Tag Archives: goals

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I don’t do resolutions. I think they suck.

If resolutions work for you, that’s cool. But it is my deeply held belief that January is long and depressing enough without making yourself feel like a failure halfway through because you thought you 'ought' to do something about your weight/finances/fitness/work-life balance or whatever damn thing you're feeling guilty about.

Goals are good when they're clear, measurable and achievable. Resolutions, on the other hand, smack of wishful thinking. A resolution is a cop-out. Oh, you ‘resolve’ to do something. Not actually a decision though, is it. Resolution is a kinda-sorta-wanna word. And most people choose resolutions that are destined to fail because they are murky and unclear and the person hasn't fully committed to them. Or doesn't even want to do them. Resolutions are invariably 'shoulds' writ large.

work-todo-list-july-6
Creative Commons License photo credit: purpleslog

What I do instead are commitments, goals and a Word Of The Year.

So, for example, 365 Jars is a commitment, not a resolution. There’s no resolution involved. I’ve decided that I’m doing it and I know that I will get to the end of 2011 with that art project completed unless I break a leg or something (and I have a contingency plan for that). No excuses. No giving up in February because I'm bored. I'm committed, so I will see it through. That's how I am with art projects. Which is why I think long and hard before I start them.

Goal Setting

If resolutions give you an icky, ‘don’t wanna’ feeling, please come and join me in the ‘no resolutions’ corner – we have whisky, cough sweets, leftover chocolates and we don’t care what anyone thinks. I’m not even doing any 2011 goals right now because a) I'm knackered from the flu and b) I already have some important goals in play.

However, if you do want to set yourself some goals, here are some helpful tips:

Shoulds are deadly
‘Shoulds’ are killer words: they will eat you alive whilst making nom-nom noises. If the word ‘should’ appears when you’re thinking about goals, you need to chase it out of your brain with much screaming and a chainsaw.

If you don’t give a shit about that last 10lbs, don’t pretend you do. You’re not fooling anyone. Wishful thinking and half-heartedness won’t get you anywhere. If you think that you ‘should’ lose that 10lbs because some magazine says you need to or because all your workmates are dieting, you’ll fail. Because you don’t care enough to do it.

There is a very simple reason that I don’t have an MA – I can’t be arsed to go and get one. Until I have a burning, overwhelming desire to go back to college, I'll be sticking with my BA. Sure, I'd quite like to HAVE an MA but not enough to do the actual 'getting one' part. The moment I realised that an MA was in my 'should' category, I gleefully struck it off my list and felt much lighter.

Be creative
For the love of all that is holy, chose something fun or find a way to make it fun. You’ll do much better. Reward yourself with stickers, find a creative way to achieve that aim or do something you love. If you hate going to the gym but love playing with kids, borrow some kids a couple of times a week (ask first!) and take them to the park for a run around. You'll get exercise and their parents will be pathetically grateful. Or volunteer to coach football at your local school. Or lead a Brownie or Scout troupe.

Most people fail at resolutions and goals because they punish themselves with them. Why? Do you want to change a habit or do you just want to wear a hairshirt? Choose.

Be clear on your WHY
Goals that start with a ‘why’ are always stronger than wishy-washy, direction-less goals.

OK, so you want more time in the studio. Why? What does it get you? What happens if you do lose that ten pounds? How is your life better? What difference does it make?

I started 365 Jars because I wanted to take a daily walk every day during 2011. That was it. That was my ‘why’. I also wanted to get back to a daily art practice and I like doing year-long projects because they have a defined start and end. So that was two good strong 'whys' that I realised could be yoked together to make a fun project.

The art is a cheat code. I knew I wouldn’t walk daily if I made a resolution to do so but I sure as hell would if walking was part of an art project. So I came up with the art idea that would accommodate the walking. At this point, my wife looked at me funny and said, ‘you really will do anything if it’s for art, won’t you’. To which the answer was 'yes, but only when I set the rules.'

Tackle one area at once
When I’ve been trying to change big things, I've always been more successful when I’ve stuck to one area at a time. Trying to lose weight, sort out your finances, get fit, learn French and start a daily art practice all in a single month might be doable but hitting yourself with a stick would probably be more fun. Changing habits can be hard. And if you're trying to change habits in big, scary emotional areas like body image or finances, you can trigger all sorts of defensive mechanisms. Start small and achievable. Or trick yourself like I did with 365 Jars.

Make it measurable
‘I want to get fit’ is a completely pointless goal because you can’t measure it, so you will never achieve it. ‘I will do five minutes of stretching every morning during 2011’ is a far better goal because you’ll know exactly when you’re doing it and when you’re not.

