End of Year

four years old and fancy-free, originally uploaded by sapaho.
Here is the bit where I think about my New Year's resolutions and come up with some goals for next year. I've never really liked the idea of resolutions, or goals in general for that matter. In the last few years though, I've seemed to enjoy torturing myself with great long lists of "Goals" and "Things To Do".

At the start of this year, for example, I wrote a list of Near Year's resolution in the first page of my art journal. The style of writing is a bit flowery as I guess I was in an arty frame of mind. I will now reveal way more of myself than I feel comfortable with by listing these and reflecting on them, one year later:

1. Take a drawing course - don't be afraid.
I didn't end up doing this, more because of time and money restrictions than anything else. I didn't even get much time to practice drawing. In the last few months I started to formulate some ideas on what kinds of subjects and styles I would like to work on though.

2. Have more confidence in myself - take more risks.
Erm, I went completely backwards on this, in the craft department anyway. I pulled out of meet-ups, only went to 1 Brown Owls session and even procrastinated about visiting hand-made shops because of fear of meeting way-cooler-than-me people. In other areas of my life, things were a bit better. I travelled overseas and secured a contract position at my work.

3. Record all my ideas - everything is useful.
Hm, didn't actually have all that many ideas this year, so it wasn't that hard! My head's been in other places. An issue I did have was finding the time to follow through on the ideas.

4. Keep an art journal - at least once a week.
I certainly did keep an art journal, but not once a week! There are 13 pages filled in. Sometimes I didn't get time, sometimes I wasn't inspired. If I didn't have an idea beforehand, then I didn't bother. Perhaps I should try some doodling. I did find some blogs dedicated to art journalling. I read them regularly and they're very inspiring.

5. Keep in contact with my friends more.
Hm, yes and no. I emailed my regular friends more, but the friends I don't see very often I saw even less. It's a combination of shyness and laziness, I guess.

6. Make healthy eating and exercise into a habit again - take back lost ground.
I had my ups and downs on this one. I joined a gym at the start of the year and was going great guns for about 5 months, following my program and attending 3-4 times a week. I can't believe I was motivated for that long! A few factors suddenly came along that made the whole thing just crash to the ground. One of them was that I realised that I'd actually put on 10kgs. I struggled on for a few months, but one day I decided to chuck the guilt and the membership card out the window and do things differently. I'm loosely following the program from a book called Walk Off Weight and eating healthy in a way that suits me; things are going much better for me.

7. Turn the spare room into a studio, not just a storage room - make it inspirational.
I am working on this one - slowly but surely! I am finally just now starting to get the storage worked out. I faced up to reality 2 weekends ago and threw out a whole bunch of stationery-type stuff that I'll never use. That freed up quite a bit of space. I can see now that everything's going to fit in. I'm not at the 'making it pretty' stage yet, but it's coming.

8. Go on a holiday - continue life's experience.
Well, I certainly did this and then some! My trip to Japan in November was the most amazing experience I've ever had, and it changed me in ways I never anticipated.

I'll talk about my goals for next year in the next post. I don't want to bore you all too much in one go!