Word of the Year for 2013: Cultivate

It's goal setting time again. I can't resist the urge to make New Year's resolutions, even though studies show they pretty much don't work. There's such a feeling of virtue in setting down all those fabulous plans for the upcoming year. This year I'm going to try a concept I heard of from a few other bloggers, having a Word of the Year as a theme to live by for 2013. After discarding the obvious words like "create" or "balance", I ran across the one that resonated in my heart: Cultivate.

I love gardening, and having just left my beloved garden behind when we moved to our new home, I definitely want to do some cultivating of a new garden in order to feel connected to the land I live on. I need to cultivate my business, too, updating my website and being more consistent about sending out newsletters and scheduling classes and keeping up with inventory and on and on. And I also need to cultivate some good habits, like walking even when my walking buddy isn't available and eating my veggies. Last but not least, I want to cultivate my relationships with friends and family, rather than just taking them for granted as I am wont to do.

The resolutions will still be made, but I hope that by tying them to my word of the year, I'll remember to dig the groundwork and fertilize the young resolutions so that they will grow strong and healthy and not be choked out by the weeds of day to day life.

What's your word?

New Year's Goal Setting

Here we are 5 days into the New Year already, and I haven't made any resolutions, nor do I intend to. What I am doing is setting goals. What's the difference? In a way it's just semantics, but playing the semantics game works for me. Ignoring the dictionary definitions, for me a relolution is just a determination to do something, with no plan of action. And we all know what happens to most resolutions. You break them once, and soon they're forgotten. A goal, on the other hand, is all about a plan, about thinking about the baby steps that lead to actually attaining the goal.

The good thing about a goal instead of a resolution is that you don't break a goal. Think of a hockey game. The team sends the puck down the ice. Usually they don't try to make the goal in one big whoosh; they make their way down the ice, sometimes running into obstacles along the way. They shoot. They miss. The goal hasn't gone away; it's still there waiting for another attempt. The team doesn't give up (well, usually). They regroup and make another stab at the goal. And if they don't reach it this time, they have a team meeting, rethink their strategy, and try again the next game. A goal is something you strive towards, keeping the end in sight, but with strategies to get you there.

I wrote up a two page list of goals in every area of my life--health, relationships, home, career, art, etc, and I'm putting steps towards those goals on my calendar each day.

I want to be more creative this year, to make my art a priority. What's the first step? Well, it's really got three smaller steps. First is to reclaim my studio from the clutter that got tossed in during the holidays. At the same time, I am insisting on including a few creative minutes in the studio daily. Otherwise, I could get lost in cleaning and organizing, and easily delay the scary business of creating. However, I haven't set any huge requirements for myself this first month. The idea is to start small, get some confidence, and work towards more. My focus is on building stamina and confidence. In other words--just make something! I'm allowing myself to be imperfect. The third part of my plan for making art a priority is to submit something--a contest entry, a tutorial, a book or article proposal, each month. The first step towards that piece is to decide what this month's submission will be. I've got that on my calendar for completion by Tuesday.

Writing this first blog entry is all part of the plan, too. It's part of becoming more serious about my art career. I'm not insisting on writing an entry daily, but I'm committing to once a week for now. And if I don't make the goal? Maybe it's not the right one, or maybe I just need to have a chat with my inner coach and come back with a new strategy for success.

Happy New Year!