Accept failure
If you do those daily stretches for 300 days out of 365, you’ve won. It’s not a zero-sum game, you haven’t ‘failed’ until you quit completely. 300 days of stretching will still make a big difference to your life. Sure, it's a bit annoying about the other 65 days but hey, you’re still way ahead of the people who did it religiously for 2 weeks and then gave up. Shit happens: give yourself credit for the things you did, not what you didn’t. If you don't manage to do your thing one day, pick it up the next day or the day after. If the way you're doing it stops working, find a new way to do it. But don't use 'I missed a day' as an excuse to quit.

Beware of romanticism
In my head, I can belly-dance. In my head I am also a willowy redhead who plays the harp and floats around in long wispy dresses. One day I may get round to learning belly dancing but frankly, I am shit out of luck with the willowy thing because I am small, dark and very curvy. Sure, I could grow my hair long, dye it red and lose weight but with the best will in the world, I can’t gain five inches in height unless I wear very unsuitable shoes.

And although I would like to be that pre-Raphaelite heroine, in truth, I am not that person. I look kind of drippy with long hair; I would have paint and mud on my long, billowing sleeves in five minutes and I would constantly trip over the wispy hemlines and then swear in a most unromantic fashion. Besides I have very little musical aptitude and no time or patience to learn. It is a pretty fantasy that bears no relation to who I truly am and I wouldn't enjoy the reality. Now, if my fantasy was to be a bumbling, slightly grubby, female hobbit, I’d be totally sorted.

I once had an amusing conversation with a knitting friend where we admitted to each other that we sometimes knit things we knew wouldn’t suit our body shape just because we fell in love with the model and the way the project had been photographed. That’s romantic thinking. So is 'I will feel happy in a bikini if I can just lose that 10lbs'.

Accept your reality.

There is nothing mystical about January
Set goals whenever it’s right to set them. I use monthly aims to keep myself on track and make sure important deadlines don’t get forgotten. If I get to March and I decide that 2011 needs its own special goals, I’ll set some then. The goal police won't come round and arrest me because I didn't decide on my goals on January 1st.

Commit
If you can’t commit to it fully, don’t even bother: you’re just setting yourself up to fail. Think this stuff through before you decide to do it. Be utterly clear what’s involved and why you want to do it. Make sure it's achievable. And then decide. And then do it. Yoda was right...



Things to remember

If setting goals right now is a genuinely helpful thing for you, then do it and enjoy. I hope you make positive goals that help you grow and the tips should help you set strong, achievable ones.

But you also have my full permission to take a big deep breath, resolve not to set any resolutions or goals whatsoever, say 'oh thank god' and feel instantly better. Here, have a chocolate...


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Many artists approach the world from a place of fear.

'Am I good enough? What if no one likes my work? Why can't I sell? I'm rubbish, aren't I! If I've not made it by the time I'm 30, I'm never going to. Picasso worked really hard every single day, what the hell's wrong with me? If I don't have lots of shows every year, they'll all forget about me.'

And so on and so forth...


Photo by Alex E. Proimos, used under a Creative Commons license

I've been actively trying to get away from that angst-ridden headspace in recent months. But taking a step back from those ingrained fears feels like stepping off a mountain path in the dark. I don't know if I'll fall. Maybe there will be soft mossy grass under my feet or bouncy heather? Or maybe there's a 50ft drop!

My own first lesson in letting go of these Art Fears is to ignore the temptation to desperately apply for exhibitions in 2010. While applying for exhibitions can certainly be useful and necessary, I'm tired of it. If applying for exhibitions works for you, that's great. It used to work for me too. However, right now it makes me feel sad, pitiful, powerless and often quite angry. It makes me feel like a beggar outside the temple of art and I'm DONE feeling like that.

Naturally, if things come knocking on my door, I'll certainly consider them. I do still want exhibitions and other cool opportunities. Nor am I sticking my head in the sand: I'm still visible and active both off and online and I wouldn't rule out applying for something if it was perfect for me. But I've stopped pushing constantly. It's a difference in attitude.

Somewhat to my surprise, this new approach seems to be working, I've been offered several great opportunities lately including the ECCA talk in London last month and I'm taking part in this exhibition later this month. Yet it's still scary as hell to stop pushing. I want to believe that the Universe will catch me, that I'll be OK without all that frantic busyness but believing that goes against a lifetime of conditioning.

What are your Art Fears? Can you trust yourself enough to walk away from them? Can you step off a mountain with me? We could hold hands and jump...


Photo by danorbit, used under a Creative Commons license

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Broken Bauble
Kirsty Hall: Broken Bauble, January 2010

Last October I took Alyson Stanfield's excellent Blast Off course. This course was a life-changing experience for me - amongst other things, I realised that I need to find more sustainable ways to manage my health & my art before I can develop my career further.

Basically, I've been trying to build my house on sand. I've been constantly draining myself by doing more than my health allows. Because I'm pig awkward that way.

