been receiving several inquiries about my process, how I create and read and manage a household with half a dozen little ones. So I thought we could turn this into a community of people who share about the creative process in all its many facets, from where we find our inspiration to when we find time to create (especially if we work other jobs). I’ll be sharing struggles about my creative life and logistical information about my particular creative process and what I’m learning about creativity, among many other things. I hope you’ll weigh in with your own struggles and observations and lessons. Let’s start a conversation. Let’s encourage one another. Let’s live the creative life together.
And if you have your own questions about creativity or process or inspiration, feel free to visit my contact page and send me a note.
