My 2019 Creative Goals and Resolutions

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I think New Year’s Eve might actually be my favorite holiday of the year.

I consider myself to be a highly introspective person, and I love that the New Year gives me the occasion to look back on the previous 12 months and reflect on everything I’ve accomplished.

I also love being able to set new goals to achieve in the coming year.

I’ve never really been one to set New Year’s resolutions, because to me they’ve always felt very … insubstantial, for lack of a better word.

There’s nothing concrete or determinate about simply resolving to “work less next year” or “spend more time with friends and family.”

And I think that this weak abstractness might have something to do with the fact that 92% of all New Year’s resolutions fail.

Instead, I’m a fan of setting so-called “SMART” goals, or goals that are: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

According to an article from MindTools.com,

“SMART is an effective tool that provides the clarity, focus and motivation you need to achieve your goals. It can also improve your ability to reach them by encouraging you to define your objectives and set a completion date.”

In my experience, setting a few SMART goals for myself each year has been extremely helpful in improving my own personal and professional productivity, because it provides me with firm goalposts to consistently measure my own progress (or lack thereof).

But I think I might have been wrong about something.

Goals shouldn’t be set just for the hell of it. You shouldn’t create all of these benchmarks for yourself just because you can, or just because they occur to you during some journaling or brainstorming session.

Your goals should always be aligned with some broader and deeper convictions. They should all serve to advance your own personal philosophy about how life should be lived, and they should all be in accordance with your values, as well.

This is where resolutions come into play.

While reading Jesse Showalter’s Creative Resolutions piece on Medium, I was struck by how all of his resolutions seemed to reflect his own personal beliefs.

They weren’t some vague, abstract goals like most people set for themselves in the New Year. But they were firm expressions of the values that Showalter strove to live by.

So in this spirit, I’d like to share my own creative resolutions and goals for the New Year. I hope that by doing so, I might gain some external accountability while also inspiring others to set (and possibly share) their own resolutions and goals.

And if this is at all appealing to you, I urge you to read Showalter’s original piece.

Creative Resolutions

These resolutions are the “backbone” for everything that I hope to achieve in 2019. They are the things that I strive to live by as I further my creative career in the New Year.

(I hope to update these resolutions throughout 2019 as I gain more insight as to what works for me and what is in alignment with my values.)

Overall Creative Mission

1. I resolve to be a life-long learner, and to never grow stagnant with my knowledge and experience.
2. I resolve to consistently step out of my comfort zone and push myself to do those things that scare me.
3. I resolve to hold my own opinion of my work in the highest regard while remaining open to constructive criticism.
4. I resolve to always use my creative talents in service of others — never merely to impress.

Creative Goals for 2019

1. I will hire a business coach who will guide me in growing my freelance web design and development business to $10k in consistent gross monthly revenue.
2. I will continue to hone by skills by investing in (and completing) the following online courses: The Bootstrap 4 Bootcamp, by Colt Steele, The Modern JavaScript Bootcamp, by Andrew Mead, and React for Beginners, by Wes Bos.
3. I will get more involved in the design and development community by joining a local Meetup group (whose events I will attend consistently) and participating in the 2019 JAMstack_conf and Hackathon.
4. I will contribute my knowledge and experience to others by releasing at least one low-cost product, such as a UI kit or Skillshare course, in the coming year.

So there you have it: My relatively short list of creative resolutions and goals for 2019.

The idea is that this will be a work in progress, something that I’ll continually come back to over the next 12 months to refine, add to, and subtract from.

I’m curious and excited to see what this article will look like at this time next year!

I encourage you to take out some time from your day and try creating your own list of resolutions and goals for the New Year. It’s a really fun and rewarding process that I think will definitely serve you well in your end-of-the-year goal setting.

If you do decide to create your own, be sure to tag me or send me the link. I’d love to see what you come up with!