Last November's arts trail was a good case in point. I've only just been back to take down 3 Score & 10 because I got sick immediately after the trail, then my host fell ill, then there was Christmas & snow. I finally managed to take the work down last Monday but completely exhausted myself in the process and I've been in a proper CFS crash ever since. I'm not quite on bed rest but it's pretty close.

This is clearly absolutely unsustainable; I cannot continue to do shows if it knocks me out for months afterwards.

Now obviously I don't want to give up doing shows: I love exhibiting my work - it's one of my favourite parts of being an artist. Since I want to continue to make art and exhibit it, it's clear to me that I need to do everything in my power to recover from my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

That's a tough call because no one knows what causes it or how to fix it but even if I can't find a permanent cure, I want to get to a healthier place. So I've been working on my pacing and my chronic insomnia. I also took a scary step and in November I joined Slimming World. I've lost 18.5 pounds so far and my goal is lose a further 3 stone by Christmas 2010, something I'm well on track to do. Losing weight is unlikely to be a miracle cure - I was unwell before I put on weight - but I know that being overweight can't be helping. Slimming World is awesome, btw - I won't bang on about it here but email if you'd like to know more about my experiences with it.

Even though I currently feel like Wile E. Coyote after he's been squashed flat by an anvil, I'm taking the long view here. This is definitely NOT me giving up, it's me refocusing and working on the basics. I do still have an art career, I'm just taking the scenic route: there will lots of tea breaks, picnics on the side of the road and photographs of sheep but I'll get there eventually!

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Foggy Morning
Kirsty Hall: Winter Fog, Jan 2010

As you may have heard, Britain is in the grip of some cold weather and things have ground to a halt because alas, alack, white stuff has fallen from the sky - hey, who knew that could happen in the winter?

Winter Day
Kirsty Hall: Snowy Branch, Jan 2010

The snow has come as quite a relief to me. I'm still recovering from The Virus Of Doom. I'm having a couple of weeks where I deliberately don't make art but I've still not been resting enough, so a couple of enforced snow days are just what I needed.

Of course, my idea of what constitutes resting is somewhat suspect. I didn't get as much contemplative time as I planned in the last week of 2009, so I've spent the couple of days mindmapping, writing lists and drawing colourful diagrams of the coming year.

Oh, and I've moved my bedroom around to make room for a dedicated 'thinking space' where I can update my sketchbook and work on my visual journal. I've been horribly neglecting the former and I've been doing the later in bed but it's bad for my back and there's always the worry that I'll get gesso and paint on the sheets.

Although experts say that the bedroom should just be for sleeping, I find that it's my best thinking space and I also do quite a lot of drawing in there. One of my aims for this year is to 'meet myself where I am'. In other words, to deal with my actual truth rather than what I think should be true. So instead of denying that I use my bedroom this way and feeling guilty that I don't go upstairs to my studio instead, I've decided to honour what actually is and next week I'm going shopping for a desk, preferably an old rolltop one so that everything can be hidden away when not in use.

Having some introspective time is even easier when the streets are so quiet. There are very few cars about, instead there are giggly people making snow beings, including this rather fabulous creation - in my 42 years on this planet, this is the first time I've seen a snow duck!

A Snow Duck
Kirsty Hall: Snow Duck, Jan 2010

However, not everyone is enjoying the snow - the chickens are distinctly unimpressed...

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Chickens were first mentioned on this blog back in May 2008 when I was in the midst of an art lull and had started edging into Mad Project Stage.

Here's what I originally wrote:

So… last night I decided that I wanted to own chickens. I’m doing up the garden, I want to grow more vegetables and our family is interested in environmental things like micro generation of power (we have solar panels that heat our hot water) and getting off-grid as much as possible. So a couple of urban chickens producing lovely fresh eggs wasn’t that out of left field – food yards instead of miles, it would be great!

Actually, I originally thought that both chickens and a beehive would be the way to go but apparently I’m learning because I recognised that bee-keeping was probably a bit beyond me and discarded the idea before enthusiastically announcing it to my bemused family. But I honestly thought that the chickens were perfectly reasonable. One little chicken ark and two chickens – how hard could it be? My family kept chickens when I was a teenager so I know how to look after them – in theory. What could possibly go wrong?

Yes, well… apparently, my family did not share my wild enthusiasm for this wonderful idea and I was told in no uncertain terms that there would be no chickens unless egg prices went through the roof or the fall of civilisation seemed imminent.

Somewhat to my surprise, my family came round on the chicken idea without any further pleading from me. So back in January, 'get chickens' became one of my ten goals for 2009.

