Inkwells & Images

writing, editing, photography

Goals

Hello, 2016

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It’s me.

(cannot leave an Adele reference hanging, guys. Can. Not.)

Well, it’s 2016. It came, no matter how hard I tried to hold on to the old year to keep the calendar from turning, it did anyway.

It’s that time of year where everyone is reassessing, taking a look back and then mapping out their tomorrows like madmen and madwomen.

And I am no different.

It might be a cliche to “start over” January 1st and all that, but it does indeed create a natural break in time perfect for measuring. Plus, you have to buy a new calendar anyway so you might as well make the most of it and buy one in bright colors that motivates you. Or at least keeps you awake.

So. How was 2015? It was a mixed bag, but I think most years are. Yes: I accomplished my goal of creating more than I consumed, but I also didn’t make much progress in other areas of life. Did I finish a novel? No. Did I go to the gym? Haha. Did I eat more salads and less cookies? No – but I’m just now realizing I would probably eat a lot more salads if they had cookies in them… sorry. Got lost in daydreaming about salads made out of cookies.

2015 In Review

I read 53 books.

I wrote 104 blog posts,  2 articles for cash monies (coincidentally, they were about money), and ~125 pages for my book, and will probably scrap most of them. Some will need re-written. We’ll see.

I edited part of a book for a friend.

I photographed eight shoots and countless hikes.

We also went on seven hikes as part of our #50HikesWI project, and managed to somehow slip away for three vacations: Louisiana in May; the Apostle Islands in August; Wyoming & South Dakota in September.

That’s actually quite a list if I pile it all together, huh? And then add to it that I also worked a full time job that sometimes spills over into the weekends and I sound utterly crazy.

What’s working. 

Sharing online here on the blog. It helps me stay committed, so I’ll keep doing it. I like having this blog as an outlet to connect with other readers and writers on the internet. It refreshes me, really.

Working with a critique partner on my novel. The accountability is great, and its so important to get the story out of my own head and get someone else’s opinion on it.

Asking and not being afraid to hear “no.” I’ve put myself out there a few times this year, bracing myself for the inevitable “no.” And it didn’t come every time. So I’m going to keep asking to do things and be part of things that I think are “too big for me” to stretch myself and my world. And I might be surprised when I hear the answer.

What’s not. 

The Inkwells & Images Facebook Page. The writing has been on the wall for a while guys: Facebook is just not where it is at these days, at least not for pages. Articles like this and this help me not feel that I’m the only one saying this, either. I’m still deciding whether or not to delete it, but I do plan to ignore it for now and focus on other social media efforts this year, rather than try to fragment my attention all over the place.

Posting twice week here on the blog. I’m making this work, but I’m not entirely sure it is the best use of my time at the moment. In the New Year, I’m going to focus on quality, not quantity. I’ll plan to aim for 1 blog post per week, and maybe add an additional “bonus” blog post if need be. But really, I think I’m going to focus on growing the business side of the Inkwells & Images endeavor, growing my client base and building things behind the scenes so that when I am ready to leap, I can leap.

Which brings me to: My Word of the Year for 2016.

My 2016 Word of the Year: Focus \\ Inkwells & Images

With my magical clean slate of the New Year, I of course plan to recharge my life and do all the things move forward with very specific goals for once. I love saying yes to new projects and I get excited about new endeavors, but that tends to fragment my attention and run me a bit (or a lot) ragged. Last year was my lesson in discipline here on the blog, and this year I’m taking it a step further.

My word of the year this year is FOCUS and here’s what I am going to focus on:

I will blog once per week. This post will be more long-form, quality content than what I have been putting up.

I will develop a business strategy. Inkwells & Images has been a great place to blog personally, and I still want the blog to be an extension of me. However, my original intent with this site was to create a space for people to hire me to do what I love: writing and photography. I’ve moved away from that, both in content and in how I spend my weekend hours. I’d like to develop a strategy for the business behind the scenes this year and do a full site overhaul. I’m planning to FOCUS in on my business, what I love to do, and what I’m good at and extend it all out into the world to help people do what they love better, too.

