Three Easy Ways to Set Goals for Your Creativity in 2021

January is that time of year.

You know the time where we pull out blank notebooks and begin drafting resolutions and promises for the very new year before the month is out.

I am definitely one for goal setting. Making time to determine your goals and desires for the next year gives you, the goal-setter focus, vision, and a bar to reach. The one thing that tends to be forgotten when it comes to making actionable and attainable goals is that it doesn’t matter what anyone else is planning for themselves. What someone else sets for their own year has absolutely nothing to do with you. When one has this mindset, it takes away the competitor's attitude we form with those around us. We tend to lean towards inferior attitudes when we feel others are more “ahead” than ourselves.

Setting goals for your creativity has everything to do with you, your desires, and the vision you have for what you and God have planned out for this year.

I am still in the process of whittling down my attainable goals for 2021, and here are the THREE ways I’m making my goals realistic, purposeful, and less intimidating.

THREE WAYS TO SET REALISTIC GOALS FOR YOUR CREATIVITY

• Utilize the SMART Goals model.

  S - specific (simple, sensible, significant)

  M - measurable (meaningful, motivating).

  A - achievable (agreed, attainable)

  R - relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based)

  T - time-bound (time-based, time-limited, time/cost limited, timely, time-sensitive

  Your goals need to be definitive and purposeful. If you want to write more, then be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Set a daily goal of writing 1,000 words a day or carry a journal around with you. If you want to knit a scarf or learn to longboard, then set specific and measurable goals for those things.

• Keep Your Goals in Front of You

  Last year I kept my specific goals in a document on my computer and would read that document ever so often. I once read something from a woman who stated that she would look at her goals, if not daily, weekly/monthly. She made it a priority to remind herself of the God-given vision she’d laid out on paper.

  The goals and visions that you have for this year should exist before you constantly. When you have a plan, especially one prayed over and given to you by God, it helps to remember the why for what is being worked towards.

• Remember Creativity is More Discipline Than Inspiration

  Inspiration is a lovely feeling. It doesn’t often strike alongside discipline, which is why we can’t rely on it. Discipline is the part of the process that will get you out of bed in the morning and to the task, the one you find yourself committed to. I am still developing routines of discipline in my own life and making the act of writing and other creative endeavors connectors to my discipline. If I relied only on random strokes of inspiration, I would most likely never get anything done.

  Keep in mind that discipline is a must for setting goals for your creativity.

It isn’t always easy, committing to doing things and making routines. However, it is how you become productive and grow into a better version of yourself.

So, stay encouraged, dear creator! Set your goals and make moves towards discipline and routine for your creativity!

Sincerely, a writer still developing a writing routine.

~Antavia Mason, Pen of the Beloved

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