How many times have you sat down with a pencil and piece of paper, determined to create *something*? During the past several months, I have done this at least two dozen times. I doodle, I sketch, I erase. Nothing seems to ignite my creative flames anymore. That is until I picked up my Bullet Journal at the behest of a Facebook group leader. She forced me to ask myself several questions which I had not thought about for several years:
1 - Why do I have so many art supplies that are just sitting and wasting space if I don't encourage myself to use them?
2 - How much joy does art create for myself and others?
3 - What feelings does creating art elicit in me that are idly sitting by the wayside?
4 - When is it ever time to give up on something that you love?
With these four questions, my creative flames were rekindled. So, I began slowly. I decided to create a doodle of my favorite insect (a honeybee) that turned out so beautifully that I pulled out my Micron Pen Set to give the drawing more depth. I even posted the image to my Instagram account (which so far only had a few pictures of my cat). It is going to be the cover page of my next Bullet Journal. From that point, I decided to blog about the process of Bullet Journaling. I have spent hours searching Pinterest, Amazon, and AliExpress looking for the perfect *new* supplies for my newly rekindled passion. Then, yesterday, it hit me! The only way to encourage myself to use my skill and imagination is to write down an attainable goal for my creative endeavors.
Goal setting is a great way to get yourself out of a creative rut. First, you need to set a specific goal. A teacher friend once told me that a goal is just a dream until you write it down. It isn't enough to say, "Practice art for 15 minutes a day." If that were my goal, I would set a timer and hold a pen for 15 minutes without ever drawing on the page. Instead, I have set a challenge to "Create a Hamsa coloring book with at least 15 different Hamsas." Now, I have an outline to work from and a specific image with which to work. Secondly, make the goal attainable. If I had simply said. "Make a Hamsa coloring book," then I would have not known when enough were created to satisfy my goal. Last of all, your goal needs to have a timeline. For this, I researched 101 Goals in 1,001 Days. This gives me a definite time period (2 1/2 years) to complete my goals.
If you happen to find yourself in the same position as I did, I encourage you to create an art goal. Creative endeavors only take up about 10 of my 101 Goals ranging from drawing and writing to cooking and photography. Please look at the Bullet Journal page on this blog to find out the rest of my 101 Goals. I wish you all the best on your artistic journey!
~ Melissa
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