I will make progress on the novel. This year, I am not going to say that I will finish my novel. With the other two points above paired with the fact that we are breaking ground on a house in a couple of months, 2016 is going to be full. And that’s good – but it means I may not have much time to devote to this passion project. But who knows: maybe by telling myself I won’t work on this as much my rebellious side will kick in and sneak in some hours here and there.

I think those are enough for one year. Because really, it’s only 365 days. How much can one person get done in the in-between hours and still maintain their sanity? Ask me next January.

Onward, with FOCUS

What are you focusing on in 2016? Or do you choose a Word of the Year? I’d love to hear how you are planning to spend your days and what your big, scary goals are. We should all have at least one of those we’re working on in each season of life, even if that goal is to merely survive each day with a smile.

 

2015 Year in Review: Did I Create?

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My Word of the Year for 2015 -CREATE | Inkwells & Images

My word for 2015 was CREATE.

I set out to stop putting off my side-hustle and start working hard on what mattered to me: creating rather than consuming. I had big plans to finish a novel, but my real goal that I really only ever said out loud to myself was that I was going to blog every Tuesday and Thursday in 2015. It is so easy to make blogging into the thing that gets forgotten or put off as the week gets busier. As with most things, it is easier to break a promise to yourself than it is to break one to other people – at least it is for me.

So I said CREATE would be my word and it was, with blogging twice per week my way of measuring it. It’s a little harder to measure whether or not a novel is “done” – or if you are even making progress. So blogging it was, and up to today I have been successful: I have blogged every single Tuesday and every single Thursday of 2015 (I already have my post scheduled for this Thursday, so I’m declaring it a big WIN).

I did it.

I did it for no one else but myself.

I make no money from this blog (or at least as close to zero as can be rounded down to nothing, really). It has not been a client-generator for me (yet) or even a traffic generator (I usually see less than 30 views per day). It really and truly did nothing for me this year other than make me happy to have accomplished it.

It was both easier and harder to accomplish than I thought. For starters, the sheer number of posts – 104 total – is kind of a lot when I lump them all together. It didn’t seem like much to say twice per week, but 104 posts? That seems like a large number.

But I did it. For no other reason than that I promised myself I would.

Somewhere around June it started to feel automatic. I knew without having to think about it that I need to post on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Period. The End.  Some days, that post came down to the wire and I was finishing it just before I walked out the door at 7:45 in the morning. Other times, I’d have two full weeks of posts queued up and ready to go (and then of course I would get lazy and not write for two weeks. Human condition, and all.).

What This (Somewhat Strange) Goal Accomplished

Discipline.

I’m good at putting everything else before my own projects, so this goal was a good reminder to constantly keep moving forward with my own self-imposed deadlines. It’s far too simple to prioritize work for the office (paying work), time with family (which is important, don’t get me wrong), and even just taking a night off to chill.

Prioritization.

Instead of working on whatever side project I felt like working on, I found it easier and easier to internalize deadlines and know what I needed to work on when. It was refreshing to not get so overwhelmed, but to really sort through tasks and work on what was most important in the moment.

Accomplishment.

I’m not going to brush this off as not a big deal: it was. Committing to something and not backing out even when it would have been easy to make an excuse to do so was really and truly rewarding. I feel like I crossed a really big hurdle for myself, in doing something that seems pretty simple but was actually hard.

Progress.

Was every post out of 104 a home run? No. In fact, I would say less than half of them were really exciting/earth shattering/something that caught people’s attention. But instead of holding back until I was a “perfect blogger” (hint: no such thing), I clicked “Publish” and pushed a piece of myself out into the world each day, for no other reason than that I needed to do it.

Also, habits are not formed in a day. Or a week and sometimes not even a month. It took me until JUNE for this to be automatic… why would anything else be any different? I need to remind myself this when I get frustrated that I don’t settle into routines as quickly as I think I ought.

So, Goal Accomplished. What’s Next?

I’m not sure.