After a spring and summer spent concentrating on the garden, it was time to decide whether I was up to challenge of chickens. I borrowed several books from the library and immersed myself in the details of chicken-keeping. Hours were spent online pricing up chicken coops, feed and accessories and weighing up the various options. Finally I decided that I could probably manage it as long as I bought a plastic Eglu. Apparently chicken purists often frown on these but I love the funky design and more importantly, because of my health I needed something that was lower maintenance and easier to clean than a wooden coop.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I placed an order online for a green Eglu, two chickens and a bag of Layer's Mash. The chickens were supposed to arrive on the 6th October but earlier this week, we got a phone call from Omlet (yes, that's really the name of the company) saying they were delivering in our area this week and would we like our chickens this Friday?

Why yes, yes we would!

The friendly and helpful man from Omlet arrived promptly and installed the Eglu and run in about 15 minutes. While he was doing this we read the handy chicken instruction manual. He told us all about feeding and watering them using the 'glug' and 'grub' containers - they actually have this embossed on them; it really is Chicken Keeping for Dummies!

Finally it was time to meet the girls and they were brought from the van in a cat carrier. He showed us how to hold them and how to clip their wing feathers (you do this once a year, so that they can't fly away). We practised picking them up and marvelled at how incredibly soft their feathers are. After further instruction on their care and plenty of reassurance that we could call their chicken expert or ask on their online forum if we had any problems, we were alone with two somewhat bemused chickens.

We spent the rest of the day totally engrossed by them.

Chickens 01
Kirsty Hall: Pepper And Ginger, September 2009

Here's Pepper. She's a Mrs Pepperpot breed and is the older of our two hens, although she's not quite fully grown yet. She should be laying in a week or two. She's the more wary of the two but she'll come close to humans if there's a treat involved!

Pepper 01
Kirsty Hall: Pepper, September 2009

Ginger is a Ginger Nut Ranger. Hmm, are you seeing the theme with the names here? I'd just like to point out that I was not responsible for the somewhat literal naming. I had planned to give them old-fashioned Victorian style names but was over-ruled. I don't mind though, Pepper and Ginger are good chicken names.

Ginger 01
Kirsty Hall: Ginger, September 2009

Ginger is a couple of weeks younger than Pepper, so she looks a lot more like a dinosaur! Her comb is still quite tiny and she's a fair bit smaller than Pepper. She's got at least three weeks of filling out to do before she'll be giving us eggs. Despite being smaller, she's often the more assertive and braver of the two and she's more likely to come close to be petted.

I'm finding there's a lot to be learnt from chickens. They are sort of Zen - they're very 'in the moment' and their movements are often so slow and deliberate that they remind me of Buddhist monks doing Walking Meditation. When I'm near them, I often slow down too. This afternoon I sat on the lawn feeding them bits of cooked rice from my hand and I felt deeply and completely at peace.

But they can also be amusing. I especially like when they put their heads on one side and give me a quizzical look. They have definite characters and opinions about things (slugs good, cats baaad!) They've already learnt that if I come up to the run, it can mean that treats are in the offing: slugs proffered on a garden trowel were squabbled over enthusiastically and quickly devoured. I just love the idea of turning the bane of my garden into delicious eggs!

They fit in well with our rather ramshackle garden. And I love looking out of the kitchen or library window and seeing them placidly going about their chicken-y business.

Eglu in garden
Kirsty Hall: Eglu in garden, Sept 2009

Having bought them for practical reasons - fresh, organic, ethically produced eggs with low food miles, droppings to accelerate our compost bin and a handy slug-disposal method - we were all quite surprised to be so enchanted by their actual presence. But they are lovely and my family, originally so resistant to my Grand Chicken Plan, are utterly charmed by them and go out to visit them often. Even the teenager has been observed inspecting them.

And Chiana thinks we've bought her The Best Present In The Worldtm Because, as we all know, everything is for the benefit of the cat!

The Chicken Menacer
Kirsty Hall: The Chicken Menacer

The chickens aren't quite so enthusiastic about her!

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Hail Janus! God of gateways, doors, ending and beginnings.


Roman Coin Showing Janus

The last post looked backwards at 2008. This one is about looking forward to 2009, with a bit of reflection thrown in for good measure.

Drifting aimlessly is something of a natural condition for me and I can do it for quite disturbingly long periods of time. This can be a good thing; the ability to daydream is one of the sources of my art. However, it's not good for me to stay in that space for too long, so I've always used external deadlines and self-imposed goals to combat that tendency towards feyness.

Last year, I had great difficult setting goals - a reflection of how overwhelmed and burnt out I was. Although I clearly needed the time off, I found I struggled without the structure that goals give me. About halfway through the year, I started making a monthly list of the tasks in addition to my usual weekly lists. However, I discovered that unless things were obviously urgent, they had a tendency to fall off the bottom of my lists and never get done.

