Bringing in the New Year || How I Make New Year’s Resolutions

Last year I learned the secret to making a New Year’s Resolution. Before, the thought of resolutions frightened me. I would always make an extravagant goal and never make it. I felt like a disappointment to myself because of this.

Like other things in life, it took a couple of years (twenty-something) before I learned a way that works for me. I will be upfront and note that not every path fits everyone, but like stories, you hopefully can learn from my experiences and be inspired to create something for yourself.

So what is this magical secret? Don’t think of the New Year’s Resolution as a HUGE thing. Think more of it like a short-term goal, or an achievement you wish to achievement hunt in real life. That, if it all works out, will be achieved in the next year.

Access Your Past Year. 

Think back on what was your strong and weak points throughout the past year. Didn’t talk to friends that often? Went to the gym everyday? Got lost in the flames of debt? Did you become self-conscious and just feel negative emotions constantly? Or maybe didn’t get to go outside as often as you liked? If possible, make a list somewhere and split it up with your strengths/weaknesses.

What’s Most Important? 

Of all the things that you did, or didn’t do, this past year, which one “spoke” to you the most? Which one do you think of the most, that bugs you like waiting for food to be done cooking? Or, in more proper words, which do you wish to improve upon so that it makes your daily life, or year, a little brighter? That you can look back this time next year and feel proud of your achievement?

How Do You Want to Improve It?

This is probably the toughest part of the process. Now that you know the big problem, you have to think of how you would like to improve it. What is something you could do in your daily routine that wouldn’t inhibit you from your necessary work and current obligations but would still progress you towards your goal?

Now to be SMART about our Goal.

A simple acronym used for goal making that means Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. (I’ll be honest that I don’t know who originally made it, but it works.) Well, we already have the timely bit, since we plan to complete our goal in a year. Thinking about how to add your progress throughout your everyday life makes it more realistic, achievable, and specific. But how do we make it measurable?

Depending on what you’re working on you have a couple of options. First, if you’re a social media user for Instagram, Facebook Messenger, or Snapchat, you could take a daily photo of your progress to share with people. Or create a pic to share on your favorite social media. Or create a weekly update with your progress on a blog-like site (Facebook, WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, etc.).

If you’re not game for the social media aspect, try to find a friend that is trying to achieve a New Year’s Resolution as well. Be each other’s support, and check in on each other daily. If they’re having trouble with theirs, send a treat of some sort their way, to help encourage them to keep fighting for their goal.

Or get a planner/calendar that you can check off the day when you makes progress towards it.

Or if it’s a debt situation, I suggest checking out Map Your Progress. This site has a collection of products that can help you visually mark down your way to being debt-free.

So What Are My New Year’s Resolution?

I have a collection of things I would like to improve on.

First, I want to try to create my best work each time I draw and create a portfolio from these pieces. (Note that if I left y’all with just this that would be an example of a bad goal.) By the end of the year, I want to create 26 pieces that I could use in my portfolio. This means I have about 2 weeks to complete each piece.

How I plan to do this is to do one of the options below daily:

• Create a Mood Board
• Rough Sketch
• Lineart
• Rough Draft
• Final Draft
• Share Final Piece on the Internet

Now, I’m not a big fan of sharing my mood boards, but the rest I plan to share through my Instagram to share the process to the finished piece.

If you noticed, I created mini-goals to help me progress towards my big goal. If you play a lot of video games, like Fallout, Zelda Breath of the Wild, Destiny, etc. they give you missions that slowly get marked off until you complete the goal. Applying this to real life is a great way to encourage yourself to get stuff done. For me, when I do this, I don’t feel as overwhelmed when I look and see that today, I just need to complete a rough sketch of a project, and if I don’t finish it, I complete it tomorrow.

Anyways, I won’t bore you with the details of the following ones since but I can assure you they are SMART. And I don’t want to post to get TOO long.

My second goal is to become more consistent in creating content on all platforms. I have a new schedule I plan to use to help me work through my stuff. (I already have the next post in the works, which never happens for me to be finishing one blog post and have another one queued to be released.) The main key is keeping this schedule as the year goes on.

Finally, my third goal of this year is to create a more consistent plan of working out. Most days I’m sitting at a desk working, either on drawings or admin stuff. So working out is a great way to stay active and get outside.

So that is my big main goals of this year. (Aside from prepping for a honeymoon and Gen Con.) I hope your New Year starts off grand, and that this post might have helped give some inspiration for what you plan for 2018 (and beyond).

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you come back next week for a post I think you’ll really enjoy!

See ya soon,

Jessi, the ArtsyRobotz

P.S. This post is a part of the Geek Blogs Unite Theme Week Cheers to the Year. If you’re a geeky blogger that would love to join in on participating on these monthly theme weeks, head over to the communities Facebook page to learn more.