I’m still plotting out 2016, and I’m giving myself the rest of the week to do it. I know I’ll be making some changes, I’m just not entirely sure what they are at the moment. I’m tackling a new joint project with a friend (top secret – sharing soon!), and I really would like to finally finish that novel.

I’m giving myself a week to think about it.

What about you? What are you planning to change up in 2016?

You Always Do What You Want To Do

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You're always doing what you want to

When I started to say “no” at the end of this summer in order to rest and regroup, I had this idea in my head that my desired outcome would be instantaneous.

Silly, I know.

I know that there is no easy fix in life, at least when it comes to the big stuff. I know that if you go to the gym on a Tuesday you won’t instantly be thin on a Thursday (darn). I know that eating right doesn’t just happen: you have to plan for it. I know that writing every day, at best, is a vague possibility unless I actively set aside time to do just that.

But I thought that since I wanted it so bad and had been contemplating change so long that it would be easy this time.

Silly, I know.

My bad habits are easy. It is easy for me to reach for quick carbs in the form of crackers or cookies when I haven’t planned ahead. It is easy for me to heat up a can of so-so soup rather than remember to unthaw that chicken a day ahead of time. It’s easy for me to say that I don’t have time to go to the gym when I look at the long list of other “more important” things I need to accomplish that day.

But you know – these habits didn’t form in a day, either. I made choice after choice for month after month to get me to this point, too.

I repeatedly chose distraction over productivity. I chose quick instead of nutritious. And let’s be honest: many times I chose TV over sitting down with pen and paper.

You Always Do What You Want To Do

What’s got me in a reflective state of mind today is yet another weekend spent at the vet.

Last week, our cat Zipper got sick. I spent an (expensive) Saturday morning at the vet, brought home some antibiotics, and thought everything was going to be fine in two weeks. A little inconvenience, but nothing out of the ordinary.

After three more trips to the vet this week, another expensive Saturday morning, and an X-Ray, we discovered that our cat has massive bladder stones that need to be surgically removed ASAP, to the tune of a helluva lot of money. So, after getting the news while Scott was in Michigan for work, I came home on Saturday and kind of zoned out in a little pity party, mad at everything and everyone, including myself.

This was not how my weekend was supposed to go.

This was not how my season of rest what supposed to happen.

This was not helping me make or reinforce good habits.

This wasn’t what I wanted. 

So I moped for a while. I made a latte and sat down to watch a movie, The Answer Man. It’s one that Amazon Prime keeps suggesting based on my viewing history, but I keep ignoring it. On Saturday, I was too lazy to search for anything else, so I hit play.

And the movie was just what I needed.

It’s a story about a man, Arlen, who 20 years ago wrote a book with the answers to all of life’s hard questions, and then sequestered himself away and never talked to anyone. In a series of somewhat humorous events, he ends up answering the questions of a young man, Kris, who just got out of rehab, and who is now dealing with an alcoholic father and a business that is going bankrupt. One of their exchanges really hit me right where I was:

Kris: Why can’t I do the things I want to do? There’s so much I know I’m capable of that I never actually do. Why is that?
Arlen: The trick is to realize that you’re always doing what you want to do… always. Nobody’s making you do anything. Once you get that, you see that you’re free and that life is really just a series of choices. Nothing happens to you. You choose.”

Ouch.

Now, I know that I want to eat cookies and not broccoli. I want to sit and read and not go to the gym. I want to feel sorry for myself that this is all happening.

We all have our moments when we are allowed to to do the “wrong” thing: to take a break, to eat pizza instead of chicken.

But when I add all those actions up – all those little wants – they don’t equal my actual goals, the BIG wants: to write a book, to eat healthy, to exercise more.

So I need to change the little wants. I need to make my everyday actions reflect what I actually want to do in life, not what I think I want to do in the moment.

Are you doing what you want to do right now? If not, what is holding you back? 

[An update on Zipper: surgery went well and she is back at home, her meds making her overly affectionate and VERY vocal. But I’ll take it.]