I realised that I was mostly being reactive rather than proactive and that's something I'd like to change this year. Thankfully, I've found a new tool that may help. Eliza from the Backyard blog recently plurked enthusiastically about Toodledo, an online task organiser. I tried to resist her siren call because I'm an absolute sucker for organisational systems and I can easily get sucked into endlessly re-organising my lists instead of actually doing any of the things on them!

I've tried lots of organisational tools over the years but they often fall by the wayside. I either find that they simply don't work for me or I start using them with great enthusiasm and then abandon them as being far too much trouble. It's early days yet but I think that Toodledo may be different - in less than a week, it's completely embedded itself into my life. I like the fact that it plots things on a calendar and you can easily assign folders, importance and deadlines to tasks plus it's quick and easy to alter things. It's nice and visible on my bookmark toolbar (I'm both visually orientated and forgetful - if I can't see something, it may as well not exist), opens instantly and most crucially, it's very intuitive. So thanks for that one, Eliza.

Anyway, on to my goal list...

2009 GOALS

1) Finish or frog three unfinished cardigans
I have already started working on one of these - I'm teaching myself how to crochet properly so that I can finish a cardigan that just needs a crocheted border. Two of the three cardigans have been nearly complete for at least two years now so I am determined NOT to have this unfinished knitting still lurking around at the end of this year.

2) Finish decluttering the house
Decluttering became unexpectedly important in the second half of 2008 and it still feels very vital and satisfying.

3) Visit Red in Amsterdam
Another repeat from last year: the current plan is for this to happen sometime in the spring.

4) Get my son through his GCSE exams
I'm clearing my calendar between April to June for this one!

5) Plant a vegetable garden
I've made a barter arrangement with a friend to share the produce in exchange for some help with the physical labour. So if I get too sick to garden, it'll still get done and we'll have home-grown vegetables - I'm very excited about this.

6) Get chickens
Having 'get chickens' as a New Year's Resolution makes me laugh. Regular readers may recall that chickens were mentioned last year. Well, my family have come round to my way of thinking, so Project Chicken Is Go!

7) Continue to do daily stretches
I'd like to do more regular cardiovascular exercise in 2009 but I haven't listed it as a goal because it felt too prescriptive. I'm more concerned with maintaining the successful stretching habit that I established in 2008.

8) Do 30 things from my 101 list
I've got three things in progress already.

9) Successfully grow things from seeds
I got a fantastic book for Christmas called The Thrifty Gardener. It's encouraged me to believe that I can grow things from seeds, even though my past attempts have not met with much success.

10) Start the linen series
Ah, an art thing at last. The linen series has been brewing for a while now and if all goes according to plan, it should be 2009's major art project.

It was good to re-read what I wrote last January about letting go of 'shoulds' when setting goals. Unconsciously, I replicated that attitude when deciding on my 2009 goals - all ten things on the list feel positive to me rather than restrictive or guilt-ridden.

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Happy New Year, folks. I've been meaning to update for ages but the urge to hibernate was too strong, so I gave in to my inner hedgehog.


Baby Hedgehog by Riude.
Image found on Flickr and used under a Creative Commons licence.

Left to my own devices, I'd probably carry on hibernating for at least another month but I have a busy January ahead of me, so I must poke my nose out of my comfy little nest and get back into the swing of things.

Traditionally at this time of year, I always spend a few days reviewing the old year and attuning myself to the new one. First, let's look backwards.

2008 REVIEW

Oh dear, 2008 was a bit of a grim experience. My word for the year was 'Balance' but it often felt that I only achieved it by lying on the floor and holding on for dear life! Although nothing absolutely dire happened in 2008, it felt like an unrelenting slog and I was damn glad to see the back of it. My son was ill in the first half of the year and missed six months of school, which was obviously very stressful. Then I spent much of the second half of the year being ill and quite profoundly unmotivated (probably because of the stress of the first half).

Art
Art-wise, this wasn't a very productive year for me. I continued making art whenever I was well enough but I didn't have a single exhibition - the first time this has happened since I graduated in 2002. This was partly because there seemed to be fewer interesting opportunities available but it was mostly because I couldn’t face applying for anything. Whenever I thought about sending in an application, I just felt like crying. In retrospect, it's obvious that I was slightly burnt-out after the daily intensity of The Diary Project in 2007.

Although I'm a bit irritated at myself for this wossy behaviour, I accept that after 6 years of working hard on my career, it's OK that I took a year off. And it was ultimately helpful because I've barrelled into 2009 with my enthusiasm for my career renewed.

Personal
The highlight of the year was obviously my fantastic trip to Australia in February and March. I'll be paying it off for the next four years but it was so worth it! If anyone wants to offer me any art opportunities in Oz, I'm totally up for it - it's an incredible place and I can't wait to go back.

