Tips For Setting Art Goals For The New Year (Patreon)

A whole new year is less than a day away and I know that a lot of us will be thinking about what we want to achieve in 2023, so I thought I’d share a few tips for setting goals that have helped me in my own art journey.

Before we begin, I also want to say that it’s ok if you don’t want to set any goals for 2023 and instead want to take it easy and see where things take you. Sometimes it’s helpful to have goals and challenges, and sometimes they can be overwhelming, so don’t feel like you have to have your goals all laid out and be super productive in the new year.

But if you are excited to set some goals, here are a few things that have helped me:

Focus On What You Can Control

To me, there are goals (which are things within my control), and outcomes (which are out of my control). A goal is something that I want to achieve and something that I can actively work on, whereas an outcome is a result that I hope to get out of something that I’ve been doing.

Outcomes are things like how many followers I have, because that’s an outcome of the work I’ve put into social media, but it’s not necessarily something I can control. An outcome could be earning a certain amount of money each month, or having 100,000 YouTube subscribers. I can work towards those things, but I don’t get to actually control how many people are following me so putting all of my value on something like that can so easily result in disappointment if it doesn’t happen.

Instead, I try to focus on goals that I can control, things that will hopefully send me in the direction of the outcomes I’m hoping to achieve but where my success isn’t relying on external metrics. I make my goals things like ‘I want to practise my art 3 times a week’, or ‘I want to create a portfolio of greeting cards and send it to 5 different licensing companies’, or ‘I want to learn typography skills by doing online tutorials and then making 20 artworks with typography in them’.

Make your goals things that you can actually do and you’ll have a better chance of achieving them. You can still have outcomes that you’re aiming towards, but think about what actionable goals you can set that can help you get there.

Be Realistic

I’m always over-ambitious about what I think I can do and get excited to do all of the ideas all at once, but that never ends well because then I get burnt-out, so it’s important to be realistic about what you can achieve with the time that you have available for your art (which may be lots, or may be not very much).

You don’t have to do everything all at once, and it’s ok if things take a little while, so when you’re considering what art skills or projects you want to work on in 2023 make sure you factor in how much time you actually have available.

I find that sometimes when we set over-ambitious goals we don’t get to achieve them and then we feel disappointed and unmotivated, so dream big but set a sensible timeline so that you actually have the opportunity to achieve what you set out to do.

Prioritise

If you still have lots of things that you want to achieve but you’re not too sure if you’ll have the time, then try writing things down in order of priority so that you can work on the things that are most important to you first, and if you don’t get around to the things at the bottom of the list then no big deal.

I have lots of little projects and ideas floating around in my head that I’d like to do, but they’re not usually prioritised ahead of bigger projects that I want to do so they often get pushed to the next year’s list which is totally ok!

I tend to have a list of things that I’d really love to do, a list of things that would be great to do, and then just some things that are ‘nice to have’ but I won’t be disappointed if I don’t get around to it. I can just work my way through the list in order of priority and get as much done as I have the energy for.

I also want to say that I often change my goals throughout the year, so some of the things that I set out to do in the beginning of the year might change a little bit as new opportunities come along or my focus changes - and that’s ok!

Your goals should motivate you, not fill you with dread, so choose things that you want to do and if that changes along the way then your goals can change too.

I’m going to be doing some planning in the new year and I’ll be sure to share what I come up with! 🥰✨