The Simplest 'Goals' prompt ever

To 'Play' or to 'Make'?

You CAN opt out of goal setting altogether and just do this ⬆️

Trust me, I LOVE all the New Year Goal setting videos, quizzes, planning sessions. I LAP IT UP, follow all the YouTubers, sign up to the lives, grab ALL the pens and notebooks, and I excitedly sit down to ‘furiously’ plan, prep and prompt myself silly.

In fact I PREP for the prompts, and planning and goal setting. I’m THAT girl. (Will that 80 euros I spent on new stationery and notebook supplies going to change my life? OF COURSE IT WILL, SILLY!)

A whole lot of notebooks and sketchbooks are required for me to organise myself, my life and my work. These are currently in active use! Planning happens here.

My one question to you is:

Which head space are you feeling for your creative work for 2025?

Instinctively, you KNOW which head space you are in. The journey of discovering and uncovering our creative voice in our work, is a dance between play, experimenting, allowing bad art to emerge and making discoveries, to excavating gems and turning them into ‘real things’ - actual projects.

🎨 Pure Play

This year, maybe you just need to feel permission to make lots of work, without the pressure to show, share or sell anything. This is sacred time, this is magic time. Liberate yourself from any external pressure and just let your work come through. Feel FREE to explore, there is no one to impress, but as Emma Carlisle suggests, focus on ‘asking questions of your sketchbook’.

If this is you, perhaps your intentions looks like:

• Commiting to attend Live Sessions hosted by your favourite artists for 1 year

• Choosing the favourite sketchbook and aiming to fill it in a set amount of time

• Explore ONE thing in depth - perhaps Colour

• Fall in love with a new material

• Re-asses your cultural filters, look at the things that ‘feed’ your work, and try to bring in new influences outside of your current cultural echo chamber

If this is you, feel free to join the Colour Co-Swatch Sessions that I host every month. Show up for free and hang out with us, while we swatch materials and geek out on colour palettes. One hour, at lunchtime, for permission to play!

👷‍♀️ Make things (Project mode)

Sometimes, we make discoveries and breakthroughs. We find a new way of mark making that feels like ‘us’. We discover a colour palette that feels like an exciting combination, or you realise you’re interested in a way of working that you never expected. When you make a discovery, sometimes you need to take time to dive in a bit deeper. Investigate what it could become. Define some parameters within which to explore. Perhaps create a series?

If this is you, perhaps your intentions look like:

• Filling a sketchbook with one focussed theme

• Create a series of prints

• Thumbnail ideas for a story / zine / book

• Diving deep into one material and becoming a master of it

• Create projects for your portfolio

Part of my planning and reflecting process will include spending time reviewing all the sketchbook ‘play’ work from this year

Here’s who I have been inspired by for my reflective planning sessions:

• Ali Abdaal - If ‘Productivity Guru’ gives you the ‘ick’, I hear you, but I kinda want to be this guys’ friend. Plus, I enjoy his thinking and often take away something useful.

• Orla Stevens -

  Orla Stevens
  always makes beautiful videos, and this is a great one about reflecting on work made in 2024

• 31 days of Creative Resilience – I’m REALLY enjoying this January challenge by

  Carolyn Yoo
  . I look forward to each new prompt!

• The Guardian Today in Focus – ‘How to have a perfectly imperfect 2025’ is a brilliant listen. With guest Oliver Burkeman, author of ‘Meditations for Mortals’, I found this to be an uplifting episode.

So back to the question of goal setting - which of these two head spaces
are you feeling for 2025?

If neither - how are you feeling about your creative work for this year?

Let me know - are you in 🎨 Play, or 👷‍♀️ Project mode? Let me know how you’re feeling in the comments. ✍️

(SHHHHHH! If you’re in Project Mode, head over to my ‘About Page’ to get a sneak peek at what’s coming for 2025 in the paid membership. For January only, the price is locked at the current low rate. Just saying. More info to come soon.)