Australian rainforest
Kirsty Hall: Rainforest in the Blue Mountains, March 2008

I also achieved the following:

Knitted 27 items, including 20 baby hats for a Save The Children appeal
This is the first time I've done any charity knitting and I found it hugely satisfying.

Read 81 books
This sounds impressive but this is actually a low total for me that reflects the amount of illness I was dealing with: normally I'm around the 100 - 110 mark.

Completed 21 things on my 101 List

I planted a flower bed in my garden and grew herbs, strawberries, tomatoes, sweetpeas and other flowers in pots. I also successfully propagated cuttings for the first time.

Completed 3 of my 5 2008 goals
Due to scheduling difficulties I didn't manage to visit my friend Red in Amsterdam, which was a big disappointment. I didn't complete all of my unfinished knitted items either. Never mind.

I started stretching daily
Apart from three days when I was incapacitated with bronchitis, I've done this every day for the last 35 weeks. This is huge for me. I've always struggled with exercise, I've never been sporty and in the past I've tended to throw myself into a new exercise routine and quickly give up because it hurts or I lose interest. So 35 weeks of regular stretching is incredible. I started very slowly with a couple of repetitions of half a dozen stretches and I've gradually increased both the range and number of repetitions that I do.

House
A lot of my art energy was redirected into domesticity in 2008. Since the summer, I've been engaged in a massive amount of decluttering and organising. A friend and I have tackled 11 different areas in my home and frankly we've worked miracles.

Although not directly related to my art on the surface, I know that decluttering has put me on a much stronger footing in that area. Crucially, my studio is now a manageable working space. I finally know what materials I have and where everything is: this should make a big difference.

I also accepted that I simply can't do it all and I need to concentrate on the areas of art that really matter to me, so I gave a lot of art and craft materials away. This has freed up a lot of physical and emotional space and I feel that my art is better grounded than it's ever been.

I've always been a 'leave it to the last minute, then work like a banshee' person but I've finally come to see that running on adrenalin isn't a sustainable model for my art practice. If I'm going to sustain and nourish my art without destroying my already precarious health, I can no longer indulge that excitement-seeking aspect of myself. (I know my family are going to be rolling their eyes at this bit; they've been trying to tell me this for the last bazillion years!). I'm overdrawn at the energy bank and I can't keep counting on 'exhibition energy' to pull me through - my inability to apply for exhibitions last year proved that much. I had simply exhausted myself past the point of being able to show and that's no bloody good!

An important aspect of moving towards a more sustainable art practice is the need for more structure and organisation in my life. I don't have the time and energy to constantly turn the house upside down looking for something I've lost. Nor can I afford to buy multiple copies of things I already own.

Conclusion

After several years of concentrating intensely on my career, I had a year where I focused on friends, family, my home and my health instead. One of my hopes for 2009 is that I can find a better balance between these often competing needs. I am already feeling much more positive than I did at the start of 2008 and things are already looking up for my career (more big news on the later very shortly).

My focus in 2008 was very much turned inward, which I found difficult at the time but now see was very necessary. It was a year of 'clearing the decks', re-evaluating what I want from my life and my career and laying strong foundations for my future art practice. Bring on 2009, I'm ready!

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OK, apparently a couple of you want to see this too. This is long, I'm afraid, since I don't know off any way to make cuts in WordPress.

Edited to add: Sorry about the weirdness at number 8, I'm not especially happy about that task, it's just a weird WordPress formatting thing but there's no way that I'm going to change the numbering on the other 100 just to get rid of it.

