Big Picture Goals For 2017

Jan 16, 2017 / Photography / goal setting

After last week’s 2016 review assessment, I knew that I had to make a number of changes. I needed my goals to be SMARTer, simpler, and tighter. I wanted to focus on only my Top 3 goals.

I also realized I had the tendency of being äóìin the forestäóù and äóìin the weeds.äóù I needed to go more overview, and see the forest.

So instead of saying do äóì4 photoshoots/monthäóù as the goal (which would place me in the forest), the real and underlying goal was to äóìFinish Part III of A Million Suns by December 31.äóù

How This Year’s Goals Are Expressed

1. Finish Part III of A Million Suns by December 31

Supporting Actions/Milestones:

• I will do One Studio Day per week, for a total of 4 studio days per month.
• Quarterly evaluation on Mar, June, Sep
• Mid Year Evaluation by June 30
• I will mount 20 final selected images on artboard for my portfolio box by December 10

2. Double my Newsletter Subscribers by December 31, 2017

Supporting Actions/Milestones:

• Post one blog post per week
• Send out a Newsletter to my VIPs once a month
• Schedule social media posts every Sunday for the following week
• Create 2 freebies this year to entice newsletter signup (TBD, maybe an work catalog and an ebook)

3. Exhibit in 3 Group Shows

Supporting Actions/Milestones

• Submit to 1 juried competition per month
• Attend Baltimore Art Gallery Crawl monthly to create local connections

There’s my Top 3 Goals with supporting actions/milestones for each. I know it’s a lot. All the goals are SMART. All are very Specific, Measurable, and Time-limited.

But are they Achievable and Realistic? Incidentally, this quote comes to mind, from the Queen of Katwe movie. Have you seen it? It’s one of the most inspiring movies I saw in 2016.

[koken_photo label=”Queen-of-Katwe-trailer-screenshot.png” id=”113” media_type=”image” caption=”none” link=”none”]

Does a goal have to be absolutely Achievable and Realistic? Probably not.

I attended a Michael Hyatt web seminar on goal setting this past week, and one thing he said struck me as very interesting. He said something like, “nothing great ever happens in the comfort zone.” That actually makes sense. If your goal doesn’t take you out of your comfort zone, well it’s not really a goal. It’s business as usual. Goals must take you to your “discomfort zone.”

So do goals have to be 100% achievable and realistic? My reading is no. There has to be a large possibility of failure.

Public Accountability in Setting Goals

Why am I posting my goals online?

All the stuff that I’ve read is that public accountability is good for making sure you stick with your goals. And I really want to stick to mine.

Writing down your goals helps. People who wrote down their goals are 42% more likely to achieve them compared to people who don’t. Here’s the research to back that up. That’s good enough for me.

So there you have it. The Top 3 Goals and Supporting Actions of 2017. This year I will finish A Million Suns. How’s that for public accountability.

What about you? What are your Top 3 goals of 2017?

January is New Year’s Resolution month at A Million Suns blog. During January, I’ll be writing about interesting things I found on the web surrounding new year’s resolutions. Stay tuned. Better yet, why not subscribe to my newsletter where you’ll get a monthly summary of the blog posts as well as notes about new artwork, titling events, sneak peak at new shows, inspirational quotes, VIP sale events, and more! Sign up on the form below. Your contact details will never be shared and you can unsubscribed at any time.