101 THINGS LIST

1) Apply to Axis
2) Assemble garden bench and chain to railings in garden
3) Assemble new wheelbarrow
4) Be mentioned in [AN] Magazine
5) Buy a digital SLR
6) Buy and put up nesting boxes
7) Buy binoculars
8) Clear out and organise shed
9) Complete 4 thread drawings
10) Complete 8 UFO's for the L&V Finish-a-thon
11) Complete the Paying It Forward Exchange
12) Create a promotional pack for Pin Ritual
13) Declutter and re-organise Cupboard of Doom
14) Declutter laundry room
15) Decorate middle floor hallway
16) Develop and perform Red Thread
17) Do 50 drawings to sell
18) Donate £100 to British Heart Foundation
19) Exhibit in London
20) Exhibit The Diary Project
21) Finish & post Mart's box
22) Finish Gemma's jewellery
23) Finish organising study
24) Finish Pelt
25) Finish re-organising studio
26) Finish shoalwater shawl in time for wedding
27) Finish the research on the house
28) Finish watching Farscape
29) Finish watching Nowhere Man
30) Fix email problem
31) Frame and post Jeanne's picture
32) Frame and post Mart's picture
33) Get big bedroom decorated
34) Get damaged corner in library fixed
35) Get front door painted
36) Get more Moo cards
37) Get my hallmark
38) Get new coil fitted
39) Get notecards made from my art
40) Get over 100 in my Technorati rank
41) Get spinning wheel fixed
42) Get windows renovated
43) Go and see a ballet
44) Go on a picnic
45) Go whalewatching
46) Hem grey trousers
47) Host a tea party
48) Install hanging rail or brackets in studio
49) Invent a new cake
50) Keep a daily log for a year
51) Knit Cat's jumper
52) Learn how to do the more complicated polaroid transfers
53) Learn how to use my medium format camera
54) Learn to follow crochet patterns
55) Learn to spin
56) Lose a stone
57) Make a ‘where things are stored’ database
58) Make a book of The Diary Project
59) Make a limited edition artist's book
60) Make a new will
61) Make and send CD of wedding photos to Z. and G.
62) Make Butterfly Mind
63) Meet up with Siobhan
64) Organise Australia trip
65) Organise registration info
66) Paint outside of study door
67) Paint railings
68) Pay back J.
69) Perform Pin Ritual again
70) Plant a border with bulbs
71) Put £500 in my savings account
72) Remake and photograph 'Annunciation'
73) Renew passport
74) Reorganise the kitchen cupboards
75) Replant my herb pots
76) Rescan the earlier envelopes at high res
77) Save up £1000 for a new computer
78) Sell 5 pieces of artwork
79) Sell a piece of jewellery
80) Simplify my email folders
81) Sort out family lawyer stuff
82) Sort out Irene's picture
83) Submit my work to Fiberarts Magazine
84) Swim in the sea
85) Take or pay someone to take good photos of my recent artwork
86) Take part in 6 exhibitions
87) Test the plastic etching process
88) Tidy and clean under kitchen sink
89) Update descriptions on Flickr
90) Update my art archive
91) Use or get rid of the pile of slate in the garden
92) Visit a waterfall
93) Visit Achnahaird
94) Visit Hay-on-Wye
95) Visit Ireland
96) Visit Red in Amsterdam
97) Visit Roslin Chapel
98) Visit The Bath Museum of Costume
99) Visit the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford
100) Watch Season 3 of Veronica Mars
101) Write up the knitted brick pattern

..........

I was most amused to discover yesterday that I'd apparently started a 101 Things list last May. I didn't remember ever having seen the meme before, let alone writing a list with 50 things on it. It was fascinating to see how many things I've already done (only 7 unfortunately), what made it to the final list and what I no longer feel the need to do. It's obvious already that these lists can change in quite a short time, so you need to stay fluid during the process.

It was especially interesting to notice that a couple of things that I thought were completely off the wall when I wrote them on the final list were also on the earlier one - apparently I have a much deeper desire to go swimming in the sea than I realised.

Well, that's it for goals for the time being but I'll probably do monthly updates on how I'm doing, just to keep myself on track. Oh, and if you can help out with any of these goals - especially the exhibition related ones - please do feel free. Indeed, I'm entirely reliant on you all linking to me in order to achieve No. 40 (Get over 100 in my Technorati rank) - but don't worry, I won't be asking you to come round and clear out my cupboards!

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Hooray, the year can officially start now because I've finished all my goal lists. I suppose it's one way to get through the long slog of January - just cut the month in half by arbitrarily deciding that the first couple of weeks don't count!

I thought you'd all be bored with these posts about goals by now but to my surprise, I've been getting comments asking me more about it and wanting to see my mind map. I am getting to the end of this subject though, there will be this post and one more on the 101 Things and then I'm going to stop thinking and writing about it for a while.

MIND MAP

My mind map of the things I want from 2008 was one of the main starting points for deciding on my goals for the year. As requested by Wendy and Amanda, here is a scan of the original. I considered censoring one of the goals (go on, guess which one!) but decided not to bother.

Kirsty Hall - drawn mind map of desires for 2008
Sorry, I had to do it as a thumbnail so that I could make it big enough to be readable. Click on it if you're interested

As you can see, most of these are rather fuzzy and certainly don't count as goals yet because they're so vague - exactly how many games of Scrabble do I need to play before it counts?

You know what's really freaking me out though - a couple of the things on this mind map have already started coming true WITHOUT ME DOING ANYTHING ABOUT THEM! And after all those years of internally sneering at affirmations too. Yes, very funny, Universe, I guess that's me told. I'm seeing it more as, 'I've already put in the work and now it's starting to come to fruition' rather than 'ask for anything you want and you'll get it' but still, I'm kind of wishing that I'd put 'earn shitloads of money and become fabulously famous' on there now.

JOURNALLING

I also did several pages of writing and art journalling about the idea of goals and completed an exercise to discover my theme word for the year, an idea that I nabbed from the Creative Mom Podcast. It's a good idea that originally came from Ali Edwards.

Kirsty Hall - journal page about my theme for 2008

If you're struggling to gain clarity on the goal making process, I've found this a very helpful exercise to do. Make a big list of words that might apply to your year (if you get stuck with this part, try browsing through a thesaurus or dictionary) and then just let your gut guide you to the right one. Don't go with what you think you should want from the year but let your intuition speak. It can take a little time to hit on the right word but both years that I've done this, I've found that I know it when it appears. My word for last year was 'nourish', while this year's word is 'balance'.

GOALS

After much thought I realised that since I was also doing the 101 Things challenge, I didn't need an extensive goal list for 2008. Indeed, I toyed with the idea of not having any goals at all but decided that I wanted a few to keep me focused on those desires. I did halve the list though - my massage therapist will be impressed, she's always telling me to cut down my ridiculously unrealistic daily lists.

Again, I listened to my intuition and kept the idea of making my list entirely positive utmost in my mind: whenever I felt a little internal sigh or reservation about a goal, I struck it off the list.

MY FINAL LIST OF GOALS FOR 2008

1) Finish 8 knitted items by the end of June
This is for the Lime & Violet Finish-a-thon where a bunch of us knitter types have made a public commitment to completing some of the unfinished projects that are lurking on our needles. I think there's going be a Flickr group for this project soon but as far as I know, it's not up yet.

2) Declutter 3 rooms
Decluttering was a big theme towards the end of last year and this still feels like a very positive thing to me.

3) Take part in 101 things in 1001 Days
Yep, this is place that I'm hiding the less positive things! However, I did discover through journalling that 'doing things' and 'ticking things off lists' is hugely positive for me. I actually get a lot of joy from the sense that things are happening and progress is being made. I'll post the completed list shortly, it is finished but I want to write a bit more about the process of writing it and I didn't want this to be a dauntingly long post.

4) Visit my friend, Red in Amsterdam
Pretty simple and the single most important one on the list - if I only achieve one of the goals, I want it to be this one.

5) Keep a daily log
I've been doing this since the start of the year. It's not as pressured as it sounds, I'm just making notes in my little paper diary of when I get certain things done, like journalling, walking, exercising, knitting and er, some of the other desires on the mind map. Sheesh, get your minds out of the gutter, people - I meant the Scrabble, of course!

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So, the quest for a final list of goals is continuing apace. I've given myself until the end of the week to finalise it because for some bizarre reason, next week feels like the proper start of January to me. Don't even ask, I have no idea why, I just know that I'm still mentally in an 'in-between' sort of space.

One thing I've definitely decided to do is 101 Things in 1001 Days. This online project involves making a commitment to complete 101 preset tasks in 1001 days, which is about 2.75 years. If you want to take part, there's a list of criteria and suggestions here.

When I read about this on Eliza's Back Yard blog, it totally freaked me out. I wasn't sure why because I undoubtedly already have more than 101 things on my various to-do lists. After some thought, I realised that it was the time-scale that bothered me.

Now, I have no problem with the concept of doing something for a year, as The Diary Project amply shows, but the idea of publicly admitting that it might take me the best part of three years to complete things seriously bothered me. I'm not exactly your Go-To Girl when it comes to delayed gratification: when I have an idea, I want to do it right now. Actually, I generally want to do it yesterday but even I accept that this breaks the laws of physics because I don't have one of these...

Tardis

Yet conversely, I'm also The Queen of Procrastination and many of the things on my to-do lists have been lurking there for so long that they've become seriously embarrassing to me. This happens partly because I take on too much or commit to things out of a sense of obligation rather than a real desire to do them but also because my energy levels simply can't keep up with the relentless slew of ideas that pepper my poor defenceless brain. My family have come to live in fear of the words, "hey, you know what would be a really great idea..."

But the fact that I was a bit afraid of the 101 Things meme made me think that it was probably an excellent idea to try it. Then it occurred to me that it could also act as a handy dandy place to hide all my 'shoulds', so that they weren't on my official goal list. Hmm, perhaps I haven't completely integrated that whole 'only having positive goals' thing yet!

Anyway, for both these reasons, I decided to go for it and enthusiastically started yet another database. However, after several days, I still only have about 75 things and I've utterly run out of inspiration. I could probably plump up the list with more things from my to-do lists but a lot of those are quick, small, one-off or rather boring tasks and I'm not sure they deserve to be on this big list. Plus, I'm still trying to stay mostly positive and only commit to things that I feel are worth doing or that are bothering me enough that I need them out of my life.

So I'm wondering if it's acceptable to start with just 75 things and add the other 26 at some point in the next 2.75 years. Sigh, I suspect this means that I'm still having trouble with the time-scale thing - after all, how can I possibly know what I'll want next year, let alone in nearly three? As you can see, I've never been one for Soviet style Five Year Plans but perhaps learning to think more long term is part of the